Who Sinned - And Other Bad Questions

Rev. Debbie Cato
John 9:1-41
Fairfield Community Church
March 19 , 2023 

God of Good news, there is reading your Word, there is hearing your Word, and then there is tunneling ourselves into your Word— harvesting your Word, building a home in your Word, wrapping ourselves in your Word, knowing your Word like the back of our hand, and planting ourselves like a garden in your Word. God, we could listen to scripture like we listen to the news, or we could cocoon ourselves in your Word and it could change us entirely. So bundle us up. Give us the latter. We want to know you. With hopeful hearts we pray,  Amen

 

Who Sinned – and Other Bad Questions

 

There is no such thing as a dumb question.  How many times have you heard that?  I’ve said it myself many, many times.  Whenever I’m teaching or leading a Bible study.  There’s no such thing as a dumb question.  And that’s true.  I hold fast to that.  When you are learning, everything is open for questioning, for asking, for seeking.  How will you know if you don’t ask?  But as we learn in today’s scripture passage, there can be bad questions. 

When it comes to faith, questions that are formed by assumptions, questions that lead us to judgment or isolation, are bad questions. When Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind man along the way, the disciples immediately ask, “Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" They ask a bad question. Their question assumes that illness and disability are the result of sin; who sinned, the man himself or his parents?  Their question assumes that the man deserved to be born blind; it assumes that physical blindness is a form of failure.[1]

This scripture passage challenges us to see the world as God does, rather than from a normal human perspective. To see things as God does is an essential part of being God's people in the world. This sounds well and good, but to see as God does encounters the two dangers of audacity and futility. Who in their right mind would be so rash as to claim to share God's perspective? And on the other hand, who isn't aware of how many ways our perspectives are shaped, limited, and compromised? To see like God does requires radical vision correction, for God doesn't look at the world like we do.[2] And thank goodness for that!

1 Samuel 16:7 says, “… for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  God sees the humanity, not just a single thing about a person.

This passage in John tells of the healing of a beggar who was born blind. Jesus spits on the ground and with his spit he makes mud, smears it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go to the pool and wash the mud off.  When he does, the man can see.  He is no longer blind.  What a miracle! 

But the details of the miracle itself are only about a third of the narrative. Most of the story revolves around the disputes that the miracle provokes, and how different people draw different conclusions even though they all see the same thing.

Dan Clendenin, a scholar says, “There are so many fascinating details in this story that merit attention: precise descriptions about spit, mud, and the interrogation of parents that characterize an eyewitness account; the disinterest about Jesus on the part of the blind man who received the miracle; the inexcusably cruel insinuation by the disciples that the beggar's blindness was an act of divine punishment; the inherent skepticism and suspicion surrounding the plausibility of a genuine miracle; the complex factors that can prevent a true miracle from eliciting genuine faith; and the interactions among the characters in the larger drama — Jesus, his disciples, the blind beggar, his parents, the religious elite, and even the larger community.”[3]

You see, the professional clergy make all the wrong moves in this story. They refuse to believe eye-witness accounts of the miracle. They are more concerned at maintaining ritual morality about Sabbath-keeping than to love another human being and rejoice in his wholeness. They blabber pious cliches. They scapegoat the victim and "hurl insults" at him. They condescendingly claim a spiritual exclusiveness that intentionally humiliates the beggar. They demonize him as a "sinner." They throw him out of the synagogue. All their actions and words confirm their own tragic blindness.  We learn that it was their spiritual blindness, and not the physical blindness of the beggar, that is really the central plot of the story.[4] This.  This is what we are supposed to learn.  How are we spiritually blind?  H0w and where and when do we need our eyes opened?

The passage today uses physical affliction as a tool to point out how we always want to be so sure and secure about the world and that rather than really seeing – seeing as God see, we rationalize. The crowd is certain that there must be a cause and effect at play in the man’s blindness - God’s judgment caused this man’s blindness; he or his parents sinned.  So when a miracle occurs and the blindness is cured, they refuse to believe and give what Jesus did the credit.[5]

You see, too often, we want to believe, but only on our terms.

