Podcasts about Prologue

wild twitch woes prologue monster hunter unbeatable ninja gaiden monster hunter wilds

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2025 58:25

Welcome to The Testing Room where three of the gaming industry's best consultants (to never consult on a game) get together to talk about the games this week. This week Alex loses over 400 hours of Monster Hunter Wilds due to his save date being corrupted and unrecoverable, Christian plays Ninja Gaiden 4, Preston plays Unbeatable and more! Don't forget to send comments and questions to testingroompod@gmail.com or comment down below. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitch @ twitch.tv/testingroomlive and watch on YouTube @ youtube.com/@thetestingroom

The Movie Podcast Christmas Special 2025 (Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey Prologue, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Avengers: Doomsday, and more

The Movie Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2025 58:16

THAT'S A WRAP ON 2025! On this episode of The Movie Podcast, Daniel, Shahbaz, and Anthony recap 2025 following their annual Christmas dinner and also review Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. The Movie Podcast would like to wish you the hap-hap-happiest Christmas and holiday season! Thank you for another unbelievable year. 2025 has taken us to new heights, new continents, and new opportunities we never imagined, but most importantly it's connected us with all of you in ways that mean everything to us. We hope the coming weeks are spent with the ones you love and filled with LOTS of movies. If you need some company, we're there for you. Check out the link in our bio to catch up on new episodes and join our Discord! Watch and listen to The Movie Podcast now on all podcast platforms, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TheMoviePodcast.ca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hello@themoviepodcast.ca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW US⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Daniel on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Shahbaz on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Anthony on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Movie Podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Rotten Tomatoes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Prologue Of John

Rock Church of Christ Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2025 38:30

Series: N/AService: Sun PMType: SermonSpeaker: David Finney

prologue

Revelation Prologue

Providence Reformed Baptist Church

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 21, 2025 44:53

revelation prologue

A Peace of Heaven | 12.21.25

Century Baptist Church Sermons

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 21, 2025 38:45

A Peace of Heaven Luke 2: 8-15 1. Prologue (1-7) 2. An earthly setting (8-9) 3. A heavenly message (10-12) 4. An eruption of worship (13-15) 5. Epilogue (16-20) GOSPEL CONNECTION “For He (Jesus) rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…19 For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” Colossians 1:13-14, 19-20 Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” John 14:27 APPLICATION How will you glorify and praise God with other Christians this week? MEMORY VERSE “And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” Luke 2:13-14

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Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1

