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keow · 3 years

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Hi! This is a weird ask, but would you be willing to post resources/arguments about Christianity being true? Like, were there specific ones that convinced you to convert? I was raised Catholic but didn't really believe it growing up, but would like to have the same feelings about faith and peace that you posted about. I'm in a bit of a bad place right now and would like to go back and deepen my faith but it's hard.

This isn’t a weird ask, don’t worry! I’d love to provide you with some resources :) I’ll try to include both visual and auditory mediums as I don’t know what your learning style is.

I don’t mean to overwhelm you with information, please forgive me if this is too much 😗

I’m going to split this up into different categories of content here, based loosely around my conversion journey—i.e. what I had questions and doubts about. Please remember that faith is a very personal journey and you may have different concerns altogether, but hopefully this will give you a starting point to jump off of.

First: Arguments for the existence of God

Breaking in the Habit - What is God?

The Thomistic Institute on the Five Ways

Pints with Aquinas - Explaining Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs

Pints with Aquinas - The Best Argument for the Existence of God W/ Trent Horn

Lumen - Arguments for the Existence of God (overview)

Subcategory: Near death experiences This is clearly anecdotal evidence and therefore not as strong, but I found reading about near death experiences to be extremely interesting. I liked browsing the NDE subreddit :) The common experience of SOMETHING among those who nearly die is at least indicative of there being more beyond the material realm, and by extension, a God.

Second: Arguments for monotheism

This isn’t a common apologetics issue unless you’re a convert from a polytheistic religion (which I was), so there’s less content on this.

Pints with Aquinas — Aquinas on Why There Can’t Be Many Gods

Jordan Peterson on Monotheism

Third: How reliable are the Gospels? Did Jesus even exist?

Biblical Archeology Society - Did Jesus Exist? Searching for Evidence Beyond the Bible

Pints with Aquinas - Is the New Testament Really Historically Accurate? W/ Trent Horn

The Great Myths - History for Atheists This is a SECULAR website created by an atheist seeking to correct the flaws in his fellow atheists’ arguments. Much to his chagrin, I found the website and now I’m a Christian. Here is their Jesus Mythicism series.

Influence - The Reliability of the Gospels

NAMB - The Historical Reliability of the Gospels

History - The Bible Says Jesus Was Real. What Other Proof Exists?

The Science of Apologetics on the historical accuracy of the Bible

Answers in Genesis - How Do We Know the Bible is True?

Fourth: Was Jesus the prophesied Messiah?

Jews for Jesus - What Proof Do You Have That Jesus is the Messiah?

The Top 40 Messianic Prophecies

Two Messiahs in Judaism: Ben David and Ben Joseph

Be Thinking - Messiah: Jesus, the evidence of history

Fifth: The Resurrection (and the events thereafter)

The Resurrection, Evidence, and the Scientist

William Lane Craig Debates Ben Shapiro about Jesus

Did the Resurrection Really Happen? | William Lane Craig

Capturing Christianity’s interview with Dr. Gary Habermas Short highlight from that video the Science of Apologetics on Evidence for the Resurrection

Links from the bottom of that post: One, two, three, four, five

Sixth: Did Jesus claim to be God? Theology of the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity

The Thomistic Institute on the Trinity: The Triune God (Aquinas 101) The Persons of the Trinity (Aquinas 101)

Breaking in the Habit - Did Jesus Claim to be God?

Trinity explained by CS Lewis: Christian "Trinity" Explained in 3 Minutes The Three-Personal God by C.S. Lewis

Christianity.com - Did Jesus Claim to be God?

Ryan Reeves - The Incarnation and Jesus Christ (In 90 Seconds)

The Thomistic Institute on the Incarnation: The Meaning of the Incarnation (Aquinas 101) Motives of the Incarnation (Aquinas 101)

Bishop Robert Barron - Understanding the Incarnation

Seventh: Miracles and saints just because I personally think they’re really fun!

Lessons from Lourdes: Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette

Pints with Aquinas - Scientific EVIDENCE for Eucharistic Miracles? w/ Fr. Terry Donahue

Actual information on incorruptible saints

Our Lady of Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun

The Shroud of Turin: The Catholic Talk Show Mr. Mythos Lecture on the Shroud

Our Lady of Guadalupe

The miracles of St. Padre Pio

PDFS AND STUFF— Writings of saints, theologians, and apologists.

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

The (searchable!) Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas

Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

Early Christian writings from the Church Fathers

Saints’ Books - A collection of free writings from Catholic saints

St. Augustine of Hippo: On the Trinity Confessions

Miscellaneous favorites:

The Thomistic Institute Ascension Presents Fr. Mike Bible in a Year Podcast The Catholic Talk Show Pints with Aquinas Pints with Aquinas - Apologetics Extravaganza with Trent Horn Capturing Christianity Free Christian Apologetics Resources - Capturing Christianity Bible Illustrated BibleProject Lectures on early & medieval church history by Ryan Reeves Breaking in the Habit / Catholicism in Focus Upon Friar Review Trisagion Films Servus Dei discord server

Apps: Hallow Catena: Bible and Commentaries The Chosen (This is a tv show! It has its own app. It’s really good and accurate to the Gospels.)

My personal tips section :)

While it’s very important to have a logical foundation for religion, PLEASE don’t underestimate the power of simply sitting with God in prayer. That’s the most important thing. I love praying the rosary, practicing lectio divina, praying novenas, reading the psalms, etc. Prayer shouldn’t always be scripted either. The pre-written prayers are helpful for when you aren’t really sure what to say or where to start, but you should speak to God from your heart as much as possible. Sometimes prayer doesn’t even have to be verbal! Sometimes it’s just a state of being.

Music also goes hand in hand with this. Hymns can really help you get into that religious spiritual headspace when you feel disconnected from God. Here’s a channel that posts some good ones. Read the Bible. When in doubt, just read it or listen to someone else read it. It’s truly the inspired Word of God. For a while it was really hard for me to connect with Jesus for some reason, but reading the Gospels has been instrumental in building a stronger relationship with Him. It’s kind of a given but you might have the same blockages as I did.

