Are the angels allowed to engage in political activity?

Yes.  Even in TBAA they could.  Chaining yourself to a tree is a political act (Monica in "Lady of the Lake").  I also think clapping after "Strange Fruit" is a political act.  What I don't think they can do is light up in the middle of a protest and say "I am an angel sent by God and Politician X is bad!"  In other words, they can act as private individuals but not position themselves as representatives of Heaven... which is actually how my workplace handles this issue.  We can do whatever we want politically on our own time.  But we can't be like "Hi, my name is Jenni and at my workplace, we believe X sucks."  

Even if TBAA hadn't set the precedent, I think because of the directions in which I took the characters, political neutrality would be impossible.  I'll use Andrew as an example.  One of his kids is an immigrant (Avi).  One of his kids has a potentially disabling medical condition (Belle, like JenniAnn, has epilepsy).  One of his kids is queer (Shelby).  And one of his kids is a veteran (Max).  These are all identities that, at one point or another, the current regime has harmed.  So, yeah, he's going to have some political beliefs and he's going to act on those beliefs on his own time.  That doesn't mean he's gonna walk off the case if he shows up at a deathbed and a MAGA hat is present.  It does mean he can walk around a rally with a "Free Dad Hugs" rainbow poster.  And that's to say nothing of the fact that, while he is definitely not American, Andrew is a lot closer to the events of America's founding than most of the human characters.  So he's going to have some feelings about the direction the country is going.

I also think the angels are free to be as open as they please with the Friends.  Yes, they know they're angels and that carries some moral weight.  But I also think it would be weird for God to not allow the angels to be open and honest with their friends, especially when they're spending hours upon hours in a day with them as when St. G's is in rehearsal.

What about the resurrected spirits?

Even when they're not physically present, I like to think it's like the end of the Les Miserables film.  Valjean dies and, the way it's shot, he just walks through a mere wall which separates France from New France aka the heavenly France.  And we see that the deceased characters are still very active, very much involved.  So I believe that the saints are politically active in their own way.  

And if Cephas or Maryam or whomever happens to be around on a rally day, I see no reason why they wouldn't be able to participate.  I'm sure Joshua does and I doubt he'd forbid them from doing something he intends to do.  But, again, not even Joshua is gonna do a big show where he starts glowing and declares himself.  Free will still matters.  

Would God ever send an angel on an assignment that challenged their political worldview?

Sure.  With limits... and depending on what their viewpoint was.  And, to be clear, I think any angel with a completely off-base political worldview would be kept in Heaven til they got their head on straight.  One of my main gripes with the later seasons of TBAA is I don't think it should have been on humans to deal with Gloria's initial naivete and, frankly, stupidity.  I don't think God would ever send an angel out with such half-baked ideas... or at least not spring them on the general public.  I think leaving Violeta with JenniAnn for a while was fine.  JenniAnn knew how to deal with her and guide her.  A random person on a park bench shouldn't have to deal with that nonsense. 

Even with near-saintly Andrew, I think God takes some pleasure in challenging him.  Andrew's confessed to getting a little judgy about sex outside of marriage/committed relationship.  And then he eventually realized that he had no reason to believe he would have been so good at waiting if he'd been born with a sex drive.  And I do think realizations like that have an impact on our political worldviews.

What I do think God does somewhat regularly is give angels assignments that might be especially difficult because of their worldview.  Not in the sense that they challenge their worldview but more in the sense that it hits awfully close to home for them.  And, in Andrew's case, whether he gets assignments like that or not I think often comes down to some mysterious calculation that God does to determine 1. whether Andrew can handle it without a complete breakdown and 2. whether JenniAnn can handle the aftermath when Andrew finishes the assignment.  Because there are going to be many cases when Andrew will be the best candidate because of his status as a father and anam cara.  But what makes him so good for the assignment would also make it hard for him personally.  I do think God wants Andrew to be open and honest with him when the balance is off... and God is maybe challenging him now to push him to that.

