At the corner of Theology and Geekology

I will try to keep the pretty and calming posts consistent as well, since I want to remain a place of peace where you can take a rest and find some encouragement.

guess how many viewers are on the church livestream for worship 

not to mention that the literal Vicar of Christ has given a formal apology to the indigenous people the faith has hurt (repeatedly and with intention, for centuries) and encouraged them to practice their traditions within Catholicism and to take charge of their roots. here is jan 28, 2019, Pope Francis I, an Argentinian man may I add, himself speaking about young indigenous people retaking back their cultural practices & traditions:

“Return to your culture of origins,” he said. “Take charge of your roots, because from your roots comes the strength to make things grow, flourish and bear fruit. (…) A poet once said that ‘everything that blooms from a tree comes from that which is underground,’ the roots. But roots that grow toward the future, projected toward the future. This is your challenge today.”

so you say you’re catholic…but you refuse papal rule? ma’am -

Wholesome + Wholesome = Ineffable.

Spong repeatedly uses the verb “walk” when discussing how people enter into the divine mystery; as someone who often cannot walk, this language is alienating and implies that my body is a barrier between my spirit and the divine.

Both disability theory and disability theology are vital to revealing the possibility of a relationship with the divine that is uninhibited by ableist historical contexts: I crawl into the mystery of the divine, I limp into the mystery of the divine, I hobble into the mystery of the divine.

I move, dynamic and fluid, flesh and machine and spirit, into the mystery of a divine that is similarly dynamic and fluid, singular and plural, shaped by yet also beyond human restrictions of history and culture and ability.”

And yet, I know this is untrue. My movement can not keep me from God. God can be found in the movement, in the stimming, in the running around & the hyperactivity.

Many of Miyazaki’s male characters carry a curse of some sort, an expression of internal conflicts: Ashitaka’s toxic arm in Princess Mononoke, Marco’s pig face in Porco Rosso (Kurenai no Buta, 1992), Haku’s magic indenture to Yubaba in Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi, 2001), and Howl’s imprisoned heart in Howl’s Moving Castle (Haoru no ugoku shiro, 2004). These are the most obvious examples, but even the seemingly happy-go-lucky Lupin in Castle of Cagliostro (Rupan Sansei Kariosutoro no shiro, 1979) and the remarkably mature five-year-old Sōsuke in Ponyo (Gake no ue no Ponyo, 2008) bear traces of a gravity unusual for protagonists in movies aimed at a young audience. Although these choices make aesthetic sense in helping to create more intricate and compelling characters, they also suggest a view of the world that goes beyond simple family entertainment.

Curses in Miyazakiworld are not limited to human beings. In one of the more memorable speeches in the blockbuster ecofable Princess Mononoke, the cynical monk Jiko-bō states, “The whole world is under a curse!” The traumatic landscapes of the film support that statement as we see woodlands destroyed, skies shrouded, and the god of the forest brought down with a rifle shot. Spirited Away makes the curse on nature even more specific: the enigmatic character Haku is not actually a human but a river god, and it is his river that is “cursed.” Another river in the film is so polluted that its god has been turned into a “stink spirit,” signifying both spiritual and environmental pollution.

[…]

Even in Miyazakiworld’s most apocalyptic expressions something always endures. In his animations of lost or unreal worlds the director presents catalysts for hope and action, not simply vehicles of escape. In this regard Miyazaki may be said to engage in what theorists David L. Eng and David Kazanjian label “a politics of mourning”—neither passive nor resigned but activist, concentrating on “what remains” rather than “what is lost”: loss motivates more than memorials; it also motivates art. Along with Takahata, Toshio Suzuki, and the dedicated staff at Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki would go on to make films that inspire action when confronting loss, community when dealing with absence, and resuscitation in the face of ruin.

Listen.