A good way to learn more about Christianity, the Church, and her saints is to keep track of the Church calendar. For instance, find out what important feast days/holidays are coming up, then research and learn about them around the time that they occur. Okay that’s pretty much it! Feel free to DM me about anything (I love theological discussion). I hope things get better for you--trust that I’ll be praying for you. Have a lovely day!

#yes im pinning this. who’s gonna stop me 😏

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clemonade1 · 4 years

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Silent Nights

Thank you @intangiblyyourswrites for the writing challenge. You’ve been so inspiring! Another inspiration I drew from was Chaucer. Props!

Prompt:

The real reason Zelda initially shows such a abhorrence to Link is because she’s secretly heads-over-heels for him and refuses to show it. Her pride is on the line, after all.

Rules:

Must be set in the BotW timeline

When it’s set is up to you (e.g. Pre-Calamity or post, pre-Blades of the Yiga or post)

No chronology enforced, but I’m interested to see if we can get a somewhat coherent story out of this!

You may do however many posts/drabbles you’d like

Tag #thirsty-and-in-denial-Zelda so we can find your story!

When other people looked at the silent knight, they drowned in the ocean of his eyes and tripped over each other just to get a taste of that salt spray. If they were unfortunate enough to meet him in combat the last thing they saw was that same ocean freeze over in molten ice as the distant echoes from his blade were all that remained marring their skin and assaulting their ears. But when Zelda looked at him she saw what everyone else failed to notice the tiny scar that made the smile lines threading away from his right eye step out as lightning staggers across the sky. This meant he had once been a person who smiled freely and lived a life outside of the sword, outside of his duties.

Outside of her.

She noticed how when the wind caught his hair just so, he had a freckle above his left brow that belied the days once spent in the sun no doubt climbing insane rock faces because, why not? Freedoms she had never known. Now he was boxed in by stale castle walls. Now he had to traipse around after her endlessly, ghost her every move, wear that infuriating stoic façade that meant everyone had someone to compare her and failures to.

“She doesn’t even care you know, I heard she doesn’t even pray, just locks herself in the Temple and plays on that Slate she’s got.”

“Haven’t you noticed how she stares at that guard of hers? I mean I wouldn’t mind worshipping him either but she’s supposed to be saving us all. Can’t see it happening myself, it’s all going to come down to him in the end.”

“Speaking of, did you see him sparring this morning? I had to fan myself down just from watching! Glad I’m not on the receiving end of that sword.”

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind being on the receiving en-“

Every day. Every day she had to hear the gossip mongers tittering about in the halls, they’d even stopped hushing each other as they used to. Never mind the years of prayer and devotion she had shown to Hylia. And what did they mean that she stares at Link? They were clearly misinterpreting her furtive glares, she is a Princess. And princesses don’t ogle.

Not like them.

They didn’t notice how when he’d return to her chamber doors after his drills he raked his fingers through his unruly locks to try and break them in, they didn’t know how she’d love to be the one who-

Zelda rigidly snapped open the book she had clutched to her chest, inhaling the paper, dust and ink, the momentum of her thoughts abruptly halted. Here she was walking the smoothed out, well-worn stone hall to her chambers. Where others clutched at rosary beads, Zelda's lifeline was her books.

“Princess, are you well?”

Spine stiffening, her eyes merely rolled to glance over her shoulder, “I’m fine, in fact, I’d like to be left alone for the rest of the evening” A polite dismissal he did not deserve, not after the inconvenience he’s caused her since pulling that thrice damned sword from where it lay. An almost imperceptible bow of his head was all Zelda needed to resume her power walk back to her rooms. She needed as much space between them as possible. He was smothering her with his arrogance, and she needed to breathe.

Flinging open her balcony doors, her stiflingly hot room dissipating with the icy blast of outside. Zelda gently relinquished her book on Silent Princesses to her bedside table, her fingers curled ever so slightly to rasp against the cracked, worn cover. I want freckles, I want to not brush my hair for days. Freedom. I need freedom. A longing sigh, well beyond her years, hotly whipped over her lips. Kneeling next to her bed, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles turned white and her fingers reddened, eyes clenched shut as she felt the heat build behind them and a lump claw its way up her throat. As the tears spilled over onto her hands, she pleaded, “Please. Please help me this time, I’ll do anything if you’ll just show me what to do!” Of its own volition, her left hand shot out, wrenched her beloved book from where it innocuously lay and threw it as hard as she could against her oak door.

“Princess! Are you alright?” Came the voice of one of the other guards who must have replaced Link on duty after she had dismissed him.

“I’m fine, just, dropped something.” Her watery excuse sounded weak even to her, but the guard seemed to believe it as she once again fell into the oppressive quiet of her chambers, her breath misting in front of her face, she crawled beneath her covers.

Kneeling in the frigid waters of the Spring of Wisdom, she recited her prayers to the Goddess through purple lips and teeth that clacked together. This time. This time I will hear her. Jerking her out of her quiet reverie came a voice seldom heard but one she’d never forget, not in a hundred years.

“What is better than wisdom, Zelda?”

Breath hitching, she froze, not from the cold. A hand, so impossibly warm, it singed her skin as it tilted her head up to meet a gaze that eclipsed the immense statue looming behind him.

“You. And what’s better than you?”

“Nothing” escaped her lungs in what could barely pass as a whisper.

Those eyes crinkled into a smile she’d never been graced with before. His hand moved to hers, inviting her to stand as he assumed her place, bent in worship.

“I have been looking for a place to worship; you put me on my knees every day. Let me worship you like the Goddess you are.”

Threading her hands into those wild locks, she gripped hard and oh, how wonderful it felt to have the control she so craved. Bending to meet his lips, his voice ghosted across her skin, hairs prickling, chills and warmth snaking down her spine all at once. “Just let go, Zelda.”

… “Princess. Princess. Wake up.”