Are any of the Friends Republicans?

I'm sure.  I don't really assign party affiliations to them.  But I do think that having met Joshua and Co., they are all united in their belief that the current regime does not represent the values espoused by Joshua or the early Church.  I think it's possible some of them voted for the current president the first time around.  I do not think any of them voted for him the second time and I know none of them voted for him the third time.  I think the social cohesion among the Friends is so strong that they're not going to vote for someone who has mocked and/or discriminated against veterans, disabled people, queer people, Middle Eastern people, Black people, immigrants, etc. because those people are their friends (and their God is even some of those things).  Even on an issue like abortion where some of them might be against it, they're going to look at how anti-abortion laws impact infertility care since some of the Friends have faced that.  They're also going to look and pay attention to how Joshua treats people.  For example, they know that their rendition of the Beloved Disciple is an openly gay man: Shane.  So that's definitely going to impact how they see gay people and make them want to do right by them.

And it's not that any of them think the Democrats are saintly people who do everything right.  I'm sure any number of them could list off policies of Democratic presidents that fell well short of Joshua's ideals.  But I think, like Joshua, they are realists.  They wouldn't just sit elections out because no one is perfect because they know darn well that the only perfect person is most definitely NOT running for a government job.  So, in every race, they have to look at the net positive and the net negative and make a choice.  And if neither of the main candidates in a given race is at all promising, there's always third party candidates or a protest write-in candidate.  And, yeah, I'm sure at some point one of them probably has written in Joshua's name just cause they weren't happy with their options.  But what I don't think they do is just not vote.  It's important for their kids to see that civic engagement is good.

And now...



July is Disability Pride Month and as someone with a disability (epilepsy), I wanted to mark the occasion by discussing some tropes.  One important note: having a facial difference is not necessarily a disability.  However, I am mentioning characters with facial differences a few times here given, because of how some in society view them, they do face some of the same challenges disabled people often do.

Abandon the Disabled- This first comes up in "The Carpenter" when Kylie and Adam are researching the ancient Romans.  Kylie reads a passage in which a Roman urges his wife to abandon their unborn child if she is a girl.  Kylie is, understandably, horrified.  Adam is, too, of course, but he already knows that happened.  Because Kylie is already so distressed, Adam doesn't divulge that disabled babies of any sex were also left to die.  But we later get an example of this in Yemimah who is found by the apostles, abandoned by her Roman parents, with a cleft lip.  Mary's heart goes out to her and she asks Yeshua to heal the baby.  He does so, leaving only a thin, white scar where the cleft had been.  Mary adopts Yemimah who goes onto live a full and healthy life until her martyrdom.  Sadly, history sometimes repeats itself.  In "Tidings of Comfort and Joy," Jacob is abandoned as a baby, potentially because of his cleft lip.  Thankfully, Catherine and Vincent are very happy to adopt him.

This trope is averted by Vincent and Avi.  Vincent grew up believing he was abandoned outside of St. Vincent's Hospital because of his condition.  However, in "Origins" he learns that he was actually a much wanted and beloved child.  His mother, Cora, simply had a medical emergency that forced her to set him down.  She fully intended to come back but faints and by the time she wakes up, a Tunnel dweller had already taken baby Vincent Below.  Similarly, Avi also seems to be abandoned but, in reality, his birth mother, Vonnie, is simply too young and inexperienced to care for any baby, let alone one with special needs.  However, she keeps an eye on him to be sure he's found.  Later, she returns hoping to learn he's alive and well.  And, of course, she learns that Andrew and JenniAnn had adopted him and she can now see him whenever she wants.

Lor, Vincent's father, is a complicated case.  He was technically abandoned by his birth mother, Maureen, but she clearly grieves him later on.  Most likely she felt she had to leave him in the care of a local preacher and his wife because her abusive husband would have made the boy's life hell had he allowed him to live at all.