Steamy Stories Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2025

Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1 Love, bastards, and what we leave behind. Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connected. The Plumber, The Painter, and the Wind off the Lake Prologue I have never been much for following instructions or doing what I'm told. In eighth grade, we were assigned to make a volcano in science class. I figured that if the eruption looked good with a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, then it would look even better with the whole container! And what better place for a natural disaster than the teacher's desk at the front of the class. I was right; the whole container of baking soda produced an impressive explosion. What I didn't count on, however, was it producing a week-long suspension from school and a beating from my mother. In high school, we had to take an art class to graduate. Our teacher loved still life drawing and would ramble endlessly about how it revealed the beauty that is in the everyday objects that surround us. I guess he wanted us to reveal the beauty in the bowl of fruit that he had put in the middle of the classroom, but the most beautiful things that I could see were Brittany Johnson's D-cups which filled out her sweater gloriously. At the end of the class, there were 29 drawings of a bowl of fruit and one drawing of a beautiful girl's smile (amongst other details). Although I was suspended for two days, I got a date with Brittany who loved my drawing, so I feel like I came out ahead on that one. In my last year of school, the final mathematics exam asked the following question: Determine the points of intersection between the following parabolas and lines. Illustrate fully. While the other students slaved away to solve the listed problems in the allotted time, I fully illustrated a drawing of our math teacher, Mr. Aaronson, dancing a slow waltz in a field of sunflowers with Mrs. Stevens, the geography teacher. It was the worst-kept secret in the school that our two shyest teachers had massive crushes on each other, and after four years of watching them pine away, I thought they could use a little push. I failed the test, but Mr. Aaronson showed my drawing to Mrs. Stevens during a particularly dull staff meeting, and when it made her blush and smile, he finally got up the courage to ask her out. They are now married and have a little girl who is as cute as a button. At the end of the year, Mr. Aaronson asked me if I planned to pursue math in the future, and when I assured him that I did not, he gave me a passing grade. So, what was my problem, you might ask? Was I just one of those kids who didn't give a shit and was destined for mediocrity or failure in life? Like many things, the answer is more complicated than it might first appear, but I am getting ahead of myself. Our story starts on an unusually cold and blustery afternoon in late October, on the north-eastern shore of Lake Michigan about a half hour's drive north of Petoskey, just outside a village called Good Hart. Chapter 1. It had been a busy day. The perfect storm of an early season snap freeze, strong winds, and lake-effect snow meant that there was a couple of inches of snow on the still soggy ground, along with a number of leaky or burst pipes, malfunctioning valves, and boiler issues as people cranked their heating systems up to full for the first time that year. As a plumber, though, I didn't mind. It just meant more work for me, which was always a good thing. At only 25 years of age, and despite being a master plumber, I was generally the last choice for folks to call, even in an emergency. Anyone with money chose one of the larger and more established plumbing contractors, leaving me with the jobs that they didn't feel were worth their time or effort. That's how I found myself pulling into the laneway of an older house, just off Lamkin Road down by the lake, late that Friday afternoon. It was my last job of the day, but I would be working over the weekend to catch up on my backlog, so I wanted to get it done. The house looked like it hadn't been updated since it was built, likely in the late fifties or early sixties, other than a couple of coats of paint and a new roof when the original finally gave up the ghost. The front gardens were neatly tended, however, and the property itself was stunning, with panoramic views in three directions out over the lake. The sun was just beginning to dip toward the western horizon as I drove up, so the trees cast long shadows across the laneway. The house was owned by Mrs. Wilma C. Anderson, who had called me earlier in the day to say that some of her radiators weren't working and that her boiler was making one hell of a racket when she turned it on. I told her to shut the system down and that I would look at it by the end of the day. She sounded quite elderly, and I didn't like the idea of her going without heat for a night during a cold snap. I rang the doorbell and waited until a tiny wisp of a woman answered. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall and looked older than the hills, but her face was full of life, and her eyes had a twinkle that spoke of humor and mischief. "Hi, Mrs. Anderson, I'm Davis Crawford. You called earlier about some issues with your boiler and heating system. How can I help?" Mrs. Anderson gave me an appraising look. "I wasn't expecting you to be such a handsome young man. If I were fifty years younger, I would tell you exactly how you could help me, and then I'd teach you a trick or two I learned over the years. But I am too old for that kind of foolishness these days, so I will just have to make use of your plumbing expertise instead. And please, call me Wilma." I couldn't help but laugh and blush at Wilma's surprisingly raunchy sense of humor. I liked her immediately. "Let's try that again. What seems to be the problem?" "Well, the biggest problem is that I am 91 years old and dying of cancer. The doctors give me less than a year to live. But aside from that, I really can't complain. I have had a good run of it." I cocked my head to one side and gave her a bemused look. "Oh, you were wondering what the problem is with my heating system. Well, I turned it on this morning when I got up, and the boiler sounded like there was someone trapped inside of it trying to hammer their way out. There was a worrisome hissing from some of the radiators, as well, and they weren't heating up worth a damn. "My husband, Phillip, used to take care of those things for us, but he has been gone for almost five years now, so I hate to think what you will find when you look around." "I'm sure I can help you, Mrs. Anderson,;" "Wilma, please." "Sorry, Wilma. Why don't you show me to the basement, and I will try to figure out what's wrong. Then I can get started on fixing it." On the way to the basement stairs, Wilma led me through her crowded but orderly living room. I couldn't help but notice the paintings on just about every surface of its walls. "You have a real eye for art, Wilma. Those paintings are beautiful." Wilma smiled wistfully at me and got a faraway look in her eyes as she replied. "Phillip and I were artists. I guess I still am, but I haven't felt much like painting since he passed on. Phillip painted portraits. He made a surprisingly good living at it; you would be amazed at what rich people will pay to see their lives immortalized in oil on canvas. I never had the knack. Phillip could make even the most corpulent and corrupt industrialist appear regal and wise. I could only ever capture what I actually saw in them, and I quickly discovered that they did not enjoy, or pay for, that kind of introspection. "So, I painted landscapes, and there is always a market for those. But I kept some of my favorite pieces, over the years, as you can see." As Wilma spoke, I took a closer look at the paintings. One, in particular, was striking; a portrait of a beautiful young woman, in her late teens or early twenties, with a stethoscope around her neck and her blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was wearing a loose hoodie and was curled up in an Adirondack chair, reading a book. It was not what you would expect from a formal portrait, but it seemed to capture her essence in a way that no photograph could match. I must have stopped moving as I was drawn into the image, so Wilma gave me a minute before she continued. "That's the last painting that Phillip worked on before he passed. He didn't get the chance to finish it, but I still think it's his finest work." I couldn't help but agree. "Who's the model? She's beautiful." "That's my granddaughter, Erin. You can't tell from the portrait, but she's a real firecracker. As a grandparent, you're not supposed to play favorites, but she was very special to Phillip, and it hit her hard when he passed. There is more love in that one painting than in all the other portraits that he painted over his lifetime. Except for his first, of course, of me." "Where are Phillips' other works? Surely, they weren't all commissions that are now locked away in some dusty millionaire's palace." Wilma's expression turned bleak as she contemplated her response. "All of his other paintings were sold after he died. The kids said they would fetch a better price while there was an upswing of interest in his work after his death, so they insisted that they all go to auction as quickly as possible. They were probably right, I guess, although I loved his art more than I needed the money. But how do you argue with your kids when they have just lost their father?" "Do any of your children live nearby?" "They all moved far away. Phillip and I chose a wonderful spot to live and make our art, but a challenging place to raise a family. It's not so bad now, what with the internet, highways, and the like, but when we first moved here sixty-some years ago, it was very isolated. We were young and selfish, and our selfishness cost us dearly. "We thought that our children would grow to love this area over time, like we did. But they never did, and they left as soon as they could get away. My daughter, Samantha, is a retired lawyer and she and her third husband split their time between their loft in Manhattan and their beach house in the Bahamas. My son, Robert, is an oil executive down in Texas. Neither of them has been here in more than a decade, except for Phillip's funeral. "My baby, Max, passed away more than twenty years ago now of cancer. Erin is his granddaughter. She is a pediatrician, and she splits her time between the hospital in Petoskey and the children's hospital down in Grand Rapids. She comes to see me when she can, but she is very busy. My other relatives all live busy lives far away from here. We chose to live here, though, so I can't be too upset that the rest of the family chose to live far away. "But enough about me. What about you, Mr. Crawford? Do you have any children?" "It's just me and my siblings, I'm afraid, and it's been that way for quite some time. My oldest sister, Alison, is 20, and she goes to college at North Central Michigan, in Petoskey. She is planning to become a nurse practitioner. The rest of the gang still lives at home with me. Sharon is 17 now, so she kind of runs the show while I am working; Mary is 15 but going on 30, if you know what I mean; and Lane is the baby of the family at 12." "Where are your parents?" "I don't honestly know. We each have a different father, or at least we think we do. Sharon, Lane, and I have no idea who our fathers are, so there's a chance that we might be full siblings, but I doubt it. My mother never kept the same man around for long. Alison's father has been in and out of jail since before she was born and is currently serving a stint in federal prison. But Mary has it the worst of all of us. "My mother met Mary's dad on a weekend bender in Vegas, and he is a pretty big deal. Rich, famous, the kind of guy you see on TV and the cover of magazines. A real family man, except when it comes to Mary, whom he refuses to even acknowledge. He bought my mom's silence with a lump sum payment and a non-disclosure agreement. That money was supposed to be put in a trust for Mary, but my mom snorted and injected it all in less than a year. Mary has written to her father dozens of times and reached out to him on social media countless more, but he wants nothing to do with his bastard daughter. "As for my mom, she went away for the weekend almost seven years ago now and left me in charge. And I am still in charge, I guess. So, no time for dating or romance for me, and I think that I will be just about done with raising kids by the time that Lane goes off to college." Wilma gave me a look filled with more empathy than I had felt in a long time, maybe ever. "Anyway, I should take a look at your boiler and see what I can do about getting you some heat." I would have called the boiler in Wilma's basement old, but that wouldn't have done it justice. Frankly, it wouldn't have seemed out of place in a museum of heating and plumbing, and it was hanging on to life by the barest of threads. With only a year to live, however, I wasn't going to recommend to Wilma that she replace the whole system with something more modern and efficient. "I think I can fix your boiler so that it will hold on for another year or two, and I can patch a couple of leaks in the lines to the main radiators as well. One line to a radiator at the back of the house is completely shot, so I will shut that one off and be back to replace it later this week." "What's all that going to cost?" "It's free of charge, Ma'am. You've got enough to look after with your health and all, without having to worry about your heating system. I never had a grandma to spoil, at least not one that I know of, so it would be my pleasure to do this for you." "Please, it's Wilma. And it's a grandmother's prerogative to spoil her grandchildren, and not the other way around. But your kindness is mighty appreciated, Davis." It took me a couple of hours to shore up the boiler and repair the lines that were still in reasonable condition before I was finished for the day. As I got ready to leave, I found Wilma sitting alone in the living room reading an old paperback. "I'll call you later this week, once the replacement line for your radiator comes in." Wilma got a mischievous smile on her face. "Why, Davis, are you getting fresh with me?" "If I were older and more experienced, I would in an instant. But I hardly think I can compete with the memory of your Phillip." "Too true, too true. Alright young man, well thank you for taking the time to look after a foolish old woman on a cold October night." "I hardly think you're foolish, Wilma, but it's been my pleasure." I didn't get home from Wilma's until well after nine that night, and by the time I pulled into our gravel driveway, I was beat. The dilapidated old yard light mounted on the roof of the garage shone weakly down on the sloppy mix of gravel and mud that was our yard, and I could hear the excited barks of Munchkin, our rescue puppy. He was a mix of German Shepherd and Cane Corso, with some variety of northern dog thrown in, and he was mighty pleased to see me. I'm glad that someone was. I came into our small three-bedroom rental to find Sharon and Lane sitting at the dining room table working on his math homework. I wish that they reacted like Munchkin when they saw me, but Lane just grunted a hello, while Sharon looked up at me with a mixture of sadness and worry. "Mary is out with the McDougal brothers again. They showed up here a half hour ago, I told her not to go with them, but she wouldn't listen." "The McDougal brothers are assholes," was Lane's addition to the conversation, without even looking up from the table. He wasn't wrong. The oldest McDougall brother, Calum, was a couple of years ahead of me at school and was a bully and a braggart. Two of his three brothers had followed in his esteemed footsteps, while the jury was still out on the youngest, James. "I'm going to go get her. Next time that those boys turn up in our yard, let Munchkin lose on them." "Alright, dinner will be in the oven when you get back. Given 'em hell, Bro." The McDougal brothers lived just outside Pellston in the closest thing to a mansion that you could find in our neck of the woods. Their family owned the largest construction and maintenance company in the area and had most of the Public Works contracts sown up, along with a not inconsiderable portion of the private construction in our region as well. Their parents spent most of their time in Sarasota, Florida, though, and the brothers had free rein while they were gone. As I drove up their long, paved driveway, automatic floodlights came on, illuminating the ostentatious columns that flanked the entrance to their house. I parked in front of the nearest bay of their four-car attached garage while noting that there was another three-car garage further off to the right. I idly wondered who got to park in which garage. Rich people problems, I guess. I walked to the front door and let myself in. From the foyer, I could hear the loud thump of music coming from the back of the house, so I headed that way. As I passed through the kitchen, I nearly bumped into James, who was holding a couple of empty serving bowls. He stopped dead when he saw me, looking nervous, clearly not expecting anyone else to be in their house. Certainly not me, anyway. "Hey James, I am here to get my sister. Where is she?" He hesitated a moment before pointing toward the back of the house. "She's in the game room playing pool with the guys. We didn't force her to come here or anything, if that's what you're worried about." "Maybe that's true, James. But you know she is still a minor, and I am her guardian, so I'm going to fetch her and bring her home." James didn't like the sound of that, but I turned my back on him and followed the music to a large, sunken room at the back of the house, which had an expensive-looking pool table in the middle. The remaining McDougal brothers were either playing pool or smoking up on one of the couches that were scattered around the outside of the room. Calum was presiding over the festivities, while the Pistons game was playing on a wall-mounted TV that was bigger than some movie screens. Despite his family's blue-collar roots, Calum looked like an overgrown frat boy, with his preppy clothes and fifty-dollar haircut. Mary was sitting in the middle of one of the couches, with a McDougal brother on one side and one of their hangers-on on the other. She looked somewhere between uncomfortable and scared, but she gave me a defiant scowl. The music stopped, and everyone looked to Calum and then back at me. There was a nervous tension in the air. "Hi Calum, I'm here for my sister." Calum was now in a bit of a spot; he couldn't just let me come into his home and give him orders without losing face with his brothers and their cronies. But he also knew, or at least suspected, that my sister was underage. And then there was always the Pipe Wrench Incident. That always made people nervous to be around me. "That's not my problem. She told my brother that she wanted to party, so she's here to party. No one forced her to come, and she seems to be having a good time." I wondered if all of Calum's dates looked as scared and uncomfortable as Mary did at that moment when they were having a 'good time'. "Well, since she is still a minor and I'm her guardian, it's a bit of a problem. Or it could be. But I don't want to put a damper on your evening, so I'll just bring Mary home with me and we'll call it a night." Calum looked toward James who had just come back into the room with bowls now filled with potato chips. "Is that true, Limp dick? Did you bring an underage girl home to party with us?" James began to sputter before Calum shook his head in disgust. He pointed over at Mary. "Get the fuck out of here, and don't come back until you're sixteen," he said before turning back to me. "And you. Just get the fuck out of our house." It was a silent drive home. Mary refused to even look at me, staring out the window instead. When we pulled into our yard, Munchkin came running up to greet us, and Mary finally spoke. "You didn't need to embarrass me like that. I'm old enough to make my own choices, you know." "The law says you're still a minor. And you'll always be my sister. Those guys are no good, Mary. You know that." "James is different. He isn't like the rest of them." "Maybe that's true, or maybe not. But you don't hang out in a nest of rattlesnakes, just because there is a garter snake in there with them that you think is cute." After a pause and some continued barking from Munchkin, Mary finally looked over at me. "You're not my dad, you know. You can't tell me what to do." And there it was. It always came down to the same thing with Mary; her father's rejection of her. Over the years, it had undermined her self-esteem and destroyed her self-worth to the point where I wondered if they would ever recover. Unfortunately, I was just smart enough to see the problem, but I had no idea how to fix it. A brother's love can only go so far, I guess. "I know, Mary. I know. But I love you, and I am so proud of you, and I just wish that was enough." We sat in silence for another minute before she replied. "I wish it was too." Chapter 2. It took a couple of days for Mrs. Anderson's new radiator line to arrive, and I gave her a call when I went to pick it up. "Hi, Mrs. And; Wilma. I was just picking up the replacement line for your radiator, and I was wondering if you needed anything else from town, while I'm here. I was going to come by and install the line later this afternoon if that works for you." "That's very kind of you, Davis. Would you mind picking up a few groceries for me? I can send the store a list, so they will be ready for you when you get there." A couple of my calls that day took longer than expected, so it was late in the afternoon again by the time I made it to Wilma's place. The early season snow had mostly melted away, and her yard was now a combination of gravel and thick soupy mud that could swallow a tire as easily as it could swallow a boot. "Thank you for picking the groceries up for me, you're too kind." "It was no trouble at all, especially since I was coming out this way anyway. If you don't mind me asking, how do you usually get them?" "I used to have a young man up the way who would help me with groceries and yard work, and other small things, but now I am pretty much on my own." "What happened to him? Did he move away?" "No, he still lives in the same place that he always has, but I am pretty sure that my family paid him more not to help me than I was paying for his assistance." "What? That seems like a crappy thing for them to do to you." Wilma gave a resigned sigh and then offered me a coffee while she told me her story. "I think I told you the last time you were here, that most of my family has moved on from this place, except my granddaughter Erin. The rest of them already have an agreement in place with a developer, the McDougals, to turn this property into a high-end resort for the Fudgies, so they have someplace to spend their money after visiting Mackinac Island." "Fudgies," was what the locals called the tourists from down south who descended on the upper peninsula in the summer. "If you don't mind me asking, just how much land do you own?" "Well, Phillip and I didn't have much to spend our money on over the years, so we bought up many of the nearby properties when they went up for sale. We ended up with at least a quarter mile of land that fronts onto the lake, without even really trying." I let out a low whistle. "That must be worth a small fortune. I can understand your family's interest." "At first, they didn't care if I stayed in the house after Phillip died. They figured that I would follow soon enough. After a few years, however, they started to get impatient, and it's fair to say that they are now actively encouraging me to leave, by foot, by car, or in a box. They have generously offered to put me out to pasture in a warehouse for the old and infirm, though, to await my impending doom. "With my cancer, their wish is finally going to come true. By this time next year, I will be sipping coffee with Phillip in whatever afterlife we atheists get to enjoy. Actually, who am I kidding? If there is an afterlife for Phillip and me, the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is get on my knees, undo his belt buckle, and then show him just how much I've missed him these past five years. Wilma looked a bit startled as if she had just remembered that I was still there. "I'm sorry, Davis. You probably didn't need to hear that last part. I just miss him so much. I still see him in the trees and along the shore, and I sometimes hear his voice in the wind off the lake." "It's all good, Wilma. I just hope that my brother and sisters get to experience the kind of love that you and Phillip had someday." "What about you, Davis? Don't you deserve to experience that kind of love as well?" "Maybe I deserve it, Wilma, but I don't think I am going to find it. It's been tough; real tough, looking after my family all these years. I have done things that I am not proud of, but that needed to be done. I don't regret them; I would do anything to protect the people I love. But I doubt that anyone would be able to love me, once they found out what I've done." "I think you are selling yourself short, Davis. We are all artists, and we are all worthy of love." With that, Wilma offered to top up my coffee before I started replacing the broken line. As the evening's shadows deepened, I saw her watching me with compassion and concern in her eyes. Once I was finished, I felt her hand on my shoulder, and she gave it an empathetic squeeze. "A penny for your thoughts?" I stopped what I was doing and turned to look at her. "It's my sister, Mary. I am losing her. She is so hurt and angry that she is beginning to make bad choices, and I don't know how to help her. I've tried to be her brother, parent, and friend, but I'm failing at all three." Wilma offered no judgment, good or bad. She just listened, and when I finished, she spoke. "Bring her over this Sunday around noon. Tell her to wear some old clothes that she doesn't mind getting dirty. You can come too if you would like and bring your little brother to do some fishing, but Mary will be spending her time with me." It wasn't easy convincing Mary to come to Wilma's. If you have spent time dealing with teenage girls, you know that they can be as stubborn as late-season ice on the lake. In the end, I resorted to threats and bribery to get her onboard, but she assured me that she would hate every minute she was there. Lane came with us as well, with the promise that we could spend the afternoon fishing off the end of Wilma's dock. By the time we arrived, Mary was sullenly glued to the passenger seat and wouldn't look up from her phone. Wilma waited a few minutes for Mary, but she stubbornly refused to leave the truck. Eventually, Wilma pulled on her rubber boots and walked over to the truck. She looked up at Mary and started speaking. "There are three things that I know are true. "The first, I've already shared with your brother. We are all artists because we are all worthy of love. But many of us lose our way. We are hurt and abandoned, and we are buried in shame. I was like that for many years. But my husband, Phillip, found me and taught me what it is to be loved. Not just the physical act; although he taught me about that as well; but the certainty that I was seen, known, and cherished. He showed me that I am an artist. You are an artist too. "Second, I am old, I have cancer, and I will die. Not today, and hopefully not tomorrow, but soon. And that is okay; we all die. I have lived a good life. And when I do, I hope that Phillip will be waiting for me with a glass of chilled white wine and his beautiful smile. My art may linger for a while once I am gone but, eventually, it too will be lost. "Third, the world is full of bastards. Your brother tells me that you and he are both bastards. I will tell you a secret that I have shared with very few people; I am a bastard too. "My mother was beautiful but poor. Her parents lost everything during the Great Depression, and she worked as a housemaid for a rich and powerful man to support her family. When she fell pregnant, he put her out on the street and refused to recognize her child, his daughter; me. Because of his rejection, I spent too many years steeped in shame and self-loathing. But eventually, I learned a hard truth; my father was a bastard by choice, while I was a bastard by birth. And those of us who are bastards by birth must never let the bastards by choice win. "Come inside when you're ready. I'm too old and it's too cold for me to stand here waiting for you." With that, Wilma turned and slowly made her way back to the house. Surprisingly, after a minute, Mary followed. When they reached the door, Wilma turned to look back at me. "It's time for you boys to go fishing. There is a warm breeze off the lake that will bring you good luck." Lane and I made our way down the hill to the dock in silence, our fishing rods, ice chest, and tackle box in hand. Unlike a seasonal dock that would be taken out of the lake each fall, Wilma's dock could be used year-round and was built with heavy timbers and steel bracing, so it could withstand the crushing force of the winter's ice. When we reached the dock, we felt the warm wind that Wilma had promised, and we chose our lures and began to cast. After a half hour of fishing, Lane broke the silence. "Do you think it's my fault?" "Do I think what's your fault, Bud?" "That mom left us. That she never came back. Do you think it's my fault?" I sighed as I thought about my answer. "No. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault, really, maybe not even hers. It's funny though, she brought some amazing people into this world. I wish she could have seen how incredible you and your sisters have turned out. But she made her choice, and that's on her, not you." Lane thought about my answer before he continued. "But you would be better off without me. Sharon would have more time to study for the scholarship she will need to get away from here. I try to be nice to Mary, to make her feel better, but I just seem to make things worse for her as well. And I see how hard you work to keep our family together. I feel like you would all be better off without me. If I weren't here, maybe Mom would come back home." I took a deep breath and tried to push down the anger that threatened to overwhelm me; anger at my mother for abandoning us, anger at myself for never being enough, and anger at a world that would leave my brother feeling like it would be better off if he didn't exist. I felt the wind off the lake as it blew across my face, drying my unshed tears before they were formed. As I was wondering how to unbreak my brother's heart, a particularly strong gust of wind blew through and Lane's fishing rod bent into a deep arc, the tip dancing wildly as a fish fought against the line. "Dad! Help;" The drag clicked furiously as the fish pulled line, as Lane fought to keep his rod tip up. I quickly set my rod aside and braced him, my hands held loosely beside his as he fought to reel in his catch. We worked together for what seemed like an eternity before he finally fought his fish to the side of the dock. I grabbed the net and saw that he had hooked a steelhead trout that was easily two feet long and must have weighed at least eight pounds if not more. It was a wonder the drag held steady, and his line didn't break during the fight. As I scooped up his catch, the steelhead's silver sides shimmered like polished chrome in the fading light, and it was so big that it took up over half the ice chest I had brought along to store our catch. Lane was flushed with excitement at landing such an impressive fish, and I was so proud of him that my heart almost ached. "Nice work, Son." He just looked up at me for a moment before throwing his arms around me in a hug. In the time since our mother left, he had never called me by anything other than my name. I never tried to be his dad; I didn't think I was qualified, but I guess that all of us need someone in our lives who will love us without conditions or end. "Never think that you're a burden on me or the family. Maybe you need a bit more from us right now than you can give back, but that's alright. Because sixty years from now, when I am old and can't wipe my ass anymore, you are going to be paying me back in spades, alright?" With that, we went back to fishing in companionable silence. I pulled in a few smaller ones, but nothing to match Lane's steelhead. A few hours later, the wind had picked up and it was getting colder, so we packed up our equipment and made our way back toward the house. Halfway down the dock, however, a huge gust of wind swept through, and I heard a cry followed by a loud splash. Turning back, I saw that Lane's foot had slipped through a broken slat, and he had fallen off the dock. Without thinking, I dropped the ice box and rods and jumped into the water to help him. When I got him to shore, he couldn't put any weight on his ankle, and any efforts to do so were met with cries of pain. I quickly collected our discarded fishing gear and set it to one side, before helping him to slowly make his way back up the hill. The November chill quickly took hold of us as we walked, plastering our damp clothing to our skin, and we were shivering uncontrollably by the time we reached the house. I knocked but it took a minute for Wilma and Mary to come out from the studio at the back of the house. "I am sorry to cut things short, but Lane had an accident down at the dock and he sprained or maybe even broke his ankle. I am going to have to take him to the hospital in Petoskey to get it looked at before it swells up any further." Wilma looked at me with concern. "Maybe you should hold off at least for a little while. My granddaughter, Erin, the pediatrician, is coming for dinner tonight and should be here any minute. Why don't we let her take a look at it before you head into town? And let's get you out of those clothes; you must be freezing. I still have some of Phillip's things in the closet that might fit you." A few minutes later, I had changed into a pair of comfortable but slightly musty-smelling pants, with a warm sweater over a well-worn collared shirt. I was both taller and wider than Phillip had been, at least in the twilight of his years, so the pants were a bit short, while the sweater was tight across my shoulders. While I changed, Mary and Wilma had set Lane up on the couch with his ankle elevated on some pillows. I helped him change out of his wet clothing and into an old sweatshirt and shorts that fit over his swollen ankle. Once Lane was settled, Wilma and I talked quietly in the kitchen. "It's getting late, and you must be getting hungry, but I don't think I have enough to feed everyone." I thought for a moment. "We may be in luck. Lane caught the biggest steelhead I have ever seen earlier this afternoon, but I left it down by the dock after the accident. If you have a few potatoes and maybe a veg or two, I am sure I can whip something up that would feed us all." Wilma looked at me with a sly smile. "He cooks, he plumbs, and he cares for his family, all while cutting a dashing figure in my late husband's favorite sweater. You, Mr. Crawford, are a catch." "I am not sure about that, Wilma," I replied with a laugh, "But either way, this catch had better go and get our earlier catch, so I can get started on dinner." It took me almost half an hour to collect our fishing gear and bring it back up to the truck. By the time I was done, an older SUV was parked behind my truck, which meant that Erin had arrived. After I loaded the gear, I used the fishing knife and stained plastic cutting board that I kept in a bin under the back seat to clean and filet the steelhead before heading inside. From the doorway, I could see a head of sandy-blonde hair pulled back into a loose ponytail sticking up from the far side of the couch, and I heard a calm and melodic voice talking to Lane while Wilma and Mary looked on. I was so lost in that voice that I almost jumped when the latch on the door caught behind me. The head of sandy-blonde hair looked up at the sound, revealing a pair of amber, almost golden eyes. "You must be the father," said that same melodic voice, as those eyes bore their way into my soul. "It's Davis Crawford, and I'm the older brother." "Erin Anderson, nice to meet you. Can you get hold of your parents? We might need to take Lane to the hospital for some X-rays." "No," I replied more harshly than I intended. "No," I tried again, more gently but with an edge to my voice. "Our parents aren't around; I am as close as you're going to get. I am Lane's legal guardian if that helps." There was a slight pause as her amber eyes shifted from surprise to curiosity. "That helps a lot. Why don't you give me 15 minutes or so to take a look at this brave dude's ankle, then we can talk over some options, once I have a better sense of what's going on." "That okay with you, Bud?" I asked as I walked over to the couch. "Yeah, that should be fine," he replied, but his eyes were wide, and his cheeks were flushed. For a moment, I was worried that he might be running a fever, but then I got my first look at Erin, and I understood. Maybe she wasn't classically beautiful like a movie star or swimsuit model, but she was lean and fit, and from what I could see, had more than enough curves in all the right places. It was her face, however, that captured me. She had delicate features accentuated by her high cheekbones, and there was a softness to her expression that spoke of empathy and kindness. Her eyes, though intense, had a warmth that put me instantly at ease. I realized much too late that I had been staring at Erin for an uncomfortably long time while holding the bag of steelhead filets out like some kind of sacrificial offering. While I stood frozen, the look in Erin's beautiful eyes had shifted from curiosity to amusement; I would assume at the fish-carrying simpleton standing in front of her. "Thanks, Dr. Anderson; err, Erin. I appreciate your taking a look at him and; I am going to go cook us up some fish before I make an even bigger ass of myself." Wilma joined me in the kitchen, while Erin continued to assess Lane's injured ankle. We spent the next few minutes dicing the potatoes and veggies and tossing them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper before sprinkling the filets of steelhead with a mixture of herbs. I topped the fish with some slices of a less-than-fresh, but still edible, lemon I found in the fridge, before putting the whole thing in the oven. To be continued in part 2. Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts, for Literotica.

Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1

Steamy Stories

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2025

Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1 Love, bastards, and what we leave behind. Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connected. The Plumber, The Painter, and the Wind off the Lake Prologue I have never been much for following instructions or doing what I'm told. In eighth grade, we were assigned to make a volcano in science class. I figured that if the eruption looked good with a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, then it would look even better with the whole container! And what better place for a natural disaster than the teacher's desk at the front of the class. I was right; the whole container of baking soda produced an impressive explosion. What I didn't count on, however, was it producing a week-long suspension from school and a beating from my mother. In high school, we had to take an art class to graduate. Our teacher loved still life drawing and would ramble endlessly about how it revealed the beauty that is in the everyday objects that surround us. I guess he wanted us to reveal the beauty in the bowl of fruit that he had put in the middle of the classroom, but the most beautiful things that I could see were Brittany Johnson's D-cups which filled out her sweater gloriously. At the end of the class, there were 29 drawings of a bowl of fruit and one drawing of a beautiful girl's smile (amongst other details). Although I was suspended for two days, I got a date with Brittany who loved my drawing, so I feel like I came out ahead on that one. In my last year of school, the final mathematics exam asked the following question: Determine the points of intersection between the following parabolas and lines. Illustrate fully. While the other students slaved away to solve the listed problems in the allotted time, I fully illustrated a drawing of our math teacher, Mr. Aaronson, dancing a slow waltz in a field of sunflowers with Mrs. Stevens, the geography teacher. It was the worst-kept secret in the school that our two shyest teachers had massive crushes on each other, and after four years of watching them pine away, I thought they could use a little push. I failed the test, but Mr. Aaronson showed my drawing to Mrs. Stevens during a particularly dull staff meeting, and when it made her blush and smile, he finally got up the courage to ask her out. They are now married and have a little girl who is as cute as a button. At the end of the year, Mr. Aaronson asked me if I planned to pursue math in the future, and when I assured him that I did not, he gave me a passing grade. So, what was my problem, you might ask? Was I just one of those kids who didn't give a shit and was destined for mediocrity or failure in life? Like many things, the answer is more complicated than it might first appear, but I am getting ahead of myself. Our story starts on an unusually cold and blustery afternoon in late October, on the north-eastern shore of Lake Michigan about a half hour's drive north of Petoskey, just outside a village called Good Hart. Chapter 1. It had been a busy day. The perfect storm of an early season snap freeze, strong winds, and lake-effect snow meant that there was a couple of inches of snow on the still soggy ground, along with a number of leaky or burst pipes, malfunctioning valves, and boiler issues as people cranked their heating systems up to full for the first time that year. As a plumber, though, I didn't mind. It just meant more work for me, which was always a good thing. At only 25 years of age, and despite being a master plumber, I was generally the last choice for folks to call, even in an emergency. Anyone with money chose one of the larger and more established plumbing contractors, leaving me with the jobs that they didn't feel were worth their time or effort. That's how I found myself pulling into the laneway of an older house, just off Lamkin Road down by the lake, late that Friday afternoon. It was my last job of the day, but I would be working over the weekend to catch up on my backlog, so I wanted to get it done. The house looked like it hadn't been updated since it was built, likely in the late fifties or early sixties, other than a couple of coats of paint and a new roof when the original finally gave up the ghost. The front gardens were neatly tended, however, and the property itself was stunning, with panoramic views in three directions out over the lake. The sun was just beginning to dip toward the western horizon as I drove up, so the trees cast long shadows across the laneway. The house was owned by Mrs. Wilma C. Anderson, who had called me earlier in the day to say that some of her radiators weren't working and that her boiler was making one hell of a racket when she turned it on. I told her to shut the system down and that I would look at it by the end of the day. She sounded quite elderly, and I didn't like the idea of her going without heat for a night during a cold snap. I rang the doorbell and waited until a tiny wisp of a woman answered. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall and looked older than the hills, but her face was full of life, and her eyes had a twinkle that spoke of humor and mischief. "Hi, Mrs. Anderson, I'm Davis Crawford. You called earlier about some issues with your boiler and heating system. How can I help?" Mrs. Anderson gave me an appraising look. "I wasn't expecting you to be such a handsome young man. If I were fifty years younger, I would tell you exactly how you could help me, and then I'd teach you a trick or two I learned over the years. But I am too old for that kind of foolishness these days, so I will just have to make use of your plumbing expertise instead. And please, call me Wilma." I couldn't help but laugh and blush at Wilma's surprisingly raunchy sense of humor. I liked her immediately. "Let's try that again. What seems to be the problem?" "Well, the biggest problem is that I am 91 years old and dying of cancer. The doctors give me less than a year to live. But aside from that, I really can't complain. I have had a good run of it." I cocked my head to one side and gave her a bemused look. "Oh, you were wondering what the problem is with my heating system. Well, I turned it on this morning when I got up, and the boiler sounded like there was someone trapped inside of it trying to hammer their way out. There was a worrisome hissing from some of the radiators, as well, and they weren't heating up worth a damn. "My husband, Phillip, used to take care of those things for us, but he has been gone for almost five years now, so I hate to think what you will find when you look around." "I'm sure I can help you, Mrs. Anderson,;" "Wilma, please." "Sorry, Wilma. Why don't you show me to the basement, and I will try to figure out what's wrong. Then I can get started on fixing it." On the way to the basement stairs, Wilma led me through her crowded but orderly living room. I couldn't help but notice the paintings on just about every surface of its walls. "You have a real eye for art, Wilma. Those paintings are beautiful." Wilma smiled wistfully at me and got a faraway look in her eyes as she replied. "Phillip and I were artists. I guess I still am, but I haven't felt much like painting since he passed on. Phillip painted portraits. He made a surprisingly good living at it; you would be amazed at what rich people will pay to see their lives immortalized in oil on canvas. I never had the knack. Phillip could make even the most corpulent and corrupt industrialist appear regal and wise. I could only ever capture what I actually saw in them, and I quickly discovered that they did not enjoy, or pay for, that kind of introspection. "So, I painted landscapes, and there is always a market for those. But I kept some of my favorite pieces, over the years, as you can see." As Wilma spoke, I took a closer look at the paintings. One, in particular, was striking; a portrait of a beautiful young woman, in her late teens or early twenties, with a stethoscope around her neck and her blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was wearing a loose hoodie and was curled up in an Adirondack chair, reading a book. It was not what you would expect from a formal portrait, but it seemed to capture her essence in a way that no photograph could match. I must have stopped moving as I was drawn into the image, so Wilma gave me a minute before she continued. "That's the last painting that Phillip worked on before he passed. He didn't get the chance to finish it, but I still think it's his finest work." I couldn't help but agree. "Who's the model? She's beautiful." "That's my granddaughter, Erin. You can't tell from the portrait, but she's a real firecracker. As a grandparent, you're not supposed to play favorites, but she was very special to Phillip, and it hit her hard when he passed. There is more love in that one painting than in all the other portraits that he painted over his lifetime. Except for his first, of course, of me." "Where are Phillips' other works? Surely, they weren't all commissions that are now locked away in some dusty millionaire's palace." Wilma's expression turned bleak as she contemplated her response. "All of his other paintings were sold after he died. The kids said they would fetch a better price while there was an upswing of interest in his work after his death, so they insisted that they all go to auction as quickly as possible. They were probably right, I guess, although I loved his art more than I needed the money. But how do you argue with your kids when they have just lost their father?" "Do any of your children live nearby?" "They all moved far away. Phillip and I chose a wonderful spot to live and make our art, but a challenging place to raise a family. It's not so bad now, what with the internet, highways, and the like, but when we first moved here sixty-some years ago, it was very isolated. We were young and selfish, and our selfishness cost us dearly. "We thought that our children would grow to love this area over time, like we did. But they never did, and they left as soon as they could get away. My daughter, Samantha, is a retired lawyer and she and her third husband split their time between their loft in Manhattan and their beach house in the Bahamas. My son, Robert, is an oil executive down in Texas. Neither of them has been here in more than a decade, except for Phillip's funeral. "My baby, Max, passed away more than twenty years ago now of cancer. Erin is his granddaughter. She is a pediatrician, and she splits her time between the hospital in Petoskey and the children's hospital down in Grand Rapids. She comes to see me when she can, but she is very busy. My other relatives all live busy lives far away from here. We chose to live here, though, so I can't be too upset that the rest of the family chose to live far away. "But enough about me. What about you, Mr. Crawford? Do you have any children?" "It's just me and my siblings, I'm afraid, and it's been that way for quite some time. My oldest sister, Alison, is 20, and she goes to college at North Central Michigan, in Petoskey. She is planning to become a nurse practitioner. The rest of the gang still lives at home with me. Sharon is 17 now, so she kind of runs the show while I am working; Mary is 15 but going on 30, if you know what I mean; and Lane is the baby of the family at 12." "Where are your parents?" "I don't honestly know. We each have a different father, or at least we think we do. Sharon, Lane, and I have no idea who our fathers are, so there's a chance that we might be full siblings, but I doubt it. My mother never kept the same man around for long. Alison's father has been in and out of jail since before she was born and is currently serving a stint in federal prison. But Mary has it the worst of all of us. "My mother met Mary's dad on a weekend bender in Vegas, and he is a pretty big deal. Rich, famous, the kind of guy you see on TV and the cover of magazines. A real family man, except when it comes to Mary, whom he refuses to even acknowledge. He bought my mom's silence with a lump sum payment and a non-disclosure agreement. That money was supposed to be put in a trust for Mary, but my mom snorted and injected it all in less than a year. Mary has written to her father dozens of times and reached out to him on social media countless more, but he wants nothing to do with his bastard daughter. "As for my mom, she went away for the weekend almost seven years ago now and left me in charge. And I am still in charge, I guess. So, no time for dating or romance for me, and I think that I will be just about done with raising kids by the time that Lane goes off to college." Wilma gave me a look filled with more empathy than I had felt in a long time, maybe ever. "Anyway, I should take a look at your boiler and see what I can do about getting you some heat." I would have called the boiler in Wilma's basement old, but that wouldn't have done it justice. Frankly, it wouldn't have seemed out of place in a museum of heating and plumbing, and it was hanging on to life by the barest of threads. With only a year to live, however, I wasn't going to recommend to Wilma that she replace the whole system with something more modern and efficient. "I think I can fix your boiler so that it will hold on for another year or two, and I can patch a couple of leaks in the lines to the main radiators as well. One line to a radiator at the back of the house is completely shot, so I will shut that one off and be back to replace it later this week." "What's all that going to cost?" "It's free of charge, Ma'am. You've got enough to look after with your health and all, without having to worry about your heating system. I never had a grandma to spoil, at least not one that I know of, so it would be my pleasure to do this for you." "Please, it's Wilma. And it's a grandmother's prerogative to spoil her grandchildren, and not the other way around. But your kindness is mighty appreciated, Davis." It took me a couple of hours to shore up the boiler and repair the lines that were still in reasonable condition before I was finished for the day. As I got ready to leave, I found Wilma sitting alone in the living room reading an old paperback. "I'll call you later this week, once the replacement line for your radiator comes in." Wilma got a mischievous smile on her face. "Why, Davis, are you getting fresh with me?" "If I were older and more experienced, I would in an instant. But I hardly think I can compete with the memory of your Phillip." "Too true, too true. Alright young man, well thank you for taking the time to look after a foolish old woman on a cold October night." "I hardly think you're foolish, Wilma, but it's been my pleasure." I didn't get home from Wilma's until well after nine that night, and by the time I pulled into our gravel driveway, I was beat. The dilapidated old yard light mounted on the roof of the garage shone weakly down on the sloppy mix of gravel and mud that was our yard, and I could hear the excited barks of Munchkin, our rescue puppy. He was a mix of German Shepherd and Cane Corso, with some variety of northern dog thrown in, and he was mighty pleased to see me. I'm glad that someone was. I came into our small three-bedroom rental to find Sharon and Lane sitting at the dining room table working on his math homework. I wish that they reacted like Munchkin when they saw me, but Lane just grunted a hello, while Sharon looked up at me with a mixture of sadness and worry. "Mary is out with the McDougal brothers again. They showed up here a half hour ago, I told her not to go with them, but she wouldn't listen." "The McDougal brothers are assholes," was Lane's addition to the conversation, without even looking up from the table. He wasn't wrong. The oldest McDougall brother, Calum, was a couple of years ahead of me at school and was a bully and a braggart. Two of his three brothers had followed in his esteemed footsteps, while the jury was still out on the youngest, James. "I'm going to go get her. Next time that those boys turn up in our yard, let Munchkin lose on them." "Alright, dinner will be in the oven when you get back. Given 'em hell, Bro." The McDougal brothers lived just outside Pellston in the closest thing to a mansion that you could find in our neck of the woods. Their family owned the largest construction and maintenance company in the area and had most of the Public Works contracts sown up, along with a not inconsiderable portion of the private construction in our region as well. Their parents spent most of their time in Sarasota, Florida, though, and the brothers had free rein while they were gone. As I drove up their long, paved driveway, automatic floodlights came on, illuminating the ostentatious columns that flanked the entrance to their house. I parked in front of the nearest bay of their four-car attached garage while noting that there was another three-car garage further off to the right. I idly wondered who got to park in which garage. Rich people problems, I guess. I walked to the front door and let myself in. From the foyer, I could hear the loud thump of music coming from the back of the house, so I headed that way. As I passed through the kitchen, I nearly bumped into James, who was holding a couple of empty serving bowls. He stopped dead when he saw me, looking nervous, clearly not expecting anyone else to be in their house. Certainly not me, anyway. "Hey James, I am here to get my sister. Where is she?" He hesitated a moment before pointing toward the back of the house. "She's in the game room playing pool with the guys. We didn't force her to come here or anything, if that's what you're worried about." "Maybe that's true, James. But you know she is still a minor, and I am her guardian, so I'm going to fetch her and bring her home." James didn't like the sound of that, but I turned my back on him and followed the music to a large, sunken room at the back of the house, which had an expensive-looking pool table in the middle. The remaining McDougal brothers were either playing pool or smoking up on one of the couches that were scattered around the outside of the room. Calum was presiding over the festivities, while the Pistons game was playing on a wall-mounted TV that was bigger than some movie screens. Despite his family's blue-collar roots, Calum looked like an overgrown frat boy, with his preppy clothes and fifty-dollar haircut. Mary was sitting in the middle of one of the couches, with a McDougal brother on one side and one of their hangers-on on the other. She looked somewhere between uncomfortable and scared, but she gave me a defiant scowl. The music stopped, and everyone looked to Calum and then back at me. There was a nervous tension in the air. "Hi Calum, I'm here for my sister." Calum was now in a bit of a spot; he couldn't just let me come into his home and give him orders without losing face with his brothers and their cronies. But he also knew, or at least suspected, that my sister was underage. And then there was always the Pipe Wrench Incident. That always made people nervous to be around me. "That's not my problem. She told my brother that she wanted to party, so she's here to party. No one forced her to come, and she seems to be having a good time." I wondered if all of Calum's dates looked as scared and uncomfortable as Mary did at that moment when they were having a 'good time'. "Well, since she is still a minor and I'm her guardian, it's a bit of a problem. Or it could be. But I don't want to put a damper on your evening, so I'll just bring Mary home with me and we'll call it a night." Calum looked toward James who had just come back into the room with bowls now filled with potato chips. "Is that true, Limp dick? Did you bring an underage girl home to party with us?" James began to sputter before Calum shook his head in disgust. He pointed over at Mary. "Get the fuck out of here, and don't come back until you're sixteen," he said before turning back to me. "And you. Just get the fuck out of our house." It was a silent drive home. Mary refused to even look at me, staring out the window instead. When we pulled into our yard, Munchkin came running up to greet us, and Mary finally spoke. "You didn't need to embarrass me like that. I'm old enough to make my own choices, you know." "The law says you're still a minor. And you'll always be my sister. Those guys are no good, Mary. You know that." "James is different. He isn't like the rest of them." "Maybe that's true, or maybe not. But you don't hang out in a nest of rattlesnakes, just because there is a garter snake in there with them that you think is cute." After a pause and some continued barking from Munchkin, Mary finally looked over at me. "You're not my dad, you know. You can't tell me what to do." And there it was. It always came down to the same thing with Mary; her father's rejection of her. Over the years, it had undermined her self-esteem and destroyed her self-worth to the point where I wondered if they would ever recover. Unfortunately, I was just smart enough to see the problem, but I had no idea how to fix it. A brother's love can only go so far, I guess. "I know, Mary. I know. But I love you, and I am so proud of you, and I just wish that was enough." We sat in silence for another minute before she replied. "I wish it was too." Chapter 2. It took a couple of days for Mrs. Anderson's new radiator line to arrive, and I gave her a call when I went to pick it up. "Hi, Mrs. And; Wilma. I was just picking up the replacement line for your radiator, and I was wondering if you needed anything else from town, while I'm here. I was going to come by and install the line later this afternoon if that works for you." "That's very kind of you, Davis. Would you mind picking up a few groceries for me? I can send the store a list, so they will be ready for you when you get there." A couple of my calls that day took longer than expected, so it was late in the afternoon again by the time I made it to Wilma's place. The early season snow had mostly melted away, and her yard was now a combination of gravel and thick soupy mud that could swallow a tire as easily as it could swallow a boot. "Thank you for picking the groceries up for me, you're too kind." "It was no trouble at all, especially since I was coming out this way anyway. If you don't mind me asking, how do you usually get them?" "I used to have a young man up the way who would help me with groceries and yard work, and other small things, but now I am pretty much on my own." "What happened to him? Did he move away?" "No, he still lives in the same place that he always has, but I am pretty sure that my family paid him more not to help me than I was paying for his assistance." "What? That seems like a crappy thing for them to do to you." Wilma gave a resigned sigh and then offered me a coffee while she told me her story. "I think I told you the last time you were here, that most of my family has moved on from this place, except my granddaughter Erin. The rest of them already have an agreement in place with a developer, the McDougals, to turn this property into a high-end resort for the Fudgies, so they have someplace to spend their money after visiting Mackinac Island." "Fudgies," was what the locals called the tourists from down south who descended on the upper peninsula in the summer. "If you don't mind me asking, just how much land do you own?" "Well, Phillip and I didn't have much to spend our money on over the years, so we bought up many of the nearby properties when they went up for sale. We ended up with at least a quarter mile of land that fronts onto the lake, without even really trying." I let out a low whistle. "That must be worth a small fortune. I can understand your family's interest." "At first, they didn't care if I stayed in the house after Phillip died. They figured that I would follow soon enough. After a few years, however, they started to get impatient, and it's fair to say that they are now actively encouraging me to leave, by foot, by car, or in a box. They have generously offered to put me out to pasture in a warehouse for the old and infirm, though, to await my impending doom. "With my cancer, their wish is finally going to come true. By this time next year, I will be sipping coffee with Phillip in whatever afterlife we atheists get to enjoy. Actually, who am I kidding? If there is an afterlife for Phillip and me, the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is get on my knees, undo his belt buckle, and then show him just how much I've missed him these past five years. Wilma looked a bit startled as if she had just remembered that I was still there. "I'm sorry, Davis. You probably didn't need to hear that last part. I just miss him so much. I still see him in the trees and along the shore, and I sometimes hear his voice in the wind off the lake." "It's all good, Wilma. I just hope that my brother and sisters get to experience the kind of love that you and Phillip had someday." "What about you, Davis? Don't you deserve to experience that kind of love as well?" "Maybe I deserve it, Wilma, but I don't think I am going to find it. It's been tough; real tough, looking after my family all these years. I have done things that I am not proud of, but that needed to be done. I don't regret them; I would do anything to protect the people I love. But I doubt that anyone would be able to love me, once they found out what I've done." "I think you are selling yourself short, Davis. We are all artists, and we are all worthy of love." With that, Wilma offered to top up my coffee before I started replacing the broken line. As the evening's shadows deepened, I saw her watching me with compassion and concern in her eyes. Once I was finished, I felt her hand on my shoulder, and she gave it an empathetic squeeze. "A penny for your thoughts?" I stopped what I was doing and turned to look at her. "It's my sister, Mary. I am losing her. She is so hurt and angry that she is beginning to make bad choices, and I don't know how to help her. I've tried to be her brother, parent, and friend, but I'm failing at all three." Wilma offered no judgment, good or bad. She just listened, and when I finished, she spoke. "Bring her over this Sunday around noon. Tell her to wear some old clothes that she doesn't mind getting dirty. You can come too if you would like and bring your little brother to do some fishing, but Mary will be spending her time with me." It wasn't easy convincing Mary to come to Wilma's. If you have spent time dealing with teenage girls, you know that they can be as stubborn as late-season ice on the lake. In the end, I resorted to threats and bribery to get her onboard, but she assured me that she would hate every minute she was there. Lane came with us as well, with the promise that we could spend the afternoon fishing off the end of Wilma's dock. By the time we arrived, Mary was sullenly glued to the passenger seat and wouldn't look up from her phone. Wilma waited a few minutes for Mary, but she stubbornly refused to leave the truck. Eventually, Wilma pulled on her rubber boots and walked over to the truck. She looked up at Mary and started speaking. "There are three things that I know are true. "The first, I've already shared with your brother. We are all artists because we are all worthy of love. But many of us lose our way. We are hurt and abandoned, and we are buried in shame. I was like that for many years. But my husband, Phillip, found me and taught me what it is to be loved. Not just the physical act; although he taught me about that as well; but the certainty that I was seen, known, and cherished. He showed me that I am an artist. You are an artist too. "Second, I am old, I have cancer, and I will die. Not today, and hopefully not tomorrow, but soon. And that is okay; we all die. I have lived a good life. And when I do, I hope that Phillip will be waiting for me with a glass of chilled white wine and his beautiful smile. My art may linger for a while once I am gone but, eventually, it too will be lost. "Third, the world is full of bastards. Your brother tells me that you and he are both bastards. I will tell you a secret that I have shared with very few people; I am a bastard too. "My mother was beautiful but poor. Her parents lost everything during the Great Depression, and she worked as a housemaid for a rich and powerful man to support her family. When she fell pregnant, he put her out on the street and refused to recognize her child, his daughter; me. Because of his rejection, I spent too many years steeped in shame and self-loathing. But eventually, I learned a hard truth; my father was a bastard by choice, while I was a bastard by birth. And those of us who are bastards by birth must never let the bastards by choice win. "Come inside when you're ready. I'm too old and it's too cold for me to stand here waiting for you." With that, Wilma turned and slowly made her way back to the house. Surprisingly, after a minute, Mary followed. When they reached the door, Wilma turned to look back at me. "It's time for you boys to go fishing. There is a warm breeze off the lake that will bring you good luck." Lane and I made our way down the hill to the dock in silence, our fishing rods, ice chest, and tackle box in hand. Unlike a seasonal dock that would be taken out of the lake each fall, Wilma's dock could be used year-round and was built with heavy timbers and steel bracing, so it could withstand the crushing force of the winter's ice. When we reached the dock, we felt the warm wind that Wilma had promised, and we chose our lures and began to cast. After a half hour of fishing, Lane broke the silence. "Do you think it's my fault?" "Do I think what's your fault, Bud?" "That mom left us. That she never came back. Do you think it's my fault?" I sighed as I thought about my answer. "No. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault, really, maybe not even hers. It's funny though, she brought some amazing people into this world. I wish she could have seen how incredible you and your sisters have turned out. But she made her choice, and that's on her, not you." Lane thought about my answer before he continued. "But you would be better off without me. Sharon would have more time to study for the scholarship she will need to get away from here. I try to be nice to Mary, to make her feel better, but I just seem to make things worse for her as well. And I see how hard you work to keep our family together. I feel like you would all be better off without me. If I weren't here, maybe Mom would come back home." I took a deep breath and tried to push down the anger that threatened to overwhelm me; anger at my mother for abandoning us, anger at myself for never being enough, and anger at a world that would leave my brother feeling like it would be better off if he didn't exist. I felt the wind off the lake as it blew across my face, drying my unshed tears before they were formed. As I was wondering how to unbreak my brother's heart, a particularly strong gust of wind blew through and Lane's fishing rod bent into a deep arc, the tip dancing wildly as a fish fought against the line. "Dad! Help;" The drag clicked furiously as the fish pulled line, as Lane fought to keep his rod tip up. I quickly set my rod aside and braced him, my hands held loosely beside his as he fought to reel in his catch. We worked together for what seemed like an eternity before he finally fought his fish to the side of the dock. I grabbed the net and saw that he had hooked a steelhead trout that was easily two feet long and must have weighed at least eight pounds if not more. It was a wonder the drag held steady, and his line didn't break during the fight. As I scooped up his catch, the steelhead's silver sides shimmered like polished chrome in the fading light, and it was so big that it took up over half the ice chest I had brought along to store our catch. Lane was flushed with excitement at landing such an impressive fish, and I was so proud of him that my heart almost ached. "Nice work, Son." He just looked up at me for a moment before throwing his arms around me in a hug. In the time since our mother left, he had never called me by anything other than my name. I never tried to be his dad; I didn't think I was qualified, but I guess that all of us need someone in our lives who will love us without conditions or end. "Never think that you're a burden on me or the family. Maybe you need a bit more from us right now than you can give back, but that's alright. Because sixty years from now, when I am old and can't wipe my ass anymore, you are going to be paying me back in spades, alright?" With that, we went back to fishing in companionable silence. I pulled in a few smaller ones, but nothing to match Lane's steelhead. A few hours later, the wind had picked up and it was getting colder, so we packed up our equipment and made our way back toward the house. Halfway down the dock, however, a huge gust of wind swept through, and I heard a cry followed by a loud splash. Turning back, I saw that Lane's foot had slipped through a broken slat, and he had fallen off the dock. Without thinking, I dropped the ice box and rods and jumped into the water to help him. When I got him to shore, he couldn't put any weight on his ankle, and any efforts to do so were met with cries of pain. I quickly collected our discarded fishing gear and set it to one side, before helping him to slowly make his way back up the hill. The November chill quickly took hold of us as we walked, plastering our damp clothing to our skin, and we were shivering uncontrollably by the time we reached the house. I knocked but it took a minute for Wilma and Mary to come out from the studio at the back of the house. "I am sorry to cut things short, but Lane had an accident down at the dock and he sprained or maybe even broke his ankle. I am going to have to take him to the hospital in Petoskey to get it looked at before it swells up any further." Wilma looked at me with concern. "Maybe you should hold off at least for a little while. My granddaughter, Erin, the pediatrician, is coming for dinner tonight and should be here any minute. Why don't we let her take a look at it before you head into town? And let's get you out of those clothes; you must be freezing. I still have some of Phillip's things in the closet that might fit you." A few minutes later, I had changed into a pair of comfortable but slightly musty-smelling pants, with a warm sweater over a well-worn collared shirt. I was both taller and wider than Phillip had been, at least in the twilight of his years, so the pants were a bit short, while the sweater was tight across my shoulders. While I changed, Mary and Wilma had set Lane up on the couch with his ankle elevated on some pillows. I helped him change out of his wet clothing and into an old sweatshirt and shorts that fit over his swollen ankle. Once Lane was settled, Wilma and I talked quietly in the kitchen. "It's getting late, and you must be getting hungry, but I don't think I have enough to feed everyone." I thought for a moment. "We may be in luck. Lane caught the biggest steelhead I have ever seen earlier this afternoon, but I left it down by the dock after the accident. If you have a few potatoes and maybe a veg or two, I am sure I can whip something up that would feed us all." Wilma looked at me with a sly smile. "He cooks, he plumbs, and he cares for his family, all while cutting a dashing figure in my late husband's favorite sweater. You, Mr. Crawford, are a catch." "I am not sure about that, Wilma," I replied with a laugh, "But either way, this catch had better go and get our earlier catch, so I can get started on dinner." It took me almost half an hour to collect our fishing gear and bring it back up to the truck. By the time I was done, an older SUV was parked behind my truck, which meant that Erin had arrived. After I loaded the gear, I used the fishing knife and stained plastic cutting board that I kept in a bin under the back seat to clean and filet the steelhead before heading inside. From the doorway, I could see a head of sandy-blonde hair pulled back into a loose ponytail sticking up from the far side of the couch, and I heard a calm and melodic voice talking to Lane while Wilma and Mary looked on. I was so lost in that voice that I almost jumped when the latch on the door caught behind me. The head of sandy-blonde hair looked up at the sound, revealing a pair of amber, almost golden eyes. "You must be the father," said that same melodic voice, as those eyes bore their way into my soul. "It's Davis Crawford, and I'm the older brother." "Erin Anderson, nice to meet you. Can you get hold of your parents? We might need to take Lane to the hospital for some X-rays." "No," I replied more harshly than I intended. "No," I tried again, more gently but with an edge to my voice. "Our parents aren't around; I am as close as you're going to get. I am Lane's legal guardian if that helps." There was a slight pause as her amber eyes shifted from surprise to curiosity. "That helps a lot. Why don't you give me 15 minutes or so to take a look at this brave dude's ankle, then we can talk over some options, once I have a better sense of what's going on." "That okay with you, Bud?" I asked as I walked over to the couch. "Yeah, that should be fine," he replied, but his eyes were wide, and his cheeks were flushed. For a moment, I was worried that he might be running a fever, but then I got my first look at Erin, and I understood. Maybe she wasn't classically beautiful like a movie star or swimsuit model, but she was lean and fit, and from what I could see, had more than enough curves in all the right places. It was her face, however, that captured me. She had delicate features accentuated by her high cheekbones, and there was a softness to her expression that spoke of empathy and kindness. Her eyes, though intense, had a warmth that put me instantly at ease. I realized much too late that I had been staring at Erin for an uncomfortably long time while holding the bag of steelhead filets out like some kind of sacrificial offering. While I stood frozen, the look in Erin's beautiful eyes had shifted from curiosity to amusement; I would assume at the fish-carrying simpleton standing in front of her. "Thanks, Dr. Anderson; err, Erin. I appreciate your taking a look at him and; I am going to go cook us up some fish before I make an even bigger ass of myself." Wilma joined me in the kitchen, while Erin continued to assess Lane's injured ankle. We spent the next few minutes dicing the potatoes and veggies and tossing them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper before sprinkling the filets of steelhead with a mixture of herbs. I topped the fish with some slices of a less-than-fresh, but still edible, lemon I found in the fridge, before putting the whole thing in the oven. To be continued in part 2. Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts, for Literotica.