Sandpaper eyes scratched open. Bolting upright, her skin aflame, breaths shallow, “What are YOU doing here?!” she hissed.

His gaze flickered to the ground, scratching the back of his head. She’d never seen him so, so uncomfortable, so vulnerable.

“I was out climbing. Your balcony doors were open. It’s a hazard. Not to mention how it’s absolutely freezing tonight. I-I came to close them but you were thrashing about. You seemed,” a deep flush spread across his cheeks, to the tips of his pointed ears, “distressed,” he finished, quietly, still unable to meet her gaze, unable to tell her it was his name she had mumbled as a mantra only moments ago.

“Link?” his eyes snapped to hers. She’d never addressed him by his name, though she liked the way it sounded rolling around her tongue. Her room suddenly felt altogether far too hot for anyone to inhabit; the lava of Eldin itself was surely raging beneath her floors.

“Get out.”

#zelda #thirsty-and-in-denial-zelda #my fic #legend of zelda

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noocturnalchild · 3 years

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SEALED IN MARBLE Chapter II The First Sins

The church bells chimed, announcing Lauds, the dawn prayers. Father Garupe woke up drowning in his sweat .

He reached down his mattress to find the package, still in the same place where he had put it last night.

***

Last morning he was incautious enough to go to the sculptor’s atelier in his clerical robes. What he did was like an act of bravery, as if he wanted to know if his legs could lead him there. And there he went, without any plan in mind, and just stood for minutes, gazing at the surroundings before turning on his heels and hoping that no one saw a black robe prowl in the corner.

Francisco had to think.

If he wanted to present himself to the sculptor, he had to do it under a false name and in secular clothes. He had to invent a past and a family and a profession and maybe speak in another tone that wouldn’t give him away as a man of God. In short, he had to lie.

- “Francisco!”

Father Rodrigues had to rise his tone a bit louder than necessary, and as it earned him disproval stares from his superiors, his friend was all but ready to listen.

Garupe was fumbling with his spoon and staring at his untouched supper when he deigned to answer.

- “What?”

- “Parchment, Garupe, I was asking you for extra parchment!” an irritated Rodrigues hissed.

- “You can have mine for tonight, I think I am feeling sick today…” Garupe muttered and he excused himself. It was his second lie that day.

But instead of returning to his cell, he slipped in the kitchen through a back door, then into the dorms of the manservants. There, he made quick business of “borrowing” the clothes of one that was about his height and size, following which he almost ran to his room and closed the door behind him, like a thief.

***

Garupe proceeded to his ablutions and fell into step behind the other priests for the prayers of dawn. He prayed with the same devotion and sincerity as always, trying to ignore what he did and what he was about to do. It was something he should be ashamed of, but once he had the money in his hands, he would confess all his sins. He had time and he should help a powerless widow and three little angels that had no sins but to be born women. Weren’t the Jesuit ideals all about linking faith with justice and having special concern for the poor and the oppressed? And wasn’t he following these very values by acting like he did? Garupe felt suddenly thrilled and stayed on his knees till Prime prayers, reinvigorated by a hope so big it made him fly to meet his superior just after the last psalms were recited.

- Father Garupe, I see you overjoyed this morning, I might attribute your elation to the prayer, I wish.

Garupe retorted in a tone he wished composed.

- “Always, your excellence.” Garupe smiled before adding “Pardon me, your excellence, I came to you for a request… Yesterday, I went for a walk after prayers… on my way, I saw a poor family …a deplorable sight… I took pity on them, for as your excellence knows, that’s what Christ would do … and I promised to return today, and to visit them regularly with some … food to meet their needs for a few days … after your permission, of course.”

- “Good my son, good…” the brows of the bishop knotted for a second and he flexed his jaw, as if to comment something, but then he relaxed as he continued “You might go now, may the holy spirit accompany you in your endeavour.”

Garupe held his breath for many seconds after his encounter with his superior. He couldn’t believe that he could lie so blatantly and repeatedly in a span of a few hours… But he pushed his guilt away for now, as his legs performed lengthy strides and stilled behind a dilapidated wall. He hopped over a barrier and sank into a small but luxuriant wood. There, he quickly changed into secular clothes, kissed his rosary and hid it in a deep pocket of his priest robe before folding it in a sack.

The sun was high in the sky when the priest knocked on the master sculptor’s door. He waited for seconds that felt like hours, mentally prepared to greet an old man, august and condescending, but instead he saw a boy, running through the yard to swiftly open the door, big crooked smile and wide eyes meeting his.

- “Excellent day milord! please come in”, the boy shouted, bowing and scraping.

Garupe nodded and followed the boy through the yard. The place revealed more of its secrets as he progressed in its depths. The garden, whilst vaster that he thought, wasn’t maintained and looked more like a messy bush, wild flowers and vines that grew past its borders and invaded parts of the yard, climbed the marbles statues, the fountain’s borders, the walls and the roof of an elegant albeit old building, which first floor was framed with tall windows that reflected the sunlight. Garupe was lost in the enchanting beauty of the place as he was pushed inside a fresh gallery that led to a big empty room, solely lit by two windows on the ceiling that scattered liquid squares of light on the floor and illuminated a block of raw marble and a table displaying a variety of sculpting tools, rags and bottles.

The boy extracted him from his bewilderment when he finally spoke.

- “ I’m Miguel, Master De Luna’s apprentice, milord, to whom do I have the honor to speak?”

Garupe gasped as the sense of reality caught him again, he swallowed a lump in his throat and spoke as calmly as he could:

- “Vicente Santos. Servant.“

Garupe couldn’t lie further, as he was indeed in the simple clothes of a low ranked man.

As the boy stayed silent, Garupe added:

- “I heard you are in search of models…” he lied carefully and was relieved when he saw the boy relax, another wide smile appearing on his juvenile face:

- “You come in time milord” - the boy continued to address him using the same epithet even after revealing his low rank - “usually we choose them, but my master is about to start a new …particular work, we have one job available milord, if you…” – the boy gave Garupe a prolonged look, up and down, which made him nervous- “… oh but my master should see you first! please wait for me here? milord?“

And the boy slipped away before Garupe could utter a word.

