#theology of work project

[tabernacleheart]

When we are passed over for promotion or lose a job, when we become chronically ill, when we lose people we love, what then? We face the question, “If God was blessing me during the good times, is he punishing me now?” This is a hugely important question. If God is punishing us, we need to change our ways so he will stop. But if our difficulties are not a punishment from God, then changing our ways would be foolish. It might even oppose what God wants us to do!

The Bible reveals that sometimes our suffering is not a result of our sin. Consider the example of Job. He suffered greatly, losing his substantial wealth and his family. His friends urged him to admit that it was divine punishment because of his sin, but Job resisted, insisting that he had not deserved his sorrow. In the end, the Lord rebuked Job’s friends, revealing that they had not spoken rightly about God when they said God had been punishing Job. In fact, it was Satan who had caused Job’s suffering all along! [Nevertheless,] we are not told why God allows Satan to torture Job. One harrowing day, nearly everything Job treasures is stolen. The people he loves—including all his children—are murdered or killed in violent storms. But Job neither assumes God is punishing him nor becomes bitter over God’s treatment. Instead he worships God.

Because Job has experienced prosperity as a blessing from God, he is prepared to suffer adversity without jumping to conclusions. He recognizes the limits of his own understanding. He doesn’t know why God sometimes blesses us with prosperity and sometimes allows us to suffer adversity. He just knows that God is faithful. [When we, too,] know that sometimes [our] suffering is caused by forces [we] don’t now understand, [we can prayerfully ask God to] help [us patiently] suffer adversity without jumping to the conclusion that it is a punishment. Instead, [our trust in God's faithfulness] will lead [us] to worship and trust [Him] always.

Theology Of Work Project

[tacoma-narrows]

It's funny when I overcome the awful anxiety called Sending An Email because it is then immediately replaced by a completely different awful anxiety called Waiting On A Response To Email

[cy-lindric]

I’m suuuppper curious about the graphic novel you’re working on! I was wondering if you could talk about the main characters and show us some of the character designs you’ve done for the comic! I’m just super invested in this project and would like to learn some more about it! Everything you’ve shown us of the project has been so beautiful, keep up the great work!!!❤️

Hello, thanks for asking !

The story is set in an abbey that houses both monks and students sent by noble families to learn theology and liturgical linguistics. Both of the main characters are students hoping to get awarded into the doctorate programme.

Iodis is the first point-of-view character ; she's the illegitimate child of a cardinal and has been at the abbey since she was a child. She's charismatic and a fast learner, but she's impatient and has a hard time accepting rules and authority.

Halcyon is a newcomer at the abbey and a daughter of local nobility. Learning doesn't come easy to her, but she's studious and hardworking to the extreme. She's very reserved and she looks like she's hiding something.

Here are some other secondary characters :

Césaire, Iodis' best friend. He's a bit older and he was awarded the previous year for the Doctorate so he's working on his thesis. Charming and secretely sneaky.

The Abbotts, Fauste and Cosimo, are opposing forces with diverging political goals in the Abbey. (Centre is an old design)

Héliodore, Alàri and Maxime are other children of the nobility that Iodis hangs out with. Hélio is the youngest son of the king of Longitania, the Long France royal family I've already posted about, and naturally he is a little shit.

You can find some more concepts and older designs in my Massà tag !

[bonefall]

a while ago you said that Starclan cats design kittens and customize them with patterns and colors from their parents genes. So, do the clan cats raise any eyebrows when it comes to people who know cat genetics? Is there a geneticist who is holding their head wondering how these two cats have this colored kit while their starclan designer was just playing around? Or do the Starclan designers still have to stay within the rules?

Basically, do the humans notice that some of these clan cats are sparkle cats lol

I try to not get too "lost in the weeds" since the humans aren't the focus of the story, just taking care that they DO have real motivations behind their actions rather than construction crews materializing out of nowhere to Do A Chaos, but...