Weekly Prologue - We Got The ARC Raidin' Bug

twitch prologue fall guys arc raiders ff14

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 15, 2025 63:59

Welcome to The Testing Room where three of the gaming industry's best consultants (to never consult on a game) get together to talk about the games this week. This week Alex pulls a Fall Guys on Travis in FF14, Christian leaves Alex behind in ARC Raiders, Preston watches K-Pop Demon Hunters and more! Don't forget to send comments and questions to testingroompod@gmail.com or comment down below. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitch @ twitch.tv/testingroomlive and watch on YouTube @ youtube.com/@thetestingroom

199) The Avatamsaka Sutra - Prologue - 20251212

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 14, 2025 92:45

How to Survive the End of the World

Martyrs Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius, and Orestes at Sebaste - December 13th

Saint of the Day

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2025

"These five courageous men shone like five resplendent stars in the dark days of the anti-Christian Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. St Eustratius was a Roman general in the city of Satalios, Eugene was one of his comrades in arms and Orestes likewise a respected soldier. Auxentius was a priest and Mardarius a simple citizen who came, like Eustratius, from the town of Aravraca. The imperial governors, Lysias and Agricola, tortured Auxentius first as he was a priest. Beholding the innocent suffering of the Christians, Eustratius presented himself before Lycias and declared that he also was a Christian. While Eustratius was being tortured, Eugene stood up before the judge and cried out: 'I am a Christian too, Lycias!' When they were driving Eustratius and the other martyrs through the town, Mardarius saw them from the roof of his house, and he took leave of his wife and two frail daughters and hastened after them, shouting into the faces of their tormentors: 'I am a Christian too, like the Lord Eustratius!' Orestes was a young and handsome soldier, who stood head and shoulders above all the other soldiers. One day, when he was at target practice in Lycias's presence, the Cross he was wearing fell from his breast, and Lycias realised that he was a Christian. Orestes openly confessed his faith, and was martyred with the others. Auxentius was beheaded, Eugene and Mardarius died under torture, Orestes was exposed on a red-hot iron grid and Eustratius died in a flaming furnace. St Blaise (see Feb. 11th) gave Communion to St Eustratius in prison before his death. Their relics were later taken to Constantinople, and are preserved in the church dedicated to them — The Holy Five Companions. They were seen alive in that church, and St Orestes appeared to St Dimitri of Rostov (see Oct. 28th). A beautiful prayer by St Eustratius is extant, which is read at the Midnight Service on Saturdays: 'I glorify Thy majesty, 0 Lord for Thou hast regarded my lowliness and hast not shut me up in the hands of my enemies, but hast saved my soul from want...'. " (Prologue)

lord christians cross communion martyrs prologue thy beholding constantinople rostov agricola orestes lysias st blaise maximian

Job 1-21: Prologue & Speeches

Bible: Beginning to End

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2025 119:23

Read Job (Berean Standard Bible)⁠⁠https://www.bible.com/bible/3034/JOB.1.BSB⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Important Links for the Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click Here for our YouTube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discuss each episode on Reddit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resources on JobBible Project Video on JobTen Minute Bible Hour Video on JobWas Job a Man or a Myth? - John PiperWas Job in the Bible Actually a Real Person? - Anchor Bible CollegeIs the Story of Job Historical? - Dr. Douglas Sean O'DonnellDefinition of “satan” and “hasatan”Who was Satan in the Book of Job - Video Dr. Michael HeiserThe Absence of Satan in the Old Testament - Dr. Michael HeiserWhy Michael Heiser is Probably Wrong about Satan in the Book of Job - Kenneth BerdingIs “The Satan” in Job Actually Not the Devil? - Dr. Philip BrownWhat is Sheol? - Matthew Y. EmersonReturning to Sheol - Dr. Michael HeiserSheol: Does the OT Have a Concept of Eternal Bliss or Heaven? - Dr. Michael HeiserContact Us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit our Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠On Instagram @biblebeginningtoend⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠On Twitter: @biblebeginning1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Via email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠biblebeginningtoend@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Supporting the ShowFinancial contribution is never required, but if you'd like to support the show, here are a couple of ways:Be a listener and share the show with your friends!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to become a monthly supporter via Spotify.⁠⁠⁠⁠*⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to make a one-time contribution via Paypal⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.* *Note that the Bible Beginning to End podcast is not a registered 501(c)3 or charitable organization. Therefore, any monetary support provided is not tax deductible.10% of any profits made from this podcast via ad revenues or listener support will be donated to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Asha's Refuge⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a Christ-centered nonprofit that "exists to assist the most disadvantaged refugees/asylees in achieving a successful resettlement in the Memphis, TN area.". Episode Timestamps0:00 - Intro9:32 - ad break9:33 - Job 125:43 - Job 2 31:30 - Job 336:22 - Job 440:58 - Job 545:06 - Job 649:11 - Job 756:03 - Job 859:50 - Job 91:08:10 - Job 101:12:32 - Job 111:16:53 - Job 121:21:14 - Job 131:25:27 - Job 141:29:51 - Job 151:35:32 - Job 161:40:00 - Job 171:42:57 - Job 181:45:43- Job 191:49:35 - Job 201:53:32 - Job 211:58:37 - outro

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PROLOGUE: The Revolutionary Power of Art (and Stranger Things Final Act)