An eternity seemed to pass before the boy appeared again, an eternity where Father Francisco Garupe regretted a thousand times his acts and decisions, but just as he was thinking about running away and abandoning his impossible adventure, the boy reappeared, followed closely by a small frame in …a cloak. A large dark cloak that hid the shape of the master’s body and face …

Garupe narrowed his eyes but, and as to make the task even harder, the master stood in the shadow, where the squares of light couldn’t reach his face. The master stood still, not speaking, not budging, but Garupe felt him staring at him and taking him in with invisible eyes, covered by veils of darkness. Garupe felt a chill run down his spine, and a spontaneous prayer played on his lips as he tried to focus and say something to alleviate the dread that began to take hold on him.

- “Vicente Santos, master, at your service.” Garupe offered a small bow, "I believe your apprentice informed you of the reasons of my visit."

The Master returned the bow and simply hummed, what Garuped believed was a hum of appreciation.

The boy then spoke again:

- “My master can’t speak, but with him present here, I can explain to you the details of the job.”

The master nodded as to encourage the boy to continue.

- “I hope milord here wouldn’t be bothered to pose without clothes on…” the boy coughed, “as my master is about to make a big work of art, a representation of the original man, no less, biblical Adam, milord.” And the boy opened his arms with emphasis as to demonstrate the importance of the work.

Garupe felt the world spin around him as he tried to make sense of what he had just heard. Did he miss something? Clearly not. They were telling him that the only work available was nude modelling!

- “I beg your pardon, Master” Garupe tried to adjust nervously the sleeves of his shirt. “As it is my first time in the business … I … I’m afraid I’m not comfortable enough…with such ideas.”

- “Models posing nude are doble paid, milord” the boy cut him off, yelling with enthusiasm, before the master stretched a cloaked hand and led him violently off the room.

The brisk reaction of the master sculptor made Garupe gasp in shock. But as he pulled himself together, he thought God was giving him a second chance to run away. He should, now, or never. He should say no, no matter how much they offered, no matter how strong the temptation would be.

Yes, leave now.

But just as he was about to turn away and disappear, the sculptor and his apprentice showed up again, like evil spirits from the depths of hell. Miguel ran to him and whispered something in his ear, something that made Garupe’s eyes almost roll out of their orbits. And that’s how he knew that he was really being tested.

- “All… all that, just to strip?”

The master sculptor nodded from his spot in the dusty darkness, and Garupe swallowed thick.

Shall he? Should he? Could he?

Lord, have mercy.

- “My master thinks that you are the man for the job.” Miguel re-entered the fray again, “I assure you milord, you’ll be a perfect Adam. Just think of your body as a tool, and it is, as you will see, as important for the art as the ones you see on that table. Just look at this block of dead marble. Do you think it’s worth a Real if not polished and worked to imitate life? And do you think it can stand in the most prestigious palaces of this town and arouse admiration and wonder in the eyes of kings and prelates if the very life that inspires it is mediocre?”

- “Excuse me”, Garupe replied, confused and a bit taken aback by the boy’s words, that seemed all but his. “How… how do you know that I … I would be what you are looking for if you’ve not seen … me yet.” Garupe couldn’t bring himself to mention his body, as tension grew tighter in his stomach. He had never imagined that a day would come when he would have a conversation about the worth of his body with anyone, ever, not even his confessor.

- “My master here is a connoisseur, and he has seen your face, milord.” The boy smiled, radiant. Garupe couldn’t help but notice the troubling contrast between his words, that were those of a grown adult man, and his facial expressions, that belonged to a no more than twelve year old boy.

- “How is my face…” Garupe stopped in the middle of his sentence. It was ridiculous, the fact alone that he wasn’t already taking leave, was ridiculous. The fact that he was here trying to discuss things that weren’t even in the realm of possibility for him was absurd. He tried to collect his courage and refuse, leave, return to his prayers and routine and forget about the letter, tuck it away, burn it, pretend he never received it… but Miguel, that little devil, was approaching him again with that big smile and the master’s eyes were so persistent on him, a burning stare he could feel but not see .

- “Milord, what had brought you here to model, is, I assume, a scarcity of money, and here my master is bidding you plenty of it just to strip of a few clothes, which, my master believes, is a very generous offer.”

- “It is, a very generous offer indeed”, Garupe found himself muttering. “But…“

- “Just a try, milord, I assure you, you will not regret it, let me help you, think of all the possibilities, do you have a family to feed, maybe a beautiful wife that you want to please? Or maybe parents that are in need?”

Garupe shook his head… Parents in need.

- “Fine! I will! I will.” He didn’t know, maybe another man shouted those words because what Father Francisco Garupe wanted now, was to be buried six feet deep, that was better than the disgrace he managed to become in such a short timeframe.

In the worst case, Garupe thought, chasing away his guilt, he could take the money that the master would give him today and never return again. But deep inside, the stubborn priest refused to accept that all he had done till now, all the risks he had been taking would come to nothing, that all the sins (and they were aggravated in his mind), would have been committed to no end at all. That would make them worse in his eyes, and he was sure, in God’s eyes too.

- “I will.”

His voice was his that time, resolute and determined as he started to work on his vest’s buttons, carefully avoiding the two pairs of eyes that were avidly waiting, like for the doors of Heaven to open.

#father garupe #fan fic #garupe x you #adam driver #adam driver fan fic #francisco garupe #frannie is in deep shit

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metamodel · 5 years

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A Machine For Hammering the Soul, With Robotic Padres

It's a juicy weekend read for you, in defence of piety (!)…

📖📖📖

After taking an extended break from social design work “to get some perspective” (ahem), I find that Everything Now Looks Very Strange Indeed™. This is another one of my updates on restarting a creative practice, with added cultural and design commentary.