We want to believe that people should be held accountable for their circumstances, and generally speaking this is not a terrible thing for society, but in this case, we are talking about a human’s personhood and the assumptions made about the person. The disciples' first reaction is to debate the blindness and not deal at all with the human. Intellectualizing and theologizing outside of seeing the human being, created in God’s image, right in front of them led them to ask bad questions. Rather than ask, “How can we heal and help?” they ask, “Whose fault is it?”[6]

We do the same thing today when suffering, pain, and affliction are revealed right before us. Empathetic inquiry is set aside and we rush to judge before we even know the nature and depth of the problem we are trying to address . . . or if it is a problem at all. We rush to judge before we know anything about their story; their circumstances.  We too easily view one another through a one-dimensional lens so that all we can do is start down a path toward misplaced questions and actions based on mistaken assumptions:[7]

 We turn genuine struggles of the human condition into a warped idea that if something bad is happening to us, it is because God has determined that we deserve it. And then, rather than give God credit for the healing and new life that does come about,  we rationalize it. 

v “We know people are poor because…”

  “We know people are in prison because…”

   “We know people are sick because…”

Or worse yet,

v “She deserves to be poor or homeless because…”

v “He deserves to be in prison because…”

v “She deserves to be sick because…”

The truth is, we don't know. We assume we know.  We put people in boxes and we rationalize to make ourselves feel better.  But the hope is that we could know more if only we would take the time to ask better questions and see the way God sees.

 

This passage concludes with a punch line that is disturbing: Jesus says, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." When some Pharisees asked if they were blind, Jesus responded, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."[8]

 

But Jesus flips the script and moves from the literal to the spiritual — the claim to see is far more tragic, for it masks a blindness to our need for corrective vision.[9]

 

One of the most dangerous spiritual places that we can live is in the

deluded notion that we are fully-sighted, spiritually-speaking. On the other hand, the healthiest place to live is not only to acknowledge our spiritual blindness, but also to embrace that as an acceptable place to live.[10]

 Jesus saw the person; the man.  Jesus saw the whole man and decided to heal him so he could see.  Praise God.  Jesus sees us whole too.  He doesn’t see us as the broken human beings that we are.  He loves us just as we are.  He doesn’t judge.  He doesn’t question.  He loves. 

He knows better than anyone that there is pain and suffering in the world.  Jesus was fully human as much as he was fully divine.  He experienced hunger and thirst.  He experienced sickness and the death of dear friends.  He mourned and he suffered fierce opposition, persecution, pain, and suffering.  He died for us.  Jesus understands us.

Let‘s pay attention to the questions we ask. Let’s be aware of our own blindness. 

Today’s questions to take away might include:  What assumptions do we carry? What is our intent? When seeking clarity or understanding, what are better questions we can ask?  Where am I spiritually blind?  Where do my eyes need to be opened?  Amen.

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[1] Sanctified Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned?  Theme Connections.
[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.  A Man Was Born Blind.  By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023.
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.  A Man Was Born Blind.  By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023.
[4] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.  A Man Was Born Blind.  By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023.
[5] Sanctified Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned?  Commentary.  Bruce Reyes-Chow
[6] Sanctified Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned?  Commentary.  Bruce Reyes-Chow
[7] Sanctified Art.com The Fourth Sunday in Lent. Seeking: Who Sinned?  Commentary.  Bruce Reyes-Chow
[8] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.  A Man Was Born Blind.  By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023.
[9]https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.  A Man Was Born Blind.  By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023. 
[10] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3545.  A Man Was Born Blind.  By Dan Clendenin. Posted 12 March 2023.

 

Will You Give Me A Drink?

Rev. Debbie Cato
John 4:5-42 | Exodus 17:1-7
Fairfield Community Church
March 12 , 2023

God of conversation, We come to you today thirsty— thirsty for hope,  thirsty for good news, thirsty for a glimpse of you.  So today we pray, that you would move in these words like a current. Give us the courage to wade into your story with open eyes & open hearts. Give us the courage to drink this moment in. We are listening. We are grateful. Amen.

