ellauri080.html on line 563: Self harm is common in autism but is often assumed to be related to repetitive behaviors without suicidal intent, such as head banging to relieve stress.
ellauri094.html on line 762: So just as we learn music, we cannot become better without practice and experience of music on our instrument of choice (mine is the Jewish Harp, quite popular by the rivers of Babylon). Your confession that you found prayer to be irrelevant is the same as a man banging a child on a piano and then giving up because all the banging just produced noise. You need to be taught how to pray by someone who knows how and then you need to practice, practice, practice for the rest of your life. And still you don't get a hole in one every time, I don't. Although I was trained to pray by various Catholic priests who pray for a living. Prayer professionals who get paid for it. No fucking amateurs like you. By now I find the hole usually quite easily, and can get it in after a few putts with a little help from my priestly friend.
xxx/ellauri086.html on line 83: ONAN, as almost everybody knows, was killed by God for the heinous crime of "spilling his seed upon the ground". This, throughout history, has associated him with masturbation, beginning with the writings of Clement of Alexandria. And I agree, that when DFW mentions O.N.A.N., that connotation is implied. But that's not why God was mad at Onan. If you go read the whole sordid story in Genesis 38: when God killed Onan's brother, for reasons which are a bit obscure, leaving his widow childless, it was the custom that Onan was required to marry her and father a child upon her. This child would legally be his brother's. This was known as Levirate marriage. Onan didn't want any children who weren't legally his, so Onan "went in" to his brother's wife but pulled out early and "spilled his seed on the ground". So Onan's real sin was refusing to Consumate his Levirate Marriage. Now, once God whacked Onan, his widow had to wait for his remaining brother to grow up. But she got tired of waiting and put on a veil(!!!!) and tricked Onan's father into having sex with her. So a painting of the "Consummation of the Levirates" might be Onan's father banging his sons' wife....
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