(If someone’s forwarded this thing to you in the hope you’ll find it interesting, you can subscribe here to secure my everlasting love.)

Today I want to write of vibrations of the soul, the experience of the divine and the habit of prayer. With robots. Yes.

I remain a staunch unbeliever, and yet I find that these apparently religious terms become more useful when I’m wrestling with certain practices: of creativity, of recovery, of becoming a better participant in my communities (local or cosmic). Each of these requires me to paradoxically affirm my own sense of agency by simultaneously curbing it.

For example, working on our addictions is never simply a matter of exerting our individual willpower (which is called “white-knuckling it” in recovery culture, and clearly unsustainable); we instead need to make the choice to surrender to the collective agency of community.

And the other week, my dear friend Janelle and I attended a writer’s meetup that involved everyone sitting down and just doing some fucking writing. As we sat in a zero-ambience pub bistro, beavering away, she passed me a note:

“THIS FEELS FORCED AND NOT RAD.”

Agreed, the venue was very much not rad, and we weren't a very inspiring sight, but to be fair to the rest of us, Janelle’s own writing is driven by uncommonly strong affective tides that would wreck a less glorious being. I’d argue that for most people, sustainable creativity needs in some way to be “forced”, and this isn’t a bad thing. My own creative endeavours need to be sustained by the scheduled habit of accessing an animating spirit that might reveal itself to the solidarity of a congregation. (It does need a better venue, though. Blech.)

Such appeals to the beyond have given me a new, practical appreciation of the rigours of piety. But lest I be accused by Slavoj Žižek of some lacklustre, postmodern, liberal-secular appropriation of spirituality, I need to leaven this stuff with a good dose of machines and robots to keep it interesting to me. 😉

Eternal return: burials, and when the earth rejects us

First, some follow-up.

Did you know that in this wonderful medium of email newslettering, you can simply reply to any of these missives from me, and that your reply will appear directly in my everyday, personal email inbox? It’s real email. No really, I love this, so replies are encouraged. Meanwhile, I’m really heartened by the generous messages I’ve received from you thus far. Also, I don’t know some of you, and this mixture of the known and unknown is tantalising.

Answering my call in the last issue for objects that deserve “burial rites/rights" with us, Andrew (who I know can light a fire with his bare hands) replies that “I would bring with me a wooden spoon for my cooking, a headlamp for reading late at night and camping, and a vr headset because I know I won’t be affording one in this lifetime”. That would just be a simulated, still life VR headset then, right?

And Deborah, who wants “to be buried with seeds inside me, so I could be compost” (and who also first pointed me in the direction of socially responsible design, many years ago 😘), also notes that the word “Pandæmonium”, which I used in my last missive to describe the experience of the classroom in the context of exploring All the Things, “was coined to describe the Place Of All The Demons” — the capital of Hell in Milton’s Paradise Lost. So oddly… appropriate.

Deborah also pointed me to “When the rocks turn their backs on us”, Ken Wark’s review of Elizabeth Povinelli’s Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism:

[T]he Anthropocene is far from being some hubristic discourse about the powers and destinies of Man. It is rather a malignant, viral human presence in geological time. I think here one could read the Anthropocene through the figure of immunity rather than community. It is not the figure of Man becoming sovereign over the community of the biosphere within geological time. It is rather the biosphere immunising itself against forms of (non)life that it can’t endure.

While I think there’s every reason to despair, this feels a little too enthusiastically misanthropic. (Perhaps Wark is trying to make up for his embarrassing social democratic excesses of the ‘90s.) Not all community is naturalistic, hippy-dippy togetherness and accommodation, and the pain of recognising and negotiating it, against the predations of capital, might offer a bleak kind of hope. I shall ponder. I’ve naturally procured Povinelli’s book and will report back in a future issue.

⚒️🎵 The Hammer Song

[caption align="alignnone" width="980"]

Kandinsky’s "Winter Landscape", 1911[/caption]

The Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage show could so easily have drifted into Adult Contemporary Viewing territory, but it brought me this amazing quote from Kandinsky:

Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, and the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.

The eyes are the hammers. Whoa. Despite its manifest spiritualism, this image builds a model of aesthetics that’s all about resonant, relational assemblages of awesome in which each actor plays a material part. My eyes and yours live together inside a big piano. Fucking yes. This is society and ecology, defined — via aesthetics. The exhibition leaves Sydney this weekend if you want to catch it.

🔪🥀 Nick Cave is a joyful robot monk. Wait, what?

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Nick Cave in conversation. Photo filched from Daniel Boud.[/caption]

I was grateful to be at Conversations with Nick Cave the other week, not just to hear Cave’s voice and solo piano really rise to the occasion and fill a venue with their resonance, but to see the open Q&A format of the show return repeatedly to Cave’s creative process.

Fans who might’ve been clamouring for transcendent tales of sudden inspiration, or 19th Century Gothic influences (“I don’t have any”), were brought back to earth by the familiar refrain of the committed creative professional: Cave shows up to work, which requires lots of meticulous preparation and backbreaking iteration, and he makes it happen. “It’s a job,” he said, with finality. (I love the incongruity of this stuff coming from people like Nick Cave, or Bobbie Gillespie, who apparently keeps office hours for Primal Scream.)

But I’ve become a little sceptical of the total demystification of creativity that’s now common in our algorithmically inclined age of, uh, content-marketing savvy. With our era’s overly instrumentalist promotion of a well-adjusted creative-entrepreneurial mindset, it might be all too easy these days to reduce everything to using elbow grease to, you know, hit targets.

So I love that Cave is still in awe of sacred aesthetic magic when his rigour allows it to happen. He talked of putting in the work so that the divine can arrive. All his meticulous “going through the motions” (again, not a bad thing) produces something more than the sum of those motions. For him, it’s a way to experience God. And despite his Prince of Darkness reputation, Cave was at pains to describe how joyful that process can be. “There’s nothing dark about it.”

