(i ripped this off wikipedia real fast so sorry if it’s lib)
In October 1776, the Public Universal Friend contracted an epidemic disease and was bedridden and near death with a high fever. Their family summoned a doctor from Attleboro, six miles away, and neighbors kept up a death-watch at night. The fever broke after several days. The Friend later reported that [deadname redacted] had died, receiving revelations from God through two archangels who proclaimed there was “Room, Room, Room, in the many Mansions of eternal glory for Thee and for everyone”. The Friend further said that [deadname redacted]'s soul had ascended to heaven and the body had been reanimated with a new spirit charged by God with preaching his word, that of the “Publick Universal Friend”, describing that name in the words of Isaiah 62:2 as “a new name which the mouth of the Lord hath named”.
From that time on, the Friend refused to answer to their deadname, ignoring or chastising those who insisted on using it. When visitors asked if it was the name of the person they were addressing, the Friend simply quoted Luke 23:3 (“thou sayest it”). Identifying as neither male nor female, the Friend asked not to be referred to with gendered pronouns. Followers respected these wishes; they referred only to “the Public Universal Friend” or short forms such as “the Friend” or “P.U.F.”, and many avoided gender-specific pronouns even in private diaries. When someone asked if the Friend was male or female, the preacher replied “I am that I am”, saying the same thing to a man who criticized the Friend’s manner of dress (adding, in the latter case, “there is nothing indecent or improper in my dress or appearance; I am not accountable to mortals”).
editorial note: I think this is a very cool story and I really love hearing it. We’ve been around forever and we’ve been doing variations of this forever. It’s really beautiful
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you know how like sometimes you know a thing is true, but you’re kinda annoyed it’s true and would rather it wasn’t? I feel this about giraffes and horses. like ok you look at a giraffe and you’re like oh, it’s a tall horse, I get what’s going on here, it’s related to horses. but no! horses are odd toed ungulates and giraffes are even toed ungulates, and their last common ancestor was like 60 million years ago in the early eocene!!
and like I know this, it is a factual truth, but I don’t want it to be! my brain sees a giraffe and is like na mate, that’s a big horse. the bastards are more closly related to fucking dolphins than they are horses!
somehow the inconsequentual nature about the taxonomy of giraffes is something that my brain doesn’t like. which is weird as like the fact that birds are dinosaurs is a thing I never shut up about, as with other odd species relationships, like cetaceans (whales and dolpins) are ungulates and evolved from a deer looking thing, I like this sort of thing in taxonomy
https://www.onezoom.org/ oh, cool thing if you ever want to look at a fractal thingie of the tree of life. really fun little thing I look at some times. it lets you just keep zooming in down to the species level, tells you when things split off. fun little resource