 

Will You Give Me A Drink?

 

“You may be dehydrated right now but not know it.” Bradley P. Holt begins his book Thirsty for God: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality with these words, explaining that the first signals our body gives us that we need water are not immediate and strong. We might feel uneasy or tired and head to the refrigerator for a snack when what we really need is a tall glass of water.[1]

 

The same is true of our spiritual thirst, Holt continues. We may feel restless, anxious or depressed and try to satisfy our needs with retail therapy, a chocolate fix, or unhealthy intimate relationships when what we really need is to know that we are loved, that we belong, that we are not wandering the wilderness of our lives alone and without resources, that God is with us.[2]

 

The lectionary passages of this third Sunday in Lent are characterized by people who are thirsty. In Exodus 17, the wilderness wandering Israelites have camped in Rephidim, only to discover there is no water. “Is the Lord among us or not?” they ask. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at the well whose thirst for love and belonging was so intense she responds to Jesus’ offer of living water with an emphatic, “Sir, give me this water.”

These stories present us with opportunities to give voice to our deepest fears: “Is Yahweh among us or not?[3]  Will God quench my thirst?  What am I really thirsty for?

The Israelite people seem to continue to doubt and misunderstand who has brought them out of Egypt and who is in charge.  They continue to identify with Moses and think it was he who brought them out of Egypt and Moses who is in charge.  Easy to understand.  He’s the one in front of them.  He’s the one they are physically following.  But, they have yet to figure out that it is Yahweh – God himself who brought them out of slavery; God himself who is keeping them safe and cared for as they travel through the wilderness. They haven’t realized that it is God who is in charge and Moses is just his human spokesperson.  They haven’t figured out that God chose them.  That God loves them unconditionally.  That they are God’s chosen people. That God will always be among them.  He will never abandon them.

When we have a problem, it is much easier to blame someone than to think through the problem carefully and spiritually. In this situation Israel could have thought, “We are in a desert; it’s not surprising there isn’t much water here. We need to look to God to meet this need.” Instead they blame Moses and do nothing to help with the problem.[4]

“Give us a drink,” the Israelites ask. God hears them, readily responds, and calls Moses to bring forth water from a rock. But do the people know what they really thirst for? In the seasons of our lives, we all have felt frustrated and lost in the wilderness. During these times, our fear gets the better of us. Survival mode reigns. Sometimes our focus on survival is so loud we miss the cry underneath: “God, have you abandoned me?”

What would it have looked like, I wonder, if the Israelites had instead cried out for God’s assurance? “Show us you’re still with us, God,” they could have prayed with open hearts. “We feel alone and unanchored.” Where could the water have come from, if the question had come from a softer place than the rock of our human defenses? [5]

God chooses to bring water — and the life it symbolizes - out of something that appears to be lifeless, a rock. The dry rock flows with water. God brings water — and with it, life — to the arid wilderness.  Out of Egypt and out of the wilderness, God will find ways to make life flow in unexpected ways. But it will require a certain amount of trust from the people, from us, a willingness to put faith in a God who seems not to do things in the typical way.[6]

Many years later, Jesus asks this same question of a Samaritan woman at a well. He risks everything by speaking with her—crossing cultural, religious, and social lines—demonstrating his willingness to be vulnerable. When he asks for what he needs, a drink of water - he shows that even he cannot make it alone. What a risk for the Son of God to be so openly human. And yet, it is this question—and his willingness to ask —that leads to this woman’s transformation.

So Jesus is headed back to Galilee and to get there goes through Samaria. He doesn’t have to.  There is another route.  But going through Samaria is shorter and going through Samaria doesn’t bother Jesus – although it certainly would  other Jews.  There were religious differences between the Samaritans and other Jews as well as cultural and social differences.  Jews and Samaritans did not interact, and they certainly did not socialize; they hated each other.  Once again, Jesus breaks rules and boundaries by stopping in Samaria at the well and speaking to the woman.  And then, just to make a point, he stays for two days and eats and talks with the townspeople.   