🤖🙏 Oh yeah, the bit about robots

When I was listening to Radiolab the other day (despite my long-running ambivalence about the show), I found that this recent episode’s focus on robots of antiquity resonated unexpectedly with my reading of Nick Cave’s creative process.

Hear me out.

In 1562 the crown prince of Spain, Don Carlos, falls down a flight of stairs and sustains a head injury that is by all accounts going to be fatal. According to Radiolab, his father King Philip II “kneels at his son’s deathbed and makes a pact with God: ‘If you help me, if you heal my son — if you do this miracle for me — I'll do a miracle for you.’”

Don Carlos miraculously survives, apparently thanks to the intervention of the spirit of Diego de Alcalá, a celebrated monk who died a century before. And so now Philip II needs to somehow perform his miracle:

[He] enlists a really renowned clockmaker named Juanelo Turriano — a huge ox of a man, described as always being filthy and blustery and not a lot of fun to be around — but a great, great clockmaker. So the king says, “Look, I want you to make a mechanical version of Diego de Alcalá, a mechanical version of this 100-year-dead holy priest. Yes, a mechanical monk — a robotic padre.”

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The robotic padre[/caption]

Artist and historian Elizabeth King describes the result:

Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order.

A miracle of technology! (You can watch a very low quality video of the robot in action here.) “He walks a delicate line between church, theatre, magic, science,” King writes, pondering the significance of the mechanical monk. “Here is a machine that prays.”

What does it mean? According to King and Radiolab, in the context of Counter-Reformation Spain, the robot monk strikes to the heart of debates about how one gets close to God:

You have the Protestants, with Luther, who are saying, “it’s not about works … it's about whether you feel it.” And then you have the Catholic argument which is to say you do these rituals because these are the rituals, and this is the way you get close to God.

The robot monk teaches us how to do ritual. Controversial! Given the ridiculous degree of crufty observance and corruption in the Church at the time of the Reformation (and, um, other times), I obviously understand why the Protestant appeal to pure feels was compelling. But my own ingrained Catholic social justice calculus of “good works” aside (“don’t fucking tell me your account with God hinges on how you feel inside instead of your concrete actions in the world, you schismatic apostates!”), I can’t help but think that this debate, and the robot monk himself, is a metaphor for the observance of creative process.

As stated above, I’m suspicious of the reduction of creativity to a bunch of instrumental observances in the mechanised pursuit of… metrics. Hack-work content marketing success, paid in SEO indulgences to the Church of Google. But to respond to this by abandoning the rigours of creative process for the inspiration of pure feeling would be a mistake. Unless you're a tidal wave like my friend Janelle, feelings are fickle. Protestant churches tend to trade the horrific institutionalised power of the Catholic Church (about which we need no reminders) for another kind of tyranny: exploitative emotional economies in which the faithful tend to be at the mercy of charisma. And to trade in pure charisma is to produce strongmen. As our current times remind us, charismatic populism offers release for the anxious but also destroys the processes that ultimately help us flourish as communities. Creative populism that relies on emotional catharsis tends to destroy the basis for a consistent creative practice. Just as the Reformation ended up eliding the point of what “good works” might potentially be about (i.e. acting rigorously to enable the arrival of goodness), we also need to remember what creative rituals are for (i.e. exactly the same thing as good works).

Thus it is with Nick Cave, who for me is the amazing robot monk. He mightn’t be your cup of tea, or you might even find his work occasionally objectionable, but I think most of us can agree that his creative practice really hums. (Don’t let his obsession with Southern Baptists or his own Anglican heritage distract. In terms of process, he is an exemplary Catholic robot.) He prepares, meticulously. He shows up to work. He performs the motions regularly, not worrying about inspiration, and through these observances somehow accesses what he feels to be a divine and joyous experience of creativity.

I’m convinced that if Nick Cave relied on pure feeling, or murderous inspiration, or spontaneous gothic possession, or any of the other assumptions people make about his artistic persona, so many great moments of his oeuvre wouldn’t exist. Nick Cave walks the square and kisses the cross and talks to God. For he is a joyous robot monk.

🎼 Coda

For those of you who remain unconvinced by my yoking together of monks and murder ballads: the final line of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, an historical murder mystery set in a monastery, is “Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus”, or “The rose of old remains only in its name; we have only naked names”.

Meanwhile, I was never really a fan of the chorus of “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” Cave’s duet with Kylie Minogue:

They call me The Wild Rose

But my name was Elisa Day

Why they call me it, I do not know

For my name was Elisa Day

Oooh. The name of the rose. Anyway, to me, Minogue’s delivery always reeked of passive fatalism. But the other day, I realised that it wasn’t fatalistic all — it was full of spooky reproach. Elisa Day remains known to us by her Wild Rose name of legend, but her ghost insists on remembering her own name. She’s crossing t’s and dotting i’s from beyond the grave.

Following Kylie, we would do well to pay proper respect to the names of those who are in the beyond. The way we relate to them constitutes its own assemblage, its own machine of observances. In this I’m reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 short story, “The Nine Billion Names of God”, in which Tibetan monks manage to automate the process of transcribing all the permutations that God’s name can take, using a supercomputer (naturally). Observing the names is the universe’s purpose, you see. And when the final name is encoded… Whoa.

How's that for a crazy constellation? (I know I'm just reaching. But it's fun!)

A sustainable portion of all my love,

Ben

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life-in-every-limb · 6 years

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Gird yourselves with sackcloth And lament, O priests; Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God . . . ~ Joel 1:13

When I am disturbed about world events, I head to my computer, looking for something to read. I read for facts, for analysis, and to process. Fortunately, in such times as these, others are moved to write to provide for this need.

So I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about the sex abuse crisis in the Church, and I wanted to share some of what I’ve read with you, hoping to provide insight, suggestions, and comfort as well as inspiring discussion.