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2025 33:26

The sisters have been deep at work on their respective book projects. Today they're back for a rich and fun chat about artistic practice and creative process. As liberation movements continue to turn toward art during times of struggle, adrienne and Autumn reflect on the power and purpose of their art and art in general. They also share some of their tippity top culture of the year.---⁠⁠⁠TRANSCRIPT⁠⁠⁠---⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SUPPORT OUR SHOW⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Endoftheworldshow---HTS ESSENTIALS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SUPPORT Our Show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Endoftheworldshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PEEP us on IG⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/endoftheworldpc/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Prologue to Sefer Iyov - Part 6: Analysis of Iyov's Monologue

Machshavah Lab

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2025 82:37

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 21 minutesSynopsis: This morning (12/12/25), in our Friday morning Machshavah Lab series for women, we analyzed Iyov's "post-breakdown monologue" in Chapter 3 through the eyes of the Malbim and the Rambam, comparing and contrasting their approaches. Although we answered all the questions we initially asked, there are some outstanding difficulties that remain to be solved. Next on the agenda is Eliphaz's first speech, in which he attempts to prove Iyov wrong.-----מקורות:איוב א:יג - סוף פרק גמלבי"ם - הקדמה לפרק ג; ג:כדרמב"ם - מורה הנבוכים ג:טז Lenn E. Goodman, "The Guide to the Perplexed: A New Translation" (2024)-----This week's Torah content is sponsored by Rifka Kaplan-Peck in memory of her grandpa, Izrail Kaplan (a”h), who never forgot to look up above and appreciate another day.-----If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.-----Substack: rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/YU Torah: yutorah.org/teachers/Rabbi-Matt-SchneeweissPatreon: patreon.com/rabbischneeweissYouTube Channel: youtube.com/rabbischneeweissInstagram: instagram.com/rabbischneeweiss/"The Stoic Jew" Podcast: thestoicjew.buzzsprout.com"Machshavah Lab" Podcast: machshavahlab.buzzsprout.com"The Mishlei Podcast": mishlei.buzzsprout.com"Rambam Bekius" Podcast: rambambekius.buzzsprout.com"The Tefilah Podcast": tefilah.buzzsprout.comOld Blog: kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/WhatsApp Content Hub (where I post all my content and announce my public classes): https://chat.whatsapp.com/GEB1EPIAarsELfHWuI2k0HAmazon Wishlist: amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/Y72CSP86S24W?ref_=wl_sharel

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Ol' Shakey Prologue

Adam’s World of Darkness: Beyond the Map

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2025 32:44

January 16th, 1943, Truman Quick and the 401st Bomber Group, crew of the Ol' Shakey, embark on a dangerous exercise in the skies above North Africa. But everything is not as it seems. Something's wrong. There are secrets in the sand, ghosts in the machine, and designs beyond human comprehension written with pen and ink. The Crew of the Ol' Shakey are soon to find out they're the best crew for the job, in the worst possible way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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RP 76. Chapter 9 Prologue

Rage Across the Internet: A Werewolf the Apocalypse podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2025 56:25

Carlie finds herself alongside Sally, in what should be a strange and bloody nightmare. Yet, to keep Sally happy, she tells the sweet story of how she got her crossbow fetish. The story gives us a look at Carlie's former sept, The Cash Money Buffalo, and what her life was like before she met the Dream Chasers. Want to show us some love? Support us at: ko-fi.com/rageacrosstheinternetWant to Talk to us?Website: Rage Across the InternetJoin the Forums to get the Code for our discord and come chat with us!Email: rageacrosspodcast@gmail.comTwitter: @rageacrossFacebook: Rage Across the InternetWe've got a YouTube too, check it Right HereSeason 5's theme is: No Culture by Silent Partner

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Weekly Prologue - DotEmu Is Publishing/Developing Bangers

developing twitch publishing prologue bangers ffxiv dotemu

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2025 58:36

Welcome to The Testing Room where three of the gaming industry's best consultants (to never consult on a game) get together to talk about the games this week. This week Alex messes around in Oblivion Remake, Christian talks about a possible FFXIV shake up on the horizon, Preston plays Marvel Cosmic Invasion and more! Don't forget to send comments and questions to testingroompod@gmail.com or comment down below. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitch @ twitch.tv/testingroomlive and watch on YouTube @ youtube.com/@thetestingroom

198) The Avatamsaka Sutra - Prologue - 20251205

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2025 95:15

The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Homily - Do You Want to Be Healed? Letting God Rewrite the Story

OrthoAnalytika

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2025 14:43

Do You Want to Be Healed? Letting God Rewrite the Story Ephesians 8:5-19 Today, Fr. Anthony reflects on how the deepest obstacles to healing are often the stories we tell ourselves to justify, protect, and control our lives. Drawing on the Prophet Isaiah, the Gospel parables of the banquet, and the power of silence before God, he explores how true healing begins when we let go of our fallen narratives and allow Christ to reconstruct our story through humility, prayer, and repentance. The path of peace is not found in domination or self-justification, but in stillness at the feet of the Lord where grace remakes the soul. As St. Seraphim teaches, when we acquire peace, myriads around us are healed as well. One of the great problems we encounter in life is this: we desire healing, but we do not always know how to arrive at it. One helpful way to understand this struggle is through the language of story. Very often, the problem is that we do not have our story right. Scripture tells us to redeem the time, because the days are evil. One of the ways that evil operates is by corrupting our story—our personal story, the way we understand ourselves, the way we frame our relationships, and even the way we understand the great arc of history, what Christians call the economy of salvation. When we live in evil times, that evil does not remain outside us. It enters in, and our story becomes crooked. If all we do as Christians is add religious language to that crooked story—new words, even new scriptures—we have not truly been healed. We have only changed the decoration. The path itself remains bent. One day that story will be brought into the light. This is what the Apostle means when he says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you." As St. Jerome once observed, St. Paul seems to be paraphrasing Isaiah here—especially that great prophecy where the crooked ways are made straight. This theme runs deeply through Advent and the Nativity Fast. One small personal ritual during this season is listening to Handel's Messiah. Through that music, the words of Isaiah become alive: the great darkness that covers the earth, and the light that rises to overcome it. But darkness is not overcome by changing words alone. If all we do is rename our brokenness with religious language, the world's darkness will only pollute us more deeply. So the first discipline of the Christian life is this: we must let go of our story. Our fallen story becomes a way to protect the ego, to justify ourselves, to excuse the very things Saint Paul warns us against. Salvation begins with humility, with letting go of our justifications, with abandoning the need to construct a story that protects us from the world or grants us domination over it. We are called to let go and stand before the Lord in silence. Not to explain ourselves, not to defend ourselves—but simply to be our story before Him in quiet awe. If we do that work faithfully—and for many of us this must be done daily—then the reconstruction of the story can begin anew. This is where the disciplines of the Church come in: the prayer rule, the psalms, the prayers given to us by the Holy Spirit through the Church. These do not shame us; they heal us. They allow us to see our shortcomings not as excuses to hide, but as wounds that need restoration. This is how our crookedness is straightened so that we can be healed. The Lord also gives us Scripture to interpret our story. In Isaiah 60 we hear of darkness and of a light that rises. Israel is called a light to the nations—but whenever Christians hear that language, our minds are drawn immediately to the Prologue of the Gospel of St. John. And there, light is not mere illumination. It is transformation. It is grace. It is the energy of God entering the world. And when Scripture moves back and forth between Christ and Israel, it is not a mistake—it reveals our participation in this great movement of salvation. Just as we are healed by grace, so the world is transfigured by that same grace flowing from the Body of Christ into all creation. The Lord also teaches us through parables. Many parables may not resonate with many of us because of their agricultural contexts, but we can understand a banquet. We understand meals. We understand invitation. And in this parable, we are the ones who were called—and we came. We may not have been the first invited. We came blind, wounded, ashamed, hiding behind excuses. But the invitation came, and we showed up. Yet getting through the door is not the end of the story. The Lord teaches us what it means to live inside the banquet. When you enter the house, do tell the master how he should run it? Do you take the highest seat as if it belongs to you? No—He says take the lowest place, and let the master raise you up if he wills. This is the posture of true humility. If we were the authors of our story, it would end in darkness. But instead, we are invited into a feast that never ends. And none of our fallen tools—control, manipulation, ego-protection—belong in the Father's house. This is why the psalmist says he would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than sit among kings. That is our true inheritance. There is no such thing as a low seat at that table. Every place at that feast is glory beyond imagination. The only way it becomes distorted is if we try to overlay God's story with our fallen one. So yes—do we want to be healed? Of course, we do. That is why we are here. Do we want to grow into our inheritance? That is why we came. But it is not enough merely to arrive. We must live your part in the story. There is a false humility that sometimes creeps into us—especially if we have been wounded or manipulated. We become afraid to acknowledge anything good about ourselves or even our relationship with God, as if gratitude were pride. But that is not humility. We need to be ashamed of what truly needs repentance and bring it into the light. But we should never be ashamed of our relationship with the Lord. Do not pretend the banquet is a shack just because we know we do not deserve it. Hold both truths together: the infinite distance between God's glory and our brokenness, and the infinite mercy by which He draws us into His glory. Following St. Silouon the Athonite, we should keep our mind in hell – and despair not. The lowest seat at that table is greater than any throne the world can offer. It is the seat prepared for us in the council of God. There is no low place there—only mistaken stories that make us think otherwise. So during this season, let's spend time with the Lord in silence. Let's let go of the instinct to create stories that justify, control, and fix everything. These wandering thoughts only deepen confusion. We need to seek peace and pursue it quietly at the feet of God. Then we can come out from that silence and allow His Word to reconstruct us. Our Lord is not manipulative. He does not heal through domination. If there is one relationship in which we can finally release our need for control, it is our relationship with Him. If we skip silence, we will guard ourselves even against God, and the crooked ways will remain crooked—only renamed with religious language. Go in silence before the Lord. Come out and allow His Word to heal you. Then, in that peace, allow your relationships with others to be healed as well. This is how the world is remade: not by power, not by manipulation, but by peace. St. Seraphim of Sarov put it simply: "Acquire the Spirit of peace, and thousands around you will be saved." When peace grows in the heart, the handles of manipulation fall away. The saint no longer needs to prove anything. There is no hunger for worldly approval. The only desires left are to love, to serve, and to receive love. These are not tools of control—they are mechanisms of grace. We still have time to prepare for the Lord's coming. Let this be the beginning. And as part of this renewal of our story, we still have time to come to confession. The Church teaches us to come during every Lenten season, and yes, that can be frightening. Authority in this world has often been abusive or manipulative. But confession is not that. It is not tyranny—it is liberation. The Lord does not want us carrying this weight. He wants us free. This is the Church's gift to us. We must not leave it unused. Let the Lord heal you. Let Him tell you your true story. And then, at last, relax into its glory.

Did Dinah Marry Iyov? + Prologue to Sefer Iyov - Part 5: Iyov's Monologue

Machshavah Lab

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2025 72:23

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 1 hour 11 minutesSynopsis: This morning (12/5/25), in our Friday morning Machshavah Lab series for women, we began by reviewing the facts from last time. From there we took up a Vayishlach/Iyov side-quest, examining the midrash that Iyov's wife was Dinah, a midrash for which I have found zero explanations. After that, we continued reading the sefer through the end of Iyov's “post-breakdown monologue” in Chapter 3, and we concluded by raising some of the most urgent questions. Next time (בג"ה), we will analyze Iyov's monologue in an effort to ascertain his beliefs.-----מקורות:איוב א:יג - סוף פרק גתרגום כתובים - איוב ב:ט-יבבא בתרא דף טו עמוד במהרש"א חידשוי אגדות שםתורה תמימה - בראשית לד:ז, הערה 5מצודת דוד - איוב לא:ב-----If you'd like to sponsor my Torah content, please let me know! Your support makes it possible for me to give free shiurim, write free articles, and continue producing a steady stream of Torah.-----If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.-----Substack: rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/YU Torah: yutorah.org/teachers/Rabbi-Matt-SchneeweissPatreon: patreon.com/rabbischneeweissYouTube Channel: youtube.com/rabbischneeweissInstagram: instagram.com/rabbischneeweiss/"The Stoic Jew" Podcast: thestoicjew.buzzsprout.com"Machshavah Lab" Podcast: machshavahlab.buzzsprout.com"The Mishlei Podcast": mishlei.buzzsprout.com"Rambam Bekius" Podcast: rambambekius.buzzsprout.com"The Tefilah Podcast": tefilah.buzzsprout.comOld Blog: kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/WhatsApp Content Hub (where I post all my content and announce my public classes): https://chat.whatsapp.com/GEB1EPIAarsELfHWuI2k0HAmazon Wishlist: amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/Y72CSP86S24W?ref_=wl_sharel