We actually don’t know if Jesus ever gets his drink of water.  He was thirsty from traveling.  But the woman who came for water that day, got more than she hoped for.  She was spiritually thirsty – alth0ugh she may not have known that.  Jesus knew all about her.  He didn’t judge her. He just stated the facts.  She had been married five times before and was currently living with a man she was not married to.  Had all her previous husbands died?  We don’t know.  Had they divorced her? Remember that men could divorce their wives, but wives could not divorce their husbands.  We don’t know that either.  It doesn’t matter.  She had been married five times and currently lived with a man she was not married to. We get the impression she wanted to be loved.  She wanted to belong. Jesus knew all this about her, although he had just met her.  She must have been stunned.

Jesus offers her something new.  Something eternal. Something that will satisfy her thirst not for an hour, or a day, or a week.  Something that will satisfy her thirst forever.  He offers himself.  “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”  I am the Christ.  I am the Messiah.  You are loved.  You belong. I can imagine the woman thinking,  “It wasn’t the water he came for, it was me.”  For me.

 

Do you feel like God is traveling with you, or do you feel as if He has abandoned you?  Do you believe that God can and will quench your thirst?  Jesus is here for each of us. He knows all about you. What are you thirsty for?  Perhaps you are thirsty for healing; maybe your heart is thirsty for hope. Maybe you thirst for relief from the stress of your job.  Maybe you are swallowed up by grief from the loss of a loved one.  Maybe you are numb to the hurt of a broken or damaged marriage. Maybe  you are thirsty for rest from being a working mom. Maybe your drinking has gotten out of control. Maybe the thirst for alcohol disguises the reasons you turned to drink in the first place.  Thirsty for a miracle or just a sign that God is showing up in your life.   The consequences of our lives often leave us thirsty, questioning whether God is real — and if God’s promises include us.  What are you thirsty for?

 

You won’t find the word “Lent” in the Bible. This 40-day season that we are in the midst of has been marked by the church to encourage Christians to focus on our life of faith and honestly assess our relationship with God.

 

Many Lenten rituals can and should be practiced alone — prayer, confession, and meditating on Scripture. These solitary practices are necessary to help us identify our true thirsts and how we seek to satisfy them with things that are not from God. Then, each Sunday of Lent, we are invited to a break from our solitary wilderness wandering to come to church – a sort of resurrection gathering, reminding us that we are not alone. We rub shoulders with people in the pews who understand how thirsty our lives can leave us. Gathered in Christ’s name, we also rub shoulders with the One who suffered as we suffer, the One who meets us at the well. In this communion, we are offered Christ’s living water. In this community, we are offered the hope that we are not alone. We are not wandering this wilderness of life without thirst-quenching resources.[7]

I think the woman at the well was amazed that a Jewish man would stop and speak to her.  Amazed that he knew all about her.  Amazed he was so kind.  Amazed at his words.  What he said to her and how he said it completely  transformed her.  She was never the same again.  She left her water jar and went back to the city and told all the people what she had learned.  And because of her, we are told that “many Samaritans believed in Jesus.” Jesus stayed two more days in Samaria and even more believed.  She wasn’t the only one who was thirsty.           “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world,” they said.

The question for us this Lent is not only whether we would extend a drink; it’s whether we will be brave enough to ask God for one when we need it.  What are you thirsty for?  Amen.

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[1]https://pres-outlook.org/2023/02/third-sunday-of-lent-march-12-2023/ Teri McDowell-Ott
[2] https://pres-outlook.org/2023/02/third-sunday-of-lent-march-12-2023/ Teri McDowell-Ott
[3] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-26/commentary-on-exodus-171-7-2
[4] https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/exodus-17/
[5] Rev. Danielle Shroyer.  Sanctified Art 2023
[6] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-26/commentary-on-exodus-171-7-2
[7] https://pres-outlook.org/2023/02/third-sunday-of-lent-march-12-2023/ Teri McDowell-Ott

How Do We Begin Again?