Including a link here does not mean that I in general am a fan of the publication in which the piece appeared, or of the author, nor that I agree with or can confirm the truth of every position taken, as I will qualify below. I’m a little hesitant about sharing from some of these sources, frankly. I read from a variety of publications, some “liberal” and some “conservative” for lack of a better way to describe them; I feel very uncomfortable with using political terminology to describe matters of faith but I think we all know what I mean by these shortcuts in this context.

I don’t agree with the aims and philosophies of every source, nor do I endorse every word written. I’ve included links to author bios when available and to the home page for each publication so you can decide for yourself what weight to give their words. I’m including along with the link to each piece a quotation that gives a preview of the article so that you can decide whether you’d care to read more. Every article either helped me, informed me, or gave me something to think about as I deal with this. I hope that you may find them useful or at least interesting, and I’d love to know your thoughts.

Provocative Questions

I’ll start with some of the most challenging and thoughtful articles I’ve read, pieces that engage with some very difficult questions. All of us want to understand how this happened and how to put an end to it for all time. Everyone has his pet theory: It’s celibacy! It’s the gays! It’s the lack of women in the priesthood! (None of that is what I think, for what it’s worth.) Some of these perspectives are represented in the writing that follows. I don’t pretend to have the answer to any of this, and I cannot confirm the truth of every story, although all of it appeared in trustworthy publications. Brace yourself before reading the personal accounts of priestly formation. If even ten percent of it is accurate then I don’t even know what to say about the future of the priesthood.

I. From Eve Tushnet on Patheos:

A Closeted Subculture

There is no way to have a church without gay priests. What you can have is a church where the only gay priests are those unscrupulous enough to lie about their orientation and longings, plus those so frightened and ashamed that they couldn’t bring themselves to admit those longings even to themselves. You can have a church, in other words, with only the most damaged (and vulnerable) gay priests possible.

II. From Paul Blaschko in Commonweal:

Inside the Seminary

From 2008 through 2010, I was a seminarian in St. Paul, Minneapolis, an archdiocese now entrenched in its own abuse scandal. My experience there led me to believe that the problem of priestly sexual abuse is due, at least in part, to the failure of seminaries to provide adequate human and sexual formation to men studying for the priesthood.

III. From Rod Dreher in The American Conservative:

Inside the Seminary Closet

I would have held anyone’s secret in order to keep my own from being exposed. The reason I lay these stories bare now it because of my strong belief that this pervasive dysfunctional culture is at the deepest core of the cover-up, abuse, and scandal of all forms–not just sexual–that continue to be rampant in these church circles.

IV. From Massimo Faggioli in Commonweal

Trent’s Long Shadow

This new phase of the clerical sex-abuse crisis is more a crisis of the Tridentine church than of the Vatican II Church, because the church in which that abuse took place is, in terms of its institutional structure, still essentially Tridentine. The effort to reform the church in light of what we now know about sexual abuse and abuses of power must look back further than the Second Vatican Council, which did not so much open a new era as begin to close down an old one whose remnants are still with us.

V. From Simcha Fisher of I Have to Sit Down:

Would a Female Priesthood Disrupt Sex Abuse?

It’s not the evil of maleness that is the problem. It’s the evilness of humanity. It’s the weakness and corruptibility of human nature. We don’t need more women on the inside. We need more clear-thinking, courageous women and men on the outside, willing and able to see clearly and speak loudly, and, most importantly, capable of bringing the guilty to justice.

VI. From Andrew Sullivan in the Daily Intelligencer:

Cleansing the Catholic Church of Its Sins

We may still believe in Jesus. But precisely because of that, we can no longer believe in the church. No one is untouched. . . . This is no time to shore up the institution. It’s time to open it up and cleanse it.

How should the Church respond?

There is no shortage of opinions on this question. And end to the silence, as I wrote myself last week, is the centerpiece of every article out there. Also prevalent is the need for a thorough housecleaning with massive resignations. Once again, I don’t agree with every word in every piece and I have highlighted some of what struck me.

I. From Simcha Fisher of I Have to Sit Down:

Dear Priests, I Am Begging You to Speak about This Scandal

We need to know that you are as struck with horror as we are. We need to know that you would be on our side if we were the ones calling the police. We need to know that you care for us more than you care about falling afoul of some toothless pastoral directive from above. We need someone to be with us in this free fall of horror.

II. From Peter Jesserer Smith in the National Catholic Register:

Erie Bishop Models What a Real Apology to Victims Looks Like

You may be aware that we recently unveiled new policies and implemented procedures to ensure that this criminal behavior is stopped. . . . But this is not the moment to focus on our efforts. Today, I simply stand before you, humbled and sorrowful.

III. From Courageous Priest:

Finally, A Faithful Apology from the Pulpit

You can laugh at me and think I am crazy but when I heard the news about former-Cardinal McCarrick two things surfaced in me at once: (1) anger; and, (2) the thought that I should sell all my belongings, shave my head, live in a stone hut, and start a new religious order. How will we rebuild from this mess? Who will do it? The answer throughout all of history in the face of moral crises in the Church has always been saints. Everyday people make a more radical decision for Jesus and that starts healing and repair and roots out the corruption and evil. I’m probably too weak to be a St. Francis of Assisi… I don’t know… but we need some new men and women who will radically reform their lives and that of the Church.

IV. From ChurchPop:

What Should a Priest Do When a Stranger Yells “Pedophile!” at the Store?

We’re all rightfully angry at these crimes and their cover-up. Catholics, lay and clergy, shouldn’t get defensive.

V. From Rosary Bay:

**I am certainly not in agreement with what seems to me to be the radical traditionalism espoused by this publication, and I am not even sure this rite is valid any more, but it would be satisfying to see it used on a few bishops, anyway.

Rite of Degradation of a Bishop

Next, one of the assistants gives the degrandus a crosier, which the degradator takes from the man’s hand, saying: “We take from you the shepherd’s staff, to indicate you no longer have any claim on the pastoral office which you have mismanaged.”