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My Honey Cousin: Part 1

Steamy Stories Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 4, 2025

My Honey Cousin: Part 1. Darren is spending the summer with his cousin and his aunt, in the country. Based on a post by Guzzler 21. Listen to the Podcast at My First Time. Prologue: In the countryside of Northeastern France, lived a young widow and her daughter. Lily was an English debutante who married the son of a wealthy French family. Her husband died tragically in a Formula One auto race, leaving the young mother to raise her two year old daughter, Amy. The deceased husband's Family trust provided them a farm and stipend. Lily's sister and brother-in-law have a son, Darren; of nearly the same age, and the two children spent their summers together on the farm while Darren's parents operated a seasonal business in a Resort seaside village. Darren begins the story of how his life changed, from his visits to Aunt Lily's Farm. It was that time of year. My parents ran a restaurant in a very busy summer resort village, on the eastern sea coast of England. So they always sent me away to stay with my aunt and cousin in the French countryside during these busiest months. In my early childhood, I became fluid in speaking French, as a result of this annual summer immersion. Mom's sister, Lily; had married into a wealthy French family, but her Husband died in a tragic accident while competing in a Formula One auto race. The country estate was left to her use, along with an annual support from the family trust. The estate was never hers; only provided for her use. It used to be great fun and I loved those summer months. My cousin Amy was a real rascal. A wild girl with sandy blonde hair, always standing on end and always way too long for her. Her mom (aunt Lily) often gave her a big fat braid in the mornings, but already by lunchtime it was just a big tangled ponytail at best. She was totally wild and always got us into exciting and crazy adventures. And since I was a couple of years younger than her I always followed along on her impulsive ideas. Amy was taught at home, and was her mother's only child. It got us in trouble a few times. Got us scraped knees and bruises also. Climbing fences and jumping off outhouse roofs, and such. The County Wet Nurse. I loved aunt Lily! She was the epitome of a nurturing wholesome country mother! Always had her light brown hair in a large loose knot with strands of hair forever needing to be blown from her face with her classic side blow she’d learned to master over the years. She had huge tits and was very curvy and it was a great feeling to be hugged by her, and she was generous with hugs. Partly because Amy and I often came in crying because we hurt ourselves on some fence, or stubbed our toes on a rock, or something. I particularly remember one time; when I was very much younger, and had scraped my knee, or something; and aunt Lily sat me in her lap and tried to console me to quench my crying. But I just cried and cried with my head in her chest. Suddenly I felt her nipple in my mouth and she pressed my head to her very full teet! My crying stopped and all I could muster was a muffled surprise. As I recall, moments later I felt a squirt of very sweet milk! By pure reflex I swallowed and that mouth movement gave just the right suction to send me another squirt of her milk! It was a bit weird but so soothing. I don’t remember how long this continued but I fell asleep there in her lap latched onto auntie's teet. It never happened again, and we never talked about it. I just kept it in the back of my mind, as a nice, comforting memory. It seems Aunt Lily had continued to nurse cousin Amy until she started primary school; then helped a few other moms who needed a wet nurse, for one reason or another. Pubescent Changes. This summer tradition started about 15 years ago, and ended about 5 years ago. For some reason, this year I was ordered to resume the visit, as a requisite for my financial support at a Cambridge Uni. But this summer I wasn’t as keen to go stay with Amy and Lily over the summer. The Last summer I was there, which was about 5 years ago, Amy was different. I guess she had grown or something. Apart from the obvious;her boobs growing out and her waist and hips getting curvier, and such. She was very stand-offish towards me. She tried, a little, to be fun and welcoming; but it was clear that I was not of interest and mostly just in the way. I was a 13 year old pre-pubisent boy, and Amy was a moody 15 year old self-declared woman. One time I ran into the bathroom and, by mistake, surprised Amy in there, half naked. She got really aggressive and yelled me out of there at some volume. What a bitch! So the greater part of summer was spent watching TV and hanging around aunt Lily. She of course did her best to make me have a good time, playing cards or making me snacks. But I felt kind of alone all summer while my cousin Amy just was ‘out’, or up in her room all day. These past four years I've been enrolled in a boarding school. I've got no idea how my parents afforded it, But now I'm college-qualified. A Pleasing Reception. So it was with a heavy heart I made the boat and train trip, out to the eastern France countryside, this summer. I'm 18 now, and shouldn’t have to stay with aunt Lily and my cousin over the summer. I felt like I was too old to be watched after. Why couldn’t my parents just leave me to tend for myself at home instead? Hopefully Amy had grown out of that mood she was in, years ago. We were both more mature now, I hoped. But already, as I got off the train, I was pleasantly surprised. As I stepped onto the platform I saw aunt Lily over there by the station house. I couldn’t see Amy anywhere but was suddenly attacked by her giving me a strong hug and a wet kiss on the lips! ”So great to see you again, Darren! We’ll have a great summer;” she exclaimed, and gave me another wet kiss on the lips! Amy had grown even more since the last four summers, and so have I. So she was as tall as me, and bigger in delightful ways. I had already felt her firm tits against my chest. And now that she was hanging on to me with an arm around my neck. I also felt the weight of her curvy body. She was wearing a pair of very short jean shorts, red sneakers and a tight tank top that showed the sides of her bra-less boobs, as well as some cleavage. She looked a little younger than her 20 years of age. But she looked so hot! Aunt Lily had probably fixed Amy’s hair just before they came to pick me up, so she still had a thick sandy blonde braid in functioning order. Together, we finally made it to aunt Lily who had been standing over by the station house. Lily is quite tall for a woman, and stately in her 40-year-old classic tall buxom body. Auntie Lily was in a light cotton summer dress. It's low-cut bodice was held in place by two very thin straps, so that her tits were half exposed and without the constraints of a brassiere. Lily's nipples added a finishing accent to the contour of her sundress bodice. I got one of those beautiful auntie hugs from her. It feels like being enveloped by the ultimate mother. A long, deep hug. My face pressed against her abundant bosom; was exactly what I needed, to feel as welcome as I hoped to be. Auntie's thin, yellow summer dress was the only thing that covered those lovely mammary mounds, under there. After the full body hug with Aunt Lily, Darren noticed her nipples now fully tented her bodice. The hardened full nipples were so erect and protruding that the rounded nature of her tits was changed so as to resemble a wide two-pole pup tent. More kisses and they both were telling me how great it was to see me again, before we scuttled into the front seat of aunt Lily’s new 1962 pickup truck, and we headed off to their house in the country. The truck had a column shift, so my legs could move freely without getting bruised by the stick shift in the middle of the floorboard. I enjoyed my view of tits on both sides of my middle of the bench seat. During the ride it, was hard to keep my eyes off of both Lily’s and Amy’s cleavages. Every time I saw an upcoming bump in the road my eyes involuntarily moved to Lily’s cleavage. Amy was also busty, but nowhere near as top-heavy and pendulous as aunt Lily. I think Amy might have noticed, because many times; just as my eyes were turning to auntie’s swinging pendulums, she would say something to grab my attention. Also she was often adjusting her seat-belt, or tucking un her tight shirt, so her boobs were extra accentuated under her tight, low-cut tank top. Only two thin spaghetti straps were tasked with restraining Amy's firm tetons. Towards the last third of the drive, she had already reached over and taken my hand to hers. She'd been holding my hand for a long while and had it clasped with mine. Holding it, the back of my hand was pressed against her crotch. It gave me something else to focus on than auntie’s bouncing boobs. With every bump my hand kind of pressed against her jean shorts. I couldn’t tell if it was her pushing my hand down or if it was just the motion of the bumps. Finally at the farmhouse, Lily began preparing dinner. Amy and I chatted it up. She was very cheery and happy, it seemed. Totally different from the summer 5 years ago. Whilst auntie was making dinner, Amy pranced around the kitchen, bringing out plates and cutlery. Seemed to me that she was spending a lot of time looking in the lower cupboards for stuff, and those very short jean shorts made it hard to look away as she was bending over all the time and wiggling her ass towards me. During dinner Amy was looking very intently at me all the time. The meal was great and I made sure to give aunt Lily a hug afterwards. Again I got to feel the skin of her huge tits against my cheek. Community Tub. Amy wanted attention again and proclaimed that we should take a bath before bedtime, like we used to do all the time when we were youngsters. Lily let go of the warm embrace and said that she would go upstairs and draw a bath for us. I got a bit nervous about the ‘us’ part. Several years back. Amy and I, and even auntie had joined in taking a bath together, sometimes. Before the improvements in indoor plumbing, We had limited hot water, and if we all needed baths, we'd have to share the water. And the castiron tub quickly cooled things had changed. We were kids then. It didn’t really feel the same now. It felt different. Somehow it didn’t feel as innocent now. Amy was quick to grab my hand and show me upstairs to my room. It was the same room that I had always slept in while I was here in summer time. As I well knew, but Amy reminded me, my room was just next to hers. Sometimes, in earlier summers, we used to sneak into each others bedrooms and just hang out. Tickle fights sometimes, giggling and always hushing each other to not wake auntie. Of course she would sometimes hear us and come in and send us to our separate beds. The bed was made, there was a towel on the foot end. We could hear aunt Lily pouring the bathtub from across the hallway. "Get undressed and let’s get in the tub;” Amy said and left the room. Now I was getting really nervous. All those hugs, having both Amy’s and aunt Lily’s tits pressed against me. Amy holding my hand down to her crotch through the better part of the truck ride and seeing Amy in her short shorts prancing around in the kitchen had stirred something in me. I had matured and of course gotten some kind of interest in girls and stuff during the years, but I had never gotten closer than to have some fleeting fantasies in my mind about what it would entail;or even what I actually thought about it. Now I was all of a sudden about to be in a very real situation that I had no experience in. Best not to think too much about it. I had bathed with Amy and aunt so many times before. So I just went with it, undressed and wrapped the towel around my hips and made my way towards the bathroom. Coming into the bathroom the sight of aunt Lily met me. Rather, the sight of her behind. She was leaning over the bath tub, in her summer dress. While stirring the bubbly water, her hips were swaying from side to side. That thin summer dress did nothing to hide her ass cheeks and the width of her womanly hips. Mind and body stirring; I seized the moment and took my chance. Dropped my towel and quickly stepped into the bath, turned away from aunt so I would not be too exposed. ”Oh, there you are, my dear” Lily said as I slid into the front of the tub, with my back to her. In the back of my mind, I already had some kind of fear of what might be to come. I slid towards the middle of the tub, it was pretty big, but I still sat in a semi fetal position with my back turned towards aunt Lily. The water was steaming hot, but not burning. Luckily, Lily had stirred up a fair amount of bubbles, so I didn’t feel too exposed. Just as I started warming up to the idea of sitting nude in a bathtub with my voluptuous aunt right behind me; Amy walks in! She had a big smile and was holding her towel around her hips. Now I could finally see her firm boobs in plain view. They were beautiful! Not extra large, of course, but looked desirable. They had pinkish areola, with button-sized nipples poking out to say 'hello', in a slight upward trajectory. ”Hey Darren, make some room for me;” she said as she dropped her towel and exposed her bare pussy, which now was just at eye level from me sitting in the tub. Trying not to look straight at Amy’s crotch, I could still make out the beautiful light pinkish lips behind a fluffy layer of curly blonde hair on her mound. Very light and probably very soft I would think. I felt a twitch down in my awakening tally-whacker regions. Amy had decided to sit in front of me, so I had to slide back in the tub. I tried very hard not to let my eyes give me away, as she spread her legs, her pussy now spread wide and mere inches from my face; and very slowly she lowered into the tub. Maybe she felt my gaze and got self conscious, because she then turned around and squatted, facing me. I think I could see her face blush a little when she realized she had shown herself to me in all her naked glory. Or maybe it was just the hot bath water? Our knees were drawn up and her feet were now touching next to mine, under water. ”The water is really nice, mom;” Amy said to aunt Lily. ”Is it? Yeah, maybe I’ll get in with you guys, also;” Lily responded and rose up, she grabbed the skirting in both hands and lifted her summer dress off, in one smooth move! She was, of course, not wearing anything underneath! As her wonderfully curved nakedness revealed itself, my head quickly jerked back towards Amy. Now I could feel my cheeks blushing and that tingling feeling, and my already-turgid cock stiffened to a petrified nature! I was too surprised to take it all in, but I could clearly make out Lily's wide hips, strong, round thighs and huge heavy tits as she stood next to her falling dress, and reached to the back of her head to pin up her hair in a knot, before climbing in behind me. ”Mom! I think Darren got a bit embarrassed now!” Amy snickered as she tried to catch my eye. Aunt Lily was sitting down behind me. I felt her thighs straddle my hips. I tried to play it off like it was nothing; ”Nah, it’s alright.” I claimed; although I think the tremor in my voice gave me away, a bit. Lily reached around and grabbed me across the chest from behind, and pulled me back against her. I could feel her huge tits pressing against my back! ”Oh no! My little nephew can't be embarrassed! We’ve taken plenty of baths together over the years! Right Darren?” she said as she gave me a wet, foamy hug, pressing her firm heavy tits against my back even more. "Now, scoot back toward me, so I can get my legs straightened out.” she said and grabbing her other arm around my waist, she leaned back pulling me along. She straightened her legs, one leg on each side of me, her thick thighs pressing against my sides and laid them over my now outstretched legs. My calves were now pressed against Amy's hips and Amy's toes soon became tucked under my inner thighs. My ass was in effect pressed down against the bottom of the tub and Aunt Lily's boobs were like two fleshy pillows against the back of my head. I could feel her pubes against the lower part of my back and any tingling feelings had now passed on to a pulsating horniness. Amy took her chance, as aunt Lily pulled me back towards her, to also straighten her legs out and place them on each side of me, so only her knees were a little above water and I was even more pressed down in place. We still had about 12 inches between each other underwater, luckily. Otherwise I fear she’d have been poked by my growing tally-whacker, down there. "Okay, Let me do your back.” Lily said; and pushed my upper body to a forward leaning position. I was sad to not have her tits as my soft pillows anymore, but glad that I could now reach in front of me, and collect some more bath foam to try to cover the surface just in front of me, instead. Auntie started to rub my back with a bar of soap and both her hands. "While mom does your back, you can do my front” Amy said and poured some shampoo over her tits! "But; I don’t have a sponge?” I stammered. "Just use your hands, silly” she replied and leaned forward; the slimy shampoo slowly running down her round tits, then dripping onto the foamy bubbles on the water. I cleared my throat for unknown reasons, and gingerly tried to use my fingertips to spread out the shampoo over her top chest and shoulders. "Come on! you have to make it lather up” she said with a jokingly annoyed voice. Then she grabbed the back of my hands and put them over her tits! I could feel her hardened nipples under my palms as she started moving my hands around and around over her two firm tits. I don’t know for how long this went on, but long enough for me to get a painful raging hard on, under the water. I don’t think I have a specially big cock, or anything. But I could probably compare with the best, in terms of hardness at this moment. It was painful, but at the same time I was in a wet and warm heaven, wedged in place by my aunt's and my cousin's legs! I was jolted back to reality, or to a new form of heaven, actually; when aunt Lily exclaimed: "There! Your back is done now, lean back toward me, and I’ll do your hair.” Amy reached past me to hand Lily the bottle of shampoo. Then I was pulled back, my head was pillowed on two soft tits. Landing in her tits, my two earlobes were gently poked by what I now assume were Lily's two big stiff nipples. But this time my back, and aunt Lily, were covered in shampoo, and very slippery. I slid down a bit. Lily lifted her thighs up, and her thighs caught under my armpits. So I was now slid down, just my head and shoulders above the water and I was stuck in a meaty vise, my head pressed in between auntie’s generous tits that were now also touching my cheeks from behind! To my terror, yet enjoyment; my sliding down in the tub also had resulted in mine and Amy’s groins bumping together! I could feel the bottom of my shaft pressing against her pussy down there under the foamy water surface! I was stuck in place and had no chance to move! Above and around my head were aunt Lily’s huge boobs, my arms were wedged in place between by her thighs; and my legs were firmly held down by both Lily’s and Amy’s legs on top of them. For a short moment I prayed for the slim chance that Amy maybe didn’t notice that something was pressing against her pussy lips. No chance of that, though. Amy had gone very silent all of a sudden. Aunt Lily was shampooing my head and hair between her tits I could feel Amy tilting her pelvis, slowly; up and down the underside of my now pulsating shaft. My eyes stung just a bit. Auntie suggested I close them to avoid further irritation, while she thoroughly scrubbed and massaged my scalp. Auntie passed the shampoo back to Amy, and Amy started on her own long hair and scalp. She began humming ever so softly. But without my vision, all my other senses got much more intense! I could feel the firm embrace I was in by aunt Lily, I could even feel her slippery mound pressing against the middle of my back. It felt like my spine was embedded in between her cunt lips! Maybe auntie was enjoying this also? And I could feel the weight of Amy’s legs pressing down on mine and her pussy sliding slowly up and down along my shaft, in even longer and longer strokes; until I could feel her so high up my shaft that the head of my rock hard cock was sometimes touching her stiff nub! Since my eyes were hard closed I could not see, but from the sounds I heard it seemed like Amy was in her own world, washing her hair above the surface whilst she was rubbing against my pole under it. I guess she was pretending all was normal so auntie wouldn’t notice. But I surely noticed. I was pressed in between two hot ladies cunts! One against my cock and the other pressed against my spine. My head enveloped by aunt Lily’s large, soft, slippery tits! We were all suspiciously quiet for a long time, I had never had anyone wash my hair for that long. But I guess auntie finally got a hold of herself and reached for the shower wand, then showered off the suds in my hair and eyes at last. Then she propped me upward, to a more stable position and that pulled mine and Amy’s flirting groins apart. Which in turn got Amy back to earth also, and she then showered her head off. There were still some suds and bubbles in the tub, but dangerously few, now. I got worried that my stone hard boner was going to be seen by either of my two tub-mates. Amy was first to declare herself washed and finished. As she stood up in front of me, I got a good view of her smooth and glistening pussy, streams of water from her body ran down and formed a little stream that ran from her outer pussy lips, down into the tub. She probably stood there a little longer than necessary, to tease me with what had been rubbing against me underwater, for the last 15 minutes. Once out of the tub, she bent over, legs straight of course; to pick up her towel and I got a good eye of her bulbous pussy from behind. I could not see any inner pussy lips hanging out like one can sometimes see on women in dirty magazines. Here was only a wet, smooth slit going up to the crack of her ass. Perhaps it was due to her very aroused, swollen state? She swiftly wiped her body with the towel and then wrapped the towel around her waist and another towel wrapped her wet hair. Then, in a hurried voice, she said, "I’ll be in my room;” and left, tippy toeing out the bathroom door. I saw that my towel was lying on the floor next to the tub, very close. So I took my chance and grabbed my towel as I maneuvered out of the bath; careful to keep my back towards auntie, so she wouldn't see my rock hard cock, which was standing at full attention. Wrapping the towel around my waist and not turning around I said: "I’ll go finish in my room,” to auntie; and was quickly out of there going to down the hall. "Okay, I’ll just stay in the tub for a while longer.” I heard Lily say, as I slipped out. Back in my room, I shut the door and quickly dried off. Every time I even grazed my boner with the towel I almost came! I had of course, masturbated a few times before, but that feeling was nothing like the pent up energy I had stored in my loins now! But I didn’t dare to rub one off now! As I was feeling there could be huge amounts of cum to squirt and I had nowhere to hide that in here. No paper towels, no trash can; I had to just get my mind out of it. Thinking of baseball. Thinking of rocks, math equations; thinking of coloring crayons; I still had a pretty stiff boner after a while, but at least it was not pulsating and aching anymore. Rendezvous with Amy. As I was sitting on my bed I heard a faint scratching from the wall. Amy's bedroom was just on the other side from my headboard and the scratching was a familiar sign we’d always used earlier summers to call the other, to one’s bedroom at night. Shit. How was I going to handle this now? Just pretend to be asleep? Nah, then she would just come sneaking in here, instead. Okay, think fast now; I tried to put on my briefs. But they were very tight, even without a boner. Damn! I do have a long tee-shirt though! If I keep it pulled down, and if I sit on the bed I could pull up my knees into it and that way not reveal my hard cock. Quickly going through my bag, I tugged out my long tee-shirt and wrangled it on. Just standing up it goes all the way down just below my balls; right now my boner was more 'two o'clock high'; it was very visible, tenting at the shirt's bottom part. But if I hunched forward a little, it showed nothing; that’ll have to do! I opened my bedroom door. The hallway is darkened, but I can hear that aunt Lily is still sloshing around in the bathtub. The bathroom door is a little ajar and the light spills out from there to the beige hallway rug. Carefully closing my door as silently as I could, I then snuck down the hall towards Amy’s bedroom. As I was passing the bathroom; I had noticed that the sloshing sound was very rhythmic. I couldn’t, Not; sneak a peek; Peering in the slightly cracked door, I could see that aunt Lily was lying down in the tub, her head on the same end she had it in, when we were all in there. But now she was sunken down into the tub, so only her head was visible. She was leaned back, eyes closed and mouth slightly opened. The sloshing sound came from her rubbing something just under water level. I knew what was happening here. Aunt had gotten aroused from her clitoris rubbing against my spine, as we were bathing before. And now she needed to finish the job herself! My throbbing hard-on reminded me not to stay here and watch this erotic happening, for too long. Otherwise I would surely not be able to hide it from Amy! Moving along, Amy’s door was cracked. Only a faint light was visible from inside her room. I snuck in, but left the door cracked as it had been. I made a show out of putting my finger to my lips in a motion of silence, also exaggerating my ‘sneaking’ movements and staying hunched so my shirt would cover my hard on that was still there. Amy was in her bed. It was a very girly bed. Huge fluffy cover with white lacing around the edges. She was propped up on her elbow, her wild hair on end from rubbing it dry. She had a lovely, warm smile and only her shoulder and half of her right tit was showing. "Come here” she whispered and waved me towards her. The waving made the bed cover slip down a bit and show more of her lovely tit and giving it an alluring jostle. Hunched down I snuck over to the side of her bed and knelt there, effectively hiding everything below my chest against the bedside. ‘Safe!’ I thought to myself. From out of nowhere, she just asked right out: "Have you ever been with any girls?” I wished that I hadn’t gone silent for too many seconds. I was surprised at the blunt question. And my several seconds of saying nothing was answer enough; so I had to go with, "No.” Amy smiled; "Would you like to?” I nodded, a bit too eagerly. "Do you like honey?” she asked with bright, hopeful eyes. "Of course.” I said; not really understanding the relevance of the question. Until I saw her reach towards her bed table. There was a bear-shaped plastic bottle, half full of honey. She carefully dripped some of the flowing honey onto her right nipple; "Have some;” she said with that enticing smile. I could suddenly see nothing else than her nipple and the honey slowly running down around and from it. I leaned forward, stuck out my tongue and just let the tip touch her tit where the honey had run the farthest. It was awesomely sweet and made even sweeter by Amy's quick inhalation. She liked that, obviously. I went in again, took a longer lick. Again, she gasped a bit and shivered. I got bolder (as my cock also got harder), licking again; and again. Throwing a glance at Amy in between licks; she was leaning her head back and her eyes were closed with her mouth half open, in the same fashion as I had just seen aunt Lily in the bathtub. Finally I just planted my mouth over her tit and licked; and then sucked, until all the honey was gone. Then I leaned back and took a few breaths. Amy pulled down her blanket, revealing her other tit. "Now this one” she said excitedly. She laid down on her back and dripped some honey on her other tit and looked at me expectantly. To reach her other tit, I had to raise myself up and lay my torso over her belly. As I started licking I took a gamble and put my other hand over the tit I had just licked clean. Amy moaned and didn’t seem to mind. Her nipples were now very stiff and protruded. I sucked and licked with long strokes for all that I was worth! Amy was moaning and turning her head from side to side. Eyes closed and breathing heavily. She dripped some more honey on the small pit just below her neck and above the chest. I eagerly licked my way up there and sipped in the honey. She was still having her eyes closed, applying some honey to her lips; I followed. Started licking her lips. She stuck her tongue out. I licked that also. We naturally progressed; engaged in a long deep kiss. Our tongues wrestled each other and explored every crevice of each other's mouths. We broke off the kiss, and I leaned up a little. I was now sitting on the side of Amy’s bed, my pulsating boner still covered by my long tee-shirt though. I realized that I still had both my hands on her tits. I pulled them away. Amy looked me straight in the eye, she was obviously very excited. "Do you like honey?” she asked with her infectious smile. She slowly pulled down her blanket with her feet; I nodded and let out a feeble: "Uh;” She drizzled some honey from the top of her belly and down to her bellybutton. Her blanket pulled down and only exposed her down to the start of her hips. I had zero experience in this sort of thing, but I felt I knew where this was going. I slid down the bed length, one knee on the bed and one on the floor and bent in over her belly and started licking down towards her bellybutton. My cock was now throbbing intensely. As I was getting closer to Amy's belly button I could perceive she was tugging down her blanket more and more with her feet. As I sucked up the last honey from her cute belly, she raised herself up on one elbow and reached down with the little bear shaped honey flask. "Are you ready Darren?” she asked and dripped a hefty amount of honey on top of her trimmed furry mound. I was transfixed to see this. Her lovely, soft pussy lips, the mound above with short curly hairs on top and the golden honey slowly running down into the slit below; I dove in. Not knowing what to do, I trusted my instinct and horniness. My only goal was to let my tongue explore everything it could reach. I heard Amy moan loudly and then I heard her put a hand over her mouth to make less noise. This just egged me on to lick harder and faster; and deeper! Between the sweet taste of honey I could also smell and taste her fresh pussy juices flowing. Soon they became more tempting than the honey. When my tongue hit the right spots within Amy’s cunt lips, a gush of her juices came gushing, again, and again. I lapped everything up like a dog in heat. Amy was moaning and moaning under her hand. Her other hand was grabbing my hair and pushing my face deeper into her opening! Her hips were squirming, and twerking; and finally she pulled my head away from her lovely lower lips. Panting and shaking, she grinned at me with a wide smile. She said; "Phew! I need a break! Your tongue is too good!” Amy grabbed another bottle from her night stand, quickly gave it to me, turned around on her stomach and kicked off the rest of her blanket. I now sat on her bedside with a bottle of baby oil in my hand and Amy’s beautiful back and ass up towards me. I thought my hard on was hard before; it was explosive now! "Can you please give me a back massage, to calm me down?” she said, her voice half muffled in the pillow. I switched positions. Not having to worry about Amy seeing my excited rod now I could position myself more freely. So I sat myself upon her legs, straddling her thighs and applied some baby oil on her back. I Started rubbing it in her shoulders and upper back; as she let out pleasurable moans. As I massaged her mid-back and tried to slide down to catch some of her side boobs Amy said: "You can put your hard todger between my ass cheeks, if you want. I can feel that you are hard already.” I was surprised and embarrassed at the same time. But I wanted nothing more than to let my throbbing cock touch her skin! So I moved up her legs where I could sink down and place my cock along her ass crack. It felt so good! "Put some of the oil on there.” Amy said. I poured a generous amount of the baby oil on my shaft that was firmly placed between her ass cheeks and immediately felt how well it slid now. The back rub/massage became very secondary to me now, and probably for Amy too. The main focus was to slide my, harder-than-ever, cock further in, between her cheeks. It was the greatest feeling ever. I could’ve died then and there, and it had all been worth it, just for that! I used the ‘back rubbing’ of her shoulders just as an excuse to press down even harder on her ass. The baby oil made it totally frictionless. My cock was like in a gravity free zone. Skin against skin. I moved my hips in longer and longer strokes. By mistake I moved down too far and my cock slipped down from her ass crack. As I moved my hips forward again my tipped pressed in between Amy’s wet and slippery cunt lips! Amy let out a little squeak and tensed up. I froze in my tracks! Had I gone too far? My tip was pressing against her cunt hole; "Um; you wanna push it in?” she asked in a flirtatious voice. "Uh;” I mumbled. "Ok, go for it. But; go slowly;” she whispered. Amazing! I was going to lose my virginity in the most sexy girl I had ever seen! From behind no less. My cock was throbbing and I could feel Amy’s swollen cunt lips slightly and slowly letting my tip in. I went as slow as I possibly could. As my cock head burrowed deeper and deeper I could feel her tightness. There was a slight resistance, her opening was slowly opening and I could hear her whimper with lust, with her face buried in the pillow, now. Suddenly she relaxed her cunt muscles and my cock head sank in! I could feel her entrance immediately tense up again and close around the ridge of my crown! I was in! Amy was quivering and breathing heavily! I looked down. Most Of her upper back was covered by her tangled and moist hair, her ass was shining in the light of the lamp on her bedside. Between her ass cheeks I could see my cock, but the top of it was just inside her lovely tunnel! Suddenly - a knock on the door!! "Amy, are you still awake?” Aunt Lily’s voice could be heard as she slowly started opening the door! Amy sprung into action and all of the following happened in less than a half second and with what felt like one superfast swooping move! Amy turned to her side with such force that I fell over towards the side of the bed that was against the wall. She spread her legs and bent her body down to grab the big blanket that she had kicked off earlier. As she bent her body to reach the blanket she pushed me into the wall and my cock sunk in her a good deal deeper than just the tip! She threw the blanket over us and pushed hard back with her hips, sinking me ALL the way in! We were spooning, with Amy now facing the doorway. I thought I fainted and everything went dark! Amy became still. "Yes mommy.” she answered Lily. She had thrown the blanket over us, but her head was still above the covers and she had pressed her body back against mine so I sat in a thigh squeeze between her pussy and the bedroom wall. I was trying to lie dead still and make myself as small as possible under the covers behind Amy! I could feel her inner walls clamping around my pulsating cock shaft, inside her. I was on the brink of cumming; I could hear aunt Lily entering the room, "Hey honey. I was afraid that you might have dozed off before you got your evening milk.” As she sat down on Amy’s bedside the bed rocked and swayed a bit. That little motion was all that was needed to push me over the edge! I clenched my teeth and was totally still in all limbs, apart from one! I was, in all silence, squirting and squirting all of my pent up seed, deep into Amy’s hot cunt! I know that Amy could feel it, because she was clenching full force to try to stop the gushing flow, but that only aroused it even more! "Oh sweetie. You’re looking all flustered! What’s wrong?” auntie asked as she put up her legs (I presumed) and made herself more comfortable in the bed beside Amy. "No, no. I’m fine mommy.” Amy answered. I could hear the strain in her voice since I knew she was now feeling my pumping cock squirting load after load into her, as she was trying to pretend like nothing. "Well, give me some room, it’s time for your evening milk,” auntie said. As aunty Lily made herself comfortable on the old mattress which floated on a coil spring foundation. She laid beside Amy. Now I was pushed even more, into the wall, and Amy to me. I thought I couldn’t penetrate Amy any deeper than I already had; but with auntie's shoving I must’ve pressed in almost another inch into Amy! I nearly fainted. And I could hear Amy also giving out a slight gasp! "Now then, open wide love;” aunt Lily said in a soft voice. I could hear Amy latch on to Lily’s huge tit and let out a satisfied, " Hmm; ” I just lay there, still as a mouse, trying not to breathe even. I was embedded into Amy from behind, to the hilt, as she was suckling milk from aunt Lily’s beautiful big tit. This was the hottest thing I could ever have imagined! Although I had just blasted loads, I could feel myself starting to throb again! Amy was feeling it too; and was timing her pussy contractions to my cock’s throbbing. By the sound of it, she was also keeping the same pace with her milk sucking. "Oh, you’re hungry tonight, Amy.” Lily whispered in a pleased voice. Since we couldn’t move without aunt noticing, this was the best we could do. Amy’s inside muscles were milking my cock at a soft and steady pace and it felt glorious! "I’ll rock you to sleep baby.” Lily said and starting humming on some classic lullaby. Suddenly I could feel Amy’s hips start rocking back and forth! Aunt Lily was humming and rocking Amy, unaware that this just gave us the in and out motion that we very much, enjoyed. To my horror; this movement, combined with all the fluids involved in my penetration, started making a smacking kind of sound! Amy must’ve noticed too and started making similar sucking sounds to cancel out the sound of my rod being pulled out and then pushed in again by auntie’s rocking motion. This only made it even more vivid for me to imagine the image of her sucking on Lily’s tit! I very soon came again into Amy. It was excruciatingly pleasurable this time, since the movement just continued, although I could only wish for a pause. But aunt Lily didn’t know what was going on, down there under the covers; and that her lovely daughter was impaled by me, pumping her full; yet again. This continued until I finally passed out, or fell asleep, with my hard, young cock inside her, without the possibility of escape. To be continued. Based on a post by Guzzler 21, for Sex Stories.