First, the genetics of cats in Albion are different than humans in equivalent Great Britain.

Partially, this is because I honestly just don't really enjoy learning about in-depth genetics or applying them realistically. I like drawing anime characters and writing anime battles, so they have anime genetics. But more than that, off-screen, the intelligence of cats has altered the timeline of this world.

If cats really were capable of higher thinking, that totally would have had some butterfly effects. I like dropping crazy alt-history and then not elaborating on it, because it's funny. Archimedes' cat helped him invent a death ray, btw.

On that note of genetics though, you guessed right. StarClan designers DO have to work with what they have. Whatever the genetics of this alternate universe of cats are, every kit born still abides by the laws of nature.

Which brings me to...

Second, the researchers do notice that the Clan cats are special. In fact, there is a "study of magic" in this universe-- Thaumatology. "The science of wonder."

(There's no world where magic actually factually exists that science isn't all over it lmao)

Thaumatology facts I haven't shared so far since it's all offscreen and just Bonus Worldbuilding;

It is a "soft science," not a hard one.

It has a LOT of problems with replicability. Thaumatologists and Quantum Physicists have a lot of in-jokes.

The most well known (to the point of being a cliche) is "magic and quantum particles both hate being watched."

Magic is highly variable based on a bajillion very personal factors, like emotion, environment, culture, personal background, etc, so it's severely difficult to re-create it in controlled environments.

Thaumatology has a lot of overlap with sociology, archeology, and theology, so people from these fields work together a lot.

There was absolutely not a dedicated Thaumatologist working in the Research Team early on, sadly.

It was probably discovered when the Battle of the True Eclipse blew out a bunch of field cameras.

It's pretty common that photography equipment fritzes out a bit during "supernatural" times like eclipses, but the damage was extensive enough to be noteworty

The Clan cats were initially notable just for the fact they had advanced culture.

Cats are usually comparable to crows and monkeys, in this universe. So cats with fire and a crude writing system were enough to SHAKE the field of zoology.

The fact they're cats helped a lot. The public loves cats, enough that since their discovery after Speckletail attacked a bulldozer, massive outcry has secretly helped the Clans several times.

The discovery that the culture also has Thaumatological elements is more of a goldmine for a scientist than the public, though.

It's common knowledge that "animals are magic," because humanity projects traits onto them. "Of course they do, they're cats...?"

The Thaumatologist is freaking out because "THE CAT IS PROVABLY DOING ITS OWN THAUMATURGY"

Most people don't know the difference between Thaumaturgy (the functional work it does on the world) and Thaumology (the study of that as a whole), so this particular scientist is going to have a hard time explaining WHY this distinction is so special.

(And possibly even offensive to certain groups, who would insist only humans are capable of this)

In any case, eventually there would be Thaumatological interest in the Clan cats, but they weren't there in the mid to late 2010s when BB!ASC takes place.

[astroscientia]

🌊Neptune in the Houses🌊

1st house:

You choose how to act and project yourself to others based on the subconscious cues that you acquire from them. Your identity is often based on how others see you and talk about it. There is a degree of loss when it comes to self-expression- the unheard child learns to perform to express identity.

2nd house:

Poor with managing, organizing, and structuring finances and possessions. Overly generous with resources. Might make money in nefarious ways if Neptune is poorly aspected. More positively, these natives might profit from pharmacology, marine biology, medicine, or NGO work.

3rd house:

The local environment has a Piscean element. Early school years also were characterized by daydreaming and escaping from learning. The loss of a sibling to unknown or sudden causes is likely in some cases (depending on the aspects). It could suggest that your siblings/cousins/classmates that are close to you are artists, singers, or dreamers. In a negative sense, this might attract escapist friends with a heavy victim mentality.

4th house:

Issues with water, pipes, and flooding in the home. Home near bodies of water. Your mother or a potent female figure in your life might be sick and require care from you or your family members. In this case, the gist is that the family might cause you to feel neglected and forgotten, making you want to escape the domestic setting through art or physical separation. These natives are quite nocturnal- they sleep all day and stay up all night to avoid their families in some cases.