VI. From Mark Thiessen for the Washington Post:

The Catholic Church needs a #MeToo moment – and it should start here in Washington

The episcopacy as an institution has been corrupted. A culture of silence allowed a culture of abuse to flourish. Bishops consumed with what the pope called “the thirst for power” have through both action and inaction allowed evil to spread through the church. That evil must be rooted out. It is time for the Catholic Church to experience its own #MeToo moment. And it should start here in Washington – the modern symbol of earthly power.

VII. From Elizabeth Scalia of The Anchoress:

How Can We #RebuildMyChurch? Cardinal Wuerl Accidentally Points the Way

It’s very clear that too many bishops and cardinals have shown themselves to be untrustworthy overseers; they need to learn how to be priests again, and there is no better way to do that than to toss them out of the cushy offices, greatly reduce the number of personal assistants, end the entourage, discourage the gold cuff links and the bespoke shirts and the limos. Send them forth with a pair of good shoes and a working phone, into the mission territory of their parishes.

How should the Church NOT respond?

I. From Sohrab Ahmari in the New York Post:

In the face of horror, the Catholic Church is worried about PR

The most painful aspect of all this is the blasé response of many American hierarchs and especially those, like Washington Archbishop Donald Cardinal Wuerl, who are implicated in the report. Wuerl and his colleagues have treated the report as a PR headache rather than a moral and spiritual wake-up call. They have acted like corporate reputation managers rather than successors to the Apostles.

II. From Jake Tapper and Clare Foran on CNN:

Pennsylvania AG: Cardinal under scrutiny over report on priest abuse ‘is not telling the truth’

In a statement to CNN, Shapiro said, “Cardinal Wuerl is not telling the truth. Many of his statements in response to the Grand Jury Report are directly contradicted by the Church’s own documents and records from their Secret Archives. Offering misleading statements now only furthers the cover up.”

How should the laity respond?

I know, I know, it isn’t our fault. But we are the Church, and we are called to respond to this crisis. Prayer should always be our first response, but not our only one. Following are some ideas for prayer and other actions.

I. From Paul Begala on CNN.com:

Catholics in the Pew Must Unleash Their Anger

Like so many Catholics, I am reeling. I am praying that Pope Francis will institute reforms with teeth — yet I also believe that the Church is the People of Christ, and so the laity must lead.

II. From Dr. Susan Reynolds on Daily Theology:

** I chose to sign this letter.

Statement of Catholic Theologians, Educator, Parishioners, and Lay Leaders on Clergy Sexual Abuse in the United States

Today, we call on the Catholic Bishops of the United States to prayerfully and genuinely consider submitting to Pope Francis their collective resignation as a public act of repentance and lamentation before God and God’s People.

III. From Haley of Carrots for Michaelmas:

What Can *WE* Do About the Abuse Crisis?

If one thing is clear, it is that now is the time to become a saint. That’s what the Church needs. I pray that the Vatican and the bishops will do the hard work that must be done to protect the innocent and bring justice to victims. But we need St. Catherine of Sienas to rise up.

IV. From Emily of Our Home, Mary’s Mantle

Silence IS NOT Always Golden…

Protect one-another. Pray for each other. Show love and kindness. And please, don’t leave our Faith. As imperfect as leadership may be. Let’s take our responsibility and no longer be complacent, but reticent and watchful.

V. From Pray More Novenas:

Novena for the Abuse Crisis | Accountability, Transparency and Healing

This novena is meant to help us pray for the victims of these terrible acts and for the Church. We will pray that all the abuse stops and any priests and bishops involved will be held accountable.

VI. From my post last week:

Sackcloth and Ashes

I know many of you are tired of hearing folks offering thoughts and prayers whenever there is anything bad happening in the world. I agree that when people who have the ability to act ONLY offer prayers, that’s an insult to God, who gave us brains and hands and blessings in order that we would cooperate with Him in bringing about good in the world. But that doesn’t mean prayers are useless!

VII. From Anni of A Beautiful, Camouflaged, Mess of a Life:

25 Ideas for Non-Traditional Fasting

Yesterday, the Pope called for the faithful to a period of fasting and prayer. The Catholic bloggers and artisans were already planning to kick off #sackclothandashes. . . But, I am nursing a little guy . . . So, I had to get a little creative. These are all things I have done to “fast”. . . The purpose behind fasting for faith (not medical purposes) is to be intentional! Offer up your desires and will to God. . .

VIII. From Laura of A Drop in the Ocean:A Litany for Our Church in Crisis

If you’ve not prayed a litany before, it’s a style of prayer with a list of intentions and responses. The response for each group of intentions is given in italics after the first line and is repeated after each individual intention. It can be prayed individually, or in a group where one person reads the intention and other say the response. It is meant to be prayed slowly as we reflect on each specific intention.

Personal Reflections

I will close with some outcries from the hurting heart of a faithful Catholic, reflecting the devastation and betrayal we all feel, as well as some words of wisdom and comfort from a friend.

I . From Mary Pezzulo of Steel Magnificat:

Better the Millstone: On the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report

Our shepherds have failed us. They have sinned horrendously. They have sinned, and if they don’t repent they will burn in the pit of hell, and that will be nothing more than justice for them. And they did it over a thousand times. I don’t know where to go from here.

and

Sanctissima: Meditations on a Dark Assumption Day

If things go on as they are– if no changes are made, if the bishops keep stammering their “sadness” and “concern” without repentance, without resigning and going away, if everything goes on as it is– where will I be next year? On Assumption Day, Anno Domini 2019, will any of us still believe in things invisible?

II. From Jeffrey Salkin in Religion News Service:

An open letter to my Roman Catholic friends

As difficult as it is now, as betrayed and as befouled as you might now feel – I urge you to cling to the idea that your faith might yet be more powerful than the malfeasance of those whom you once might have trusted. God stands above our humanly-created structures. God alone deserves your faith.

These represent only a fraction of what I’ve read. They have brought pain, challenge, conviction, healing, confusion, doubt, and conviction to me. I will continue to read and pray and I welcome your suggestions.

The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers, a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight. ~Hilaire Belloc

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