Trump Tries To Tackle Affordability, Hybrids Carry the Month, ChatGPT Hits Code Red

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 3, 2025 10:42

Shoot us a Text.Episode #1210: President Trump moves to unwind fuel-economy rules, hybrids surge while EV sales stumble across major brands, and OpenAI hits “code red” as the AI race heats up.Show Notes with links:The Trump administration is preparing to undo Biden-era fuel economy rules, arguing the standards have inflated new-car prices and forced unwanted EV adoption.Proposed rules expected to significantly soften the Biden-era 2031 target of ~50 mpg.Detroit automaker execs, including Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, will attend Wednesday's announcement.Trump frames the rollback as necessary to reduce vehicle prices, despite economists noting price drops wouldn't be immediate.Trump said he's “bringing back the automobile business,” predicting the industry will be “bigger than we've ever been.”He noted he likes EVs and believes hybrids “are working really well,” but defended ending what he called the “insane electric vehicle mandate” to ensure buyers “have a choice.”November delivered a clear message from American shoppers: hybrids are in, EVs… not so much. Across Toyota, Ford, Honda, Hyundai and Kia, strong hybrid gains couldn't offset steep EV drop-offs after the loss of federal tax credits—shaking up sales trends as dealers prep for year-end pushes.Toyota sales rose 2.7%, powered by light trucks, but EV volume cratered; electrified sales (mostly hybrids) still made up 44% of all deliveries.Ford deliveries dipped 0.7% as F-150 Lightning sales fell 72% and Mustang Mach-E dropped 49%, while hybrids climbed 14%.Honda sales slid 15% on semiconductor shortages; EVs collapsed—Prologue down 87% and ZDX down 98%.Hyundai-Kia stayed mixed: Hyundai down 2.3% as EV demand tanked again, Kia up 2.7% on strong hybrids and core crossovers.“With more tariffed products replacing existing nontariffed inventory, prices are drifting higher, leading to slower sales… and this may last through the remainder of the year and into next year,” said Cox Automotive's Charlie Chesbrough.OpenAI is hitting the panic button—literally—declaring a “code red” to overhaul ChatGPT's quality as Google's Gemini surge and Anthropic's business traction close the gap. With massive data-center spending, user expectations rising, and now early signs of ads coming to ChatGPT, the pressure is officially on.Sam Altman told staff OpenAI is pausing other projects to focus entirely on ChatGPT's speed, reliability, personalization, and question-handling, including starting a daily call for those responsible for improving ChatGPT.Competitor pressure is mounting: Google's latest Gemini model beat OpenAI onJoin Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/ JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

REMEMBERING JELLYBEAN JOHNSON - Morris Day and The Time (Drummer) - Prologue by LESTER TROUTMAN, SR. (Zapp Band drummer) and RICK FLYNN -- Ep. 261

Rick Flynn Presents

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 3, 2025 93:32

REMEMBERING JELLYBEAN JOHNSON (Morris Day and The Time drummer)1956 - 2025with Prologue by Zapp Band drummer LESTER TROUTMAN, SR. and RICK FLYNNThis is a very special edition of the podcast RICK FLYNN PRESENTS as we celebrate the homegoing of one of the "Good Guys in Show Business," to say the very least,JELLYBEAN JOHNSON.As the drummer for THE TIME, Johnson worked alongside famed producers ⁠ Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis⁠ and recorded with and/or produced many notable artists including ⁠ Alexander O'Neal⁠, ⁠Cherrelle⁠, ⁠New Edition⁠, and ⁠Janet Jackson⁠, with whom he had the 1990 No. 1 single, "Black Cat".Jellybean appeared in the PRINCE movies “Purple Rain” and Graffiti Bridge"Quote From Cincinnati DJ/Emcee RICK FLYNN on 11/25/2025:“I first met Jellybean Johnson in Cincinnati, Ohio during the PRINCE “Controversy Tour” in which I was an emcee. This tour featured the headliner PRINCE and, in the middle slot, was a Greater Cincinnati area band called “ZAPP FEATURING ROGER” and the then, largely unknown local Minneapolis band, known as MORRIS DAY and THE TIME which featured Jellybean Johnson on the drums. I was instantly impressed by the raw talent and showmanship of, not only Jellybean, but of the whole organization. This man was someone I was fortunate to have met and I have never forgotten the experience ever! The resulting popularity and huge success of THE TIME band to follow did not surprise me at all. They deserved it and I will forever miss “Bean” but I will never, ever forget the times I spent with him.” Thank-you MARTY for all you have done and my God bless you both!Thank-you to my brother and ZAPP BAND drummer LESTER TROUTMAN, SR. for your gracious contribution to this memorial show. i hope you all enjoy it as we proudly remember and pay tribute to what I call "One of the Good Guys in Show Business"JELLYBEAN JOHNSON!