5th house:

Death of children. Loss of lovers to illness, substance abuse, prison, crime, or mental disorders. Lovers might be absent while present either because of their own commitments to helping someone old/vulnerable or through escapism (drugs, sex, alcohol, etc) or poor health.

6th house:

Watch out for the immune system. Habits and routines might not express a desire for a person to live well. Poor habits. Disorganized. No discipline and routine when it comes to eating, working, exercising and taking care of oneself at the bodily level. Neglected as a child and did not learn to properly care for themselves.

7th house:

Attracted to partners that aren't really "there." This sense of absence in presence can be because of the following things: frequent travels, substance abuse, prison, mental illness, philanthropic work that takes the person's time, religious fidelity, etc. You might "lose" a partner to their vices and blame yourself for it.

8th house:

Potential for misunderstandings in transactions (financial) with others. Deception when it comes to money that you get from others. There is vagueness and gullibility when perceiving people's sexual or financial advances toward us. Be careful of who you let into your life sexually or romantically.

9th house:

Confusion regarding beliefs, higher education, and vision for the future. If in university, the campus might be located near water, or you might study subjects related to the pharmaceutical industry, oil, gas, pharmacology, parasitology, virology, marine studies, psychology, or you might enter esoteric fields (astrology, tarot, etc.) or you might study theology.

10th house:

Confusion about future and career. Fear tied to career prospects and the father. The father might have been absent or neglectful which manifests in an inability to be stable in a job.

11th house:

Friends slip through your fingers. We may need clarification about our hopes and life goals because Neptune here makes our ideals changeable. So, our vision for life is usually mutable and influenced by external forces that people rarely have the self-awareness to explore. This is also a highly intuitive placement.

12th house:

This is a good placement because Neptune is comfortable in the 12th house. Intuition is good. Sleep is very essential for you. Heightened motivation to get to know yourself through self-reflection, meditation, and spirituality, and project these learnings to heighten your empathy.

Thank you for reading!

[sunshine-zenith]

Okay but like. AU where Mary doesn’t actually learn Cas is an Angel until waaaaay later

Her first introduction to Cas involves Dean frantically getting her to lower her gun, Cas tearfully throwing himself at Dean like a widower reunited with their believed-dead spouse, Dean hugging Cas back just as tightly, and her giving them that Oh They Gay side eye. When Dean says Cas is an Angel, let’s be real given the context she has it probably sounds Super Married. Cas agreeing that he’s an Angel, not a hunter, could come off as “yeah I put up with so much shit for this guy,” especially when paired with his exasperated “no I don’t have a harp” — it just screams “we’ve been married so long that this isn’t even an inside joke it’s a double act and I’m a reluctant but committed participant.”

Also seriously, I know she was literally just resurrected by god’s sister, but “he’s an Angel —wings, harp, you know” sounds like spousely teasing, not a proper or coherent introduction to an entire species that until that moment you didn’t know where actually real or something you could tangibly interact with

When Sam and Dean are missing and Cas attempts to locate them and takes up hunting, Mary would chalk up his lack of success to the fact that he’s not a hunter — he’s a hunter’s husband. Mary herself has personal experience with this exact thing, given that John wasn’t raised a hunter either. As such, she’s either a little softer on her assumed son-in-law, or she projects hard onto him

Cas preferring to fight with a magic blade and not firearms? Not wise in their life, but again, he’s not actually a hunter. She tentatively brings up her concerns with Dean and he says he’s working on getting Cas to use a gun, but Cas is a stubborn asshole (he says with fondness), plus he’s damn good with that blade, so he’s fine in the meantime. She raises her eyebrow but leaves it for the time being