 Rev. Debbie
John 3:1-17 | Genesis 12:1-4a
Fairfield Community Church
March 5 , 2023

Holy God, We come to you today with our biggest questions: Who are we called to be? What do you need from us? Where are you in our midst? How can we follow you more clearly? As we read your Word today, we ask that you would weave answers into the text. Speak to us through these ancient stories that we might find what we are seeking in you. With gratitude and open hearts we pray, amen.

 How Do We Begin Again?

 

When you called me as your pastor in November 2021, I had a picture in my mind of what my ministry here was going to look like.  I had a plan for how pastoring this church and being in this community was going to play out. 

Then, just two months later, in January, that changed.  An ultra-sound found a blood clot from my left ankle all the way up my leg to my belly.  And then in the hospital, a CT-scan found blood clots in my lungs. 

I could have died.  But I didn’t.  Here I was just a few months into my call, stuck in the hospital for five days, thankful to be alive, and wondering why God spared my life. I also wondered what this meant for all the plans I had.  Was God calling me to begin again?  Something different than I planned ?

Fast forward to December 2022.  11 months later. I’ve had asthma for years, but it’s never been an issue.  Until Sunday, December 4^th.  I stopped breathing.  I could not get any air. None.  I was lucky I was at church because I would not have been able to call for help – I could not talk. Rachelle came and held my hand and I remember Marci calling 911.  I don’t remember a lot.  But more than anything, I remember Rachelle holding my hand.  At some point, she turned into Jesus.  Jesus was holding my hand.  I haven’t told anyone that.  It was an intimate experience.  It was a holy experience. Rachelle, you were my Jesus.  I don’t remember the first responders but they saved my life.  I could have died.  The second time in a year. 

 Once again, my plans were put on hold.  It was Advent, a very busy time in the church.  Once again, I was in the hospital and not pastoring this church.  Everything has changed for me – at least temporarily which is going on for much longer than I think it should. I’ve learned a lot about myself.  What am I to learn?  I’m asking a lot of questions.  I’m seeking answers that I’m not finding.  Not yet.  Is God calling me to begin again?  What does that mean?

Have you ever had a crisis in your life, an unexpected change that turned your world upside down and inside-out and suddenly nothing was the same anymore?  Did you consider that perhaps that was God calling you to begin again?

In Genesis, God commands Abram and Sarai to leave everything—their home, their family, their land—to seek the land of Canaan and begin again. At 75 years old, Abram is called to start over, but through this new beginning, God creates a new family and a new nation.[1]

 Scripture makes it sound like God made the command and Abram took his family and all his animals and belongings and just left his family home for a place he had never heard of or seen.  But Abram was human and he was married to a woman who was human.  I imagine there were some hard conversations.  Conversations questioning the wisdom of starting over; the fear of giving it all up for a new beginning.  Life was good for Abram and Sarai.  They were very wealthy.  Their herds were thriving. Why should they leave it all and go to a strange place?  What would be there for them? 

Change is hard – for everyone.  Even when it’s God that’s calling. Yet, Abram and Sarai trusted God.  They began again.  And God blessed them in ways they could not have imagined.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the veil of night to ask him big faith questions. Hard questions.  As a leader of Jewish law, Nicodemus holds beliefs that no longer align with this Kingdom of God that Jesus embodies. Jesus invites him to begin again, to learn a new way of knowing and living out his faith.[2]

 It’s risky for Nicodemus to go to Jesus, so he goes at night. It matters what time and location these stories occur. If he gets caught, how would that look?  He is a Pharisee, a member of the elite Jews who are opposed to Jesus. Yet he is drawn to Jesus’ teachings and wants to understand what he means by the Kingdom of Heaven and being born again. Asking his questions, wanting to understand more, challenging his own beliefs, feels so high stakes that he couldn’t just ask Jesus his questions directly during the daytime. What if someone were to see him?  But he wants answers, he feels an urgency, so he asks.[3] Perhaps God is calling him to begin again. 