Blind and the Beast- I am not responsible for this one.  But this is how Vincent and Catherine met in the series.  She was brutally attacked and her face was cut up.  When Father bandaged her up, he wrapped the bandages around her eyes so she was effectively blind for the first few days of her and Vincent's friendship. 

Caregiver Angst- A fairly mild version of this occurs in "A Thousand Years."  After Andrew's traumatic brain injury has drained him of energy and left him experiencing intermittent dizziness, JenniAnn begins to feel romantically frustrated since canoodling is off the table.  Andrew is also frustrated by this.  They aren't frustrated with each other, though, just the whole situation. 

Disability Distress- I think the clearest example of this is in "The Carpenter" with Clay.  He's not very friendly because no one treats him the same as they used to since he was severely burned while serving in the military in Iraq.  He specifically mentions people visiting the veterans' hospital but deliberately skipping by his room when they see him.  Thankfully, Joshua is determined to get him back into society... which is a very good thing because otherwise he wouldn't have met his anam caras, Kylie and Adam.

While no examples immediately come to mind, I'm sure I've written bits where JenniAnn is worn down and annoyed about it following a seizure.  I know I've definitely voiced my own frustration about the same in  various newsletter intros. 

Andrew repeatedly gets frustrated with his condition in "A Thousand Years" and is particularly bothered by the possibility of it altering his and JenniAnn's blessing ceremony.

Disability Immunity- Another inherited trope.  In Beauty and the Beast, Vincent was much stronger than the average person.  Additionally, he had innate immunity to the plague and, assumedly, other viruses and diseases given he's never depicted as physically ill.  So I extended this to Avi and Lor.

Disabled Character, Disabled Actor- How about Disabled Character, Disabled Author?  JenniAnn and I have the same type of epilepsy which Belle also has.

Disabled in the Adaption- Andrew, actually.  In TBAA's run, of the main trio, Andrew was the only one to never get sick or be disabled in any way.  Monica went blind and got amnesia.  Tess developed Alzheimer's.  Andrew was just fine.  In the stories, Andrew has had traumatic brain injury twice.  And while it was healed both times, I wouldn't be surprised if it weighs on him and JenniAnn that it was considerably worse the second time and so if it happens again...  Additionally, I think we're still seeing the lingering effects of PTSD both from those two occurrences but also other life events including when JenniAnn was shot.

Fictional Disability- While I think it's possible that Lor's, Vincent's, and Avi's condition could result in the combination of a couple known conditions (namely hypertrichosis and cleft lip), I think once we add in the increased muscle strength, limited ESP, and natural immunity to conditions most of us are not immune to, we're probably talking about a completely fictional condition. 

Keeping the Handicap- I think all of the characters know they could ask Joshua to be healed.  Yes, they know it causes him momentary weakness but I don't think that's what's stopping them.  JenniAnn keeps her epilepsy because she knows that she's not always the best about slowing down when she needs to rest and the seizures may be acting as something like emergency shut-off valves.  This is actually how I view my epilepsy.  My family has a history of cardiac issues and yet, thus far, I've avoided them and I partly credit that to my epilepsy forcing me to just crash some days.   I can't remember for sure but I think Clay has deliberately said he wanted to keep his scars. 

Good Scars, Evil Scars- Subverted.  Several characters have minor scars and/or scars that they can usually cover including by not limited to Catherine, JenniAnn, Joccy, Emma, and Andrew.  Clay is significantly scarred but is a really great guy.  Joshua is also severely scarred but his scars are seldom on display as they would beg too many questions.  But, needless to say, he is literally the best guy.  Assumedly, most of the apostles also have some scarring but, again, those aren't usually visible.  I can't actually think of any bad characters who have scars.

Masking the Deformity- Vincent sometimes wears a hooded cloak to obscure his face.

And that's where I'll end it for now.


This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for helping to remind us all that everyone is a beloved child of God.

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