Ep 1 Brimstone: Prologue - Chapter 5

Fantasy Fangirls

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2025 157:25

SPOILERS FOR ALL FAE & ALCHEMY SERIES Callie Hart's Brimstone is FINALLY here, and Nicole & Lexi are ready to dive deeeeeep into the Prologue - Chapter 5! In this episode, Saeris is trying to adjust to her new body, survive the absolute chaos that is the Vampire Court, and endure a coronation that goes… horribly wrong. Oh, and did we mention the new, seemingly invincible bad guys who just entered the chat? This episode has it ALL.Shop at https://REVOLVE.com/FANTASY and use code FANTASY for 15% off your first order. #REVOLVEpartnerBonus Chapters:The Gate Pt 1+2, The Fox, The Boots, The Dress: https://calliehart.com/kingfisher/ The Maze: In the back of the new hardback and in the ebook Orlena: In the UK Waterstones deluxe editionCheck out our recent sponsors: https://www.fantasyfangirls.com/sponsorsJoin the FanClub: https://fantasyfangirls.com/fanclubShop our merch: https://fantasyfangirls.myshopify.com/Support the show through our Amazon Shop: https://www.amazon.com/shop/fantasyfangirlspodcastNewsletter: https://fantasyfangirls.com/newsletterWebsite: https://www.fantasyfangirls.com/ Upcoming events:* A Solstice Soirée — Holiday Party + ACOTAR Trivia - SOLD OUT Fantasy Fangirls Charity Live Stream - 12/29The Dreamers & Readers Festival - Use code FFG for a discount off your ticket!The Dragon Gauntlet - Chapter 3: Use code FFG15 at checkout to get $15 OFF!*For all Event Discounts - go to https://fantasyfangirls.supercast.com/subscriber_v2/posts/6891Listen now:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/24KydMMzrYfVpDggkFZx4j?si=fd7dc956393041b8Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-fangirls/id1706179464YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fantasyfangirlsFollow us:Instagram: @fantasyfangirlspod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@fantasyfangirlspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Weekly Prologue - Finishing Off Some End of Year Games

Oasis Church Waterloo podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2025 44:50

Welcome to The Testing Room where three of the gaming industry's best consultants (to never consult on a game) get together to talk about the games this week. This week Alex finishes Metal Gear Solid Delta, Christian finishes Dispatch, Preston tries out Absolum and more! Don't forget to send comments and questions to testingroompod@gmail.com or comment down below. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitch @ twitch.tv/testingroomlive and watch on YouTube @ youtube.com/@thetestingroom

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Advent Series: Women of the Nativity, Part 1: The Prologue

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2025 30:51

Paula Gooder launches our Advent Series by introducing us the 'Women of the Nativity', based on her book by the same name. Paula invites us to think about the named women we know well, the named women we don't know too much about and the unnamed or unnoticed women who were also present at the Nativity. During Advent we hope to get to know some of these women a little better.

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197) The Avatamsaka Sutra - Prologue - 20251128

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2025 97:55

The Lord of the Rings (Holiday Interlude Part 1) - Seers See

Fringe Radio Network

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2025 16:51 Transcription Available

Welcome to a special Holiday Interlude of the Seers See Podcast: Seers See the Lord of the Rings.In this mini-season, Doug explores how J.R.R. Tolkien's world can retrain us to think supernaturally—helping modern readers recover the enchanted, pre-materialistic imagination that both Tolkien and Scripture assume.Episode 1 lays out the purpose of the series:- Why Tolkien helps us reawaken a supernatural worldview- How The Lord of the Rings subtly reveals unseen spiritual forces- Why Dr. Cory Olsen (The Tolkien Professor) inspired this approach- How this mini-season bridges into Season 2: Seers of the Bible with Emily in 2026If you've ever wanted to see the spiritual dimension within Tolkien's world—and recognize similar patterns in our own—this episode is your invitation to step through the door and into the unseen realm of Middle-earth.In this opening episode of our Holiday Interlude, Doug explains why Tolkien is the perfect guide for anyone seeking to understand the supernatural world. Tolkien writes with a medieval imagination—a worldview where spiritual beings, providence, enchantment, corruption, and hidden powers operate behind the visible world.Drawing on insights from Dr. Cory Olsen, “The Tolkien Professor,” Doug shows how The Lord of the Rings trains modern readers to notice the spiritual activity Tolkien shows but never over-explains.This approach mirrors how Scripture invites us to recognize unseen forces shaping events, identity, and calling.This episode sets the stage for the mini-season, which will explore:- The Ring Poem (Episode 2)- The Prologue as ancient historiography (Episode 3)- Gandalf's spiritual authority, providence, and the Nazgûl (Episode 4)- Tom Bombadil, nature spirits, singing as spiritual warfare, Caradhras, and moreJoin us as we rediscover the supernatural imagination Tolkien intended—and learn to see the world around us with new eyes.

Weekly Prologue - Arc Raiders Impressions

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Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2025 65:40

Welcome to The Testing Room where three of the gaming industry's best consultants (to never consult on a game) get together to talk about the games this week. This week we talk about our time with Arc Raiders, Alex plays a bunch of Ball x Pit, Christian starts up Dispatch, Preston catches up Jedi Fallen Order and more! Don't forget to send comments and questions to testingroompod@gmail.com or comment down below. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitch @ twitch.tv/testingroomlive and watch on Spotify or YouTube @ youtube.com/@thetestingroom

Prologue

DJ Homewrecker

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 24, 2025 61:37

Prologue by DJ Homewrecker

prologue

196) The Avatamsaka Sutra - Prologue - 20251121

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2025 99:16

Podcast – ProgRock.com PodCasts

Fusion Plus w/ Dave – Episode #149 (“marathon 3rd anniversary edition”) – 21 Nov 2025

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2025 497:48

Artist Track Time Album Year Steve Morse Band featuring John Petrucci Triangulation (feat. John Petrucci) 4:49 Triangulation 2025 Snarky Puppy w/Metropole Orkest Chimera 8:32 Somni 2025 Lu7 Tokiwokoetesoranikaeri 11:43 Azurite Dance 2018 Lyle Workman North Star 9:13 Uncommon Measures 2021 Nankai Trio Battle on Southern Sea 6:46 Antarctica 2025 Casiopea Trance Evolution 7:30 Flowers 1996 Dimension Impressions 7:54 Live 2005 Impressions Tour 2005 Fibonacci Sequence Faunus 11:08 Numerology 2010 Simon Phillips The Long Road Home 11:15 Protocol V 2022 Kenso Echi dal Foro Romano 9:26 Live at NEARFest 2005 2005 T-Square Eternal Glory 5:46 Paradise 2015 Stevie Wonder Another Star 7:53 Songs in the Key of Life 1976 Stevie Wonder As 7:08 Songs in the Key of Life 1976 Jean-Luc Ponty As 5:44 Mystical Adventures 1981 Rie a.k.a. Suzaku Noah’s Ark – Prologue – 1:18 Noah’s Ark 2015 Rie a.k.a. Suzaku Noah’s Ark 10:03 Noah’s Ark 2015 Rie a.k.a. Suzaku Noah’s Ark – Epilogue – 2:40 Noah’s Ark 2015 Uzeb Reunion (Mr. Bill / Wake Up Call / Funkaleon) 13:00 R3union 2019 Ramsey Lewis My Love Will Lead You Home 6:03 Keys To The City 1987 Dezolve Voyage of Altair 8:27 10th Anniversary Concert 2025 Adachi Kumi – Club Pangaea X-Wing Fighter 5:27 Winners! 2008 Jeff Beck Scatterbrain 5:27 Blow by Blow 1975 Senri Kawaguchi Scatterbrain 7:33 BeeHive Session 2011 2011 Allen Hinds The Good Fight 5:24 The Good Fight 2024 Masato Honda & B.B. Station Condolence 6:55 B.B.Station Live At Roppongi PIT INN 1998 Duane Betts and Friends Jessica 10:10 In Memory of Dickey Betts, Macon GA 2/28/25 2025 The Aristocrats The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde 9:15 The Aristocrats with Primuz Chamber Orchestra 2022 Level 42 Something About You 4:13 World Machine 1985 Swing Out Sister Twilight World 6:18 It’s Better To Travel 1987 Dimension I Will 7:02 Live 2012 – 20th Anniversary 2012 Jazz Avengers Why Not 12:03 Live at Forest Blue 10/17/24 2024 Steps Ahead Beirut 8:09 Magnetic 1986 T-Square Rise (Live 2023) 8:37 45th Anniversary Concert – WOWOW Version 2023 Dream Theater Odyssey 7:32 Black Clouds & Silver Linings 2009 Ikejirike w/Rie a.k.a. Suzaku & Senri Kawaguchi Breaking the Limit 6:24 Instrumental Summit Vol. 35 Ladies Night 2023 Gamalon Aerial View 7:18 Aerial View 1990 Skywalk The Torchbearer 6:19 The Bohemians 1986 Keiko Matsui Bridge Over The Stars 4:24 Keiko Matsui Live 1999 Kazumi Watanabe Yenshu Tsubame Gaeshi 6:37 Mobo I & II 1984 Return To Forever The Romantic Warrior 10:44 Romantic Warrior 1976 Pat Metheny Group The First Circle 8:56 We Live Here – Live in Japan 1995 KBB Shironiji 10:02 Four Corner’s Sky 2003 T-Square The Seven Wonders 7:54 NHK Session ’98 1998 Takashi Masuzaki / Sara Wakui Fly Like the Wind 8:23 YouTube rip 2022 T-Square Kaikiboshi 5:59 Live at KT Zepp Yokohama 5/23/21 2021 Mana Iwanaga Chapter 2 6:58 Chapter 2 2019 Return To Forever Medieval Overture 5:10 Romantic Warrior 1976 Nankai Trio No Control 6:26 Antarctica 2025 Stanley Clarke Life Is Just A Game 8:50 School Days 1976 KIYO * SEN 2B Out Break 4:16 Trick or Treat 2016 Pat Metheny Group As It Is 8:02 Live on Austin City Limits 2003 2003 Phil Collins Big Band The Los Endos Suite 9:20 Montreux Jazz Festival 1996 1996 Casiopea 3rd & Inspirits Days of Future 7:21 Both Anniversary CD-4010 2017 Dezolve Distance to the Light 8:15 10th Anniversary Concert 2025 Dixie Dregs Cruise Control 13:59 Bring ‘Em Back Alive 1992 Ars Nova Tarkus 12:13 Keyboards Triangle 1999 Edgar Winter & Rick Derringer Frankenstein 14:05 Live In Japan 1990

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The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Jerusalem

Saint of the Day

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2025

When the holy and most pure child Mary (Mariam or Miriam in Hebrew) reached the age of three, her parents, the righteous Joachim and Anna, fulfilled the vow they had made to dedicate her to God. Going in procession with a company of maidens carrying torches, they presented their child at the Temple in Jerusalem, where Zecharias the High Priest took her under his care, blessing her with these words: "The Lord has glorified thy name in every generation; it is in thee that He will reveal the Redemption that he has prepared for his people in the last days." He then brought the child into the Holy of Holies — something completely unheard-of, for under the Law only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy Place, and he only once a year on the Day of Atonement. (In the icon of the feast, the maidens who accompany the Theotokos are shown bare-headed, as was customary for unmarried girls; but the Theotokos herself, though only three years old, wears the head-covering of a married woman to show her consecration to God.) The holy Virgin lived in the Temple for the next nine years, devoting herself entirely to prayer. In this time she attained the utter purity of heart befitting the destined Bearer of the Most High; she became in her own person the fulfilment and condensation of all of Israel's faithfulness. Saint Gregory Palamas says that, when the Theotokos entered the Holy of Holies, the time of preparation and testing of the Old Covenant came to an end for Israel, which was now ready, in the blessed Virgin, to bring forth the Savior. When Mary approached marriageable age, she was entrusted to the chaste widower Joseph to guard her. (The Prologue says that a life of intentional virginity was unknown among the Hebrews, so the righteous Joseph undertook the forms of marriage so as not to cause scandal among the people.) "Wherefore the Church rejoices and exhorts all the friends of God for their part to enter into the temple of their heart, there to make ready for the coming of the Lord by silence and prayer, withdrawing from the pleasures and cares of this world." (Synaxarion)

The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Jerusalem

Saint of the Day

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2025

When the holy and most pure child Mary (Mariam or Miriam in Hebrew) reached the age of three, her parents, the righteous Joachim and Anna, fulfilled the vow they had made to dedicate her to God. Going in procession with a company of maidens carrying torches, they presented their child at the Temple in Jerusalem, where Zecharias the High Priest took her under his care, blessing her with these words: "The Lord has glorified thy name in every generation; it is in thee that He will reveal the Redemption that he has prepared for his people in the last days." He then brought the child into the Holy of Holies — something completely unheard-of, for under the Law only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy Place, and he only once a year on the Day of Atonement. (In the icon of the feast, the maidens who accompany the Theotokos are shown bare-headed, as was customary for unmarried girls; but the Theotokos herself, though only three years old, wears the head-covering of a married woman to show her consecration to God.) The holy Virgin lived in the Temple for the next nine years, devoting herself entirely to prayer. In this time she attained the utter purity of heart befitting the destined Bearer of the Most High; she became in her own person the fulfilment and condensation of all of Israel's faithfulness. Saint Gregory Palamas says that, when the Theotokos entered the Holy of Holies, the time of preparation and testing of the Old Covenant came to an end for Israel, which was now ready, in the blessed Virgin, to bring forth the Savior. When Mary approached marriageable age, she was entrusted to the chaste widower Joseph to guard her. (The Prologue says that a life of intentional virginity was unknown among the Hebrews, so the righteous Joseph undertook the forms of marriage so as not to cause scandal among the people.) "Wherefore the Church rejoices and exhorts all the friends of God for their part to enter into the temple of their heart, there to make ready for the coming of the Lord by silence and prayer, withdrawing from the pleasures and cares of this world." (Synaxarion)

Narrative Lectionary 648 (NL416): Word Made Flesh - December 21, 2025

WorkingPreacher.org Narrative Lectionary

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2025 12:41

Join hosts Rolf Jacobson, Kathryn Schifferdecker, and Craig Koester as they explore John's magnificent prologue for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21st). This episode examines one of Scripture's most eloquent passages - the opening 18 verses of John's Gospel that present a cosmic perspective on the incarnation.The hosts dive deep into the poetic and hymnic qualities of John's prologue, contrasting its cosmic, awe-inspiring message with the traditional nativity narratives. Rather than focusing on shepherds and mangers, this passage presents the Word becoming flesh in ethereal, almost haunting language that integrates both mind and heart.This episode unpacks the multi-dimensional concept of "zoe" (life) in Greek, which encompasses physical existence, relational connection with God, communal belonging, and resurrection promise. The hosts trace how this theme of life runs throughout John's entire Gospel - from "God so loved the world" in John 3:16 to Jesus declaring "I am the way, the truth, and the life."The discussion explores the profound imagery of light and darkness, emphasizing how people are naturally drawn to the light of Christmas Eve candles as an embodiment of humanity's deep longing for relationship with God. As Augustine wrote, "You have created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."TIMECODES:00:00 Introduction to the Prologue of John's Gospel02:52 The Cosmic Perspective of Jesus' Significance06:06 Exploring the Theme of Life in John's Gospel08:50 The Multidimensional Nature of Life12:07 The Relationship Between Humanity and the Divine

god jesus christ gospel scripture greek christmas eve exploring prologue fourth sunday word made flesh advent december cosmic perspective narrative lectionary rolf jacobson craig koester kathryn schifferdecker

Narrative Lectionary 648 (NL416): Word Made Flesh - December 21, 2025

WorkingPreacher.org Narrative Lectionary

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2025 12:41

Join hosts Rolf Jacobson, Kathryn Schifferdecker, and Craig Koester as they explore John's magnificent prologue for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21st). This episode examines one of Scripture's most eloquent passages - the opening 18 verses of John's Gospel that present a cosmic perspective on the incarnation. The hosts dive deep into the poetic and hymnic qualities of John's prologue, contrasting its cosmic, awe-inspiring message with the traditional nativity narratives. Rather than focusing on shepherds and mangers, this passage presents the Word becoming flesh in ethereal, almost haunting language that integrates both mind and heart. This episode unpacks the multi-dimensional concept of "zoe" (life) in Greek, which encompasses physical existence, relational connection with God, communal belonging, and resurrection promise. The hosts trace how this theme of life runs throughout John's entire Gospel - from "God so loved the world" in John 3:16 to Jesus declaring "I am the way, the truth, and the life." The discussion explores the profound imagery of light and darkness, emphasizing how people are naturally drawn to the light of Christmas Eve candles as an embodiment of humanity's deep longing for relationship with God. As Augustine wrote, "You have created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." TIMECODES: 00:00 Introduction to the Prologue of John's Gospel 02:52 The Cosmic Perspective of Jesus' Significance 06:06 Exploring the Theme of Life in John's Gospel 08:50 The Multidimensional Nature of Life 12:07 The Relationship Between Humanity and the Divine

god jesus christ gospel scripture greek christmas eve exploring significance prologue fourth sunday word made flesh advent december cosmic perspective narrative lectionary rolf jacobson craig koester kathryn schifferdecker

Preview | Missing in Hush Town Season 2: Bethany Markowski || The Prologue

Weird True Crime

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2025 9:29 Transcription Available

Preview | Missing in Hush Town Season 2: Bethany Markowski || The PrologueListen to the first six episodes to the second season of the award-nominated podcast, Missing in Hush Town, now wherever you get podcasts. Bethany Markowski allegedly went missing from a Jackson, TN shopping mall on March 04, 2001, when her father claims he allowed the 11 year old to go into the mall alone while he took a nap in his van in the parking lot.Bethany was never seen or heard from again- nor was she ever seen on any of the mall security footage.Where is Bethany Markowski?Fire Eyes Media LLC & MomCast Productions Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weird-true-crime--5679751/support.

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Exclusive: Listen to "The Traitors Circle" - Author's Note and Prologue

Unholy: Two Jews on the news

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2025 17:33

Get an exclusive peek into Jonathan's new book, The Traitors Circle, including the Author's Note and Prologue.You can order your copy here: https://linktr.ee/JonathanFreedland Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer's afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador's widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer's rule. Or so they believe.How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich's cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Weekly Prologue - Steam Machine