 I think this church is in the process of beginning again.  I first started preaching here in the summer of 2021.  I knew right away that you were warm, loving people.  I could feel it.  But there was also low energy; a lack of hope that I felt in this sanctuary.  Maybe it was a tiredness.  I’m not sure. 

 But I feel something different now.  The Holy Spirit is moving amongst us and through us. I feel energy and enthusiasm.  I sense renewed hopefulness and I hear it in your voices.  God has invited us to begin again. 

He has something new for us – for our church, for our community. It’s risky!  Change always is.  But God won’t lead us somewhere we aren’t supposed to go.  That’s why we need everyone’s voice.  So we know we are following the Spirit.  The Spirit speaks and leads through us – God’s people.

 We’ve been seeking.  We’ve been asking questions.  What is God calling us to, we’ve asked?  What is he calling us to be as a church in this community where we are planted?  What does our community need?  How is he calling us as individual members of this congregation to be involved?  These questions have challenged us to think outside of the box.  Think about church differently than how we have thought in the past.  The answers have caused us to get out of our comfort zone.  Do things differently.  Be involved on more than Sunday morning. 

 We’ve experimented and adjusted.  We’ve had multiple discussions.  We’ve listened to each other.  That’s what seeking is all about.  It’s vulnerable to look for something, to be unsure, to feel like something is missing and to try to seek something without knowing where it will take us. When we seek, are we, like Nicodemus, trying to avoid risk? Are we trying to self-protect? Or are we open to whatever and wherever our seeking leads?

Just like the church, perhaps God has or is calling you to begin again.  It may happen for no apparent reason like it did for Abram.  It may happen because of a medical crises or diagnosis.  Perhaps a lost job left you numb with no hope for a future yet, God called you to a new beginning – one you could not have imagined on your own.  Perhaps depression had you in a really dark place for a long time and then the light began to shine and you found a way out – a beginning you couldn’t have hoped for on your own. No matter what happens in  your life, you can start over.  You can begin again.

There are so many examples in scripture of people that were lost and oppressed until Jesus called them into a new beginning.  The leper he healed, the blind man who was given sight, the bleeding woman who was ostracized from society, the woman at the well, the adulteress woman who was about to be stoned, the crippled man at the spring…  I could continue.   All these and more called to begin again because of Jesus’ touch.  You don’t have to stay where you are if it’s not healthy or whole or everything that God has for you.

 We may not know much about Nicodemus’ backstory, or what prompted him to visit Jesus in the night, but we do know that he ultimately accompanies Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, to tend to Jesus’ body after his death. Together, they carefully anoint his body in myrrh and aloe, wrap him in linens, and lay him in the tomb. Knowing this, how do you imagine Nicodemus was changed by his interaction with Jesus in the night? Was he born anew? Did he begin again?

God’s blessing to Abram—to lead a new nation through which all the earth will be blessed — was a new and radical idea in a culture in which tribal identity and preservation were brutally protected.  Abraham’s tribe, also known as Israel, exists not just for its own purpose, but for the purpose of blessing others. How might a  new beginning invite you to be a blessing to others?

I’d like to close by sharing a poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

"Beginning"

       You must be born again.

                           —John 3.7

In the season of Lent Jesus invites us
to practice the discipline of beginning.

God, give me grace to let go of who I have been,
what I have done and not done,
all pride of accomplishment and guilt over failure—
and start over, like a newborn child.
Give me such trust in your absolute, profound forgiveness
that I am free to begin anew.
Help me to let go of having it all figured out,
to be a rookie. Beginner's mind.
To be a learner, attentive each moment,
free of old habits and assumptions,
seeing as if for the first time.
To ask for help and be willing to be led,
as utterly reliant on you
as a newborn infant in my mother's arms.
          

As we travel through Lent together, consider how and if God might be calling you to begin again.  Amen.

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[1] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Sanctified Art.
[2] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Sanctified Art.
[3] Rev. Anna Strickland, Operations Support & Content Creator.  Sanctified Art.