That time Cas kills Death for her and her sons? That’s just devoted husband/in-law behavior, especially given how emotional he gets after — look closely, Cas absolutely had very human tears in his eyes as he monologues about how important and special they are to him

That time Cas almost dies horribly and is saved by a demon? Everyone just doesn’t say “it’s specifically because he’s an Angel” here, at least not when she’s in ear shot, and if Crowley still calls him “choir boy” and such, well he’s a sarcastic demon, why should she worry about his weird quips, there are more important things to deal with. For all she knows, this is just a horrible curse that any of them could’ve gotten if they were stabbed with that blade

One time she tentatively asks Sam about Cas and Dean, specifically asking how long they’ve been together. Sam just laughs in Long Suffering Little Brother

Otherwise, Mary doesn’t really ask, not really wanting to push and frankly not doing so great with the whole My Babies Are Now Older Than Me And Everyone Else I Know Is Dead thing. If Cas is weird about technology or uses strange syntax or usually lets Dean finish his meals for him, she has very little to compare it to and very little brain space to spend on it anyway. She’s still processing that her son is old enough to be married in the first place, who cares if the guy he’s grossly in love with is a little strange. He seems nice enough, and she’s content leave it at that

As a result of her keeping her distance, with a pinch of contrived convenience here, she just straight up misses all the times Cas uses his Grace or references heaven or anything like that

Yes she still knows about the whole Lucifer-Kelly-Nephilim thing, but she could just mentally categorize Lucifer with Powerful Demon — given that she was killed by a powerful demon, she doesn’t really need a theology lesson to know that Satan having a baby is probably bad. Yes she still works with the MOL, but they’ve got her on such an information diet that no one pulls her aside to say “btw you know that non-human celestial being that hangs around with your barbarian sons is a non-human celestial being, right?”

She’s a hunter from a long line of hunters, and even if she makes questionable choices she’s smart and experienced. She just has a massive blind spot where Cas is because she assumes that he’s just her sweet if strange son-in-law that her son is obviously and painfully in love with, and nobody corrects her because they assume she already knows

She finds out by complete accident in the most mundane way possible — Cas lifting the Impala so Dean can do mechanic stuff underneath it, Cas using his Grace to heal someone’s papercut, Cas accidentally cutting himself with a kitchen knife and not reaching to the injury which disappears in 2.8 seconds anyway

She shoots him on the spot. He’s fine, of course, but everyone else collectively loses their shit

At no point is it actually clarified that Dean and Cas aren’t actually together. Instead Mary walks away mildly embarrassed that she had no idea her son-in-law wasn’t human

[noxeons]

So after I wrote to the wonderful Gyro ( @swordsmans ) to scream my undying love at them and I was made aware of the gorgeous bookbinding they are working on for Ocean Theology, I ran to sketch as soon as I could and this is the result.

Anything by @swordsmans is art and love and devotion and magic and they are genuinely so nice that I couldn’t be happier to be part of their project.

Please go read Ocean Theology on ao3.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #52 – The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey

Introduction

I have never technically read any of Corey’s work before, but I really loved all the seasons of the Expanse I’ve seen. So, as it would be months and months before I could actually get a copy from the library, this is the rare book I actually bought off the strength of the blurb. Even rarer, this actually worked out! This is genuinely quite good, meaty, even fairly original space opera!

On the world of Anjiin, a human civilization has developed from the ruins of some prehistoric colonization mission that ended in atomic fire, their origins a matter of theology and myth. Through blatant nepotism (his aunt is a very important administrator whose made his career her way of honoring her dead sister), Dafyd Alkhor is a research assistant on the most prestigious and celebrated lab/project on the planet – a successful attempt to bridge the gap between the native plant life of the planet and the earth-descended life humanity brought with it. But even as everyone’s enjoying their moment in the limelight, the project is in danger of being split up, the credit and prestige a juicy enough prize for the academic politics to get vicious. And then there’s Dafyd’s rather poorly hidden crush on Else, a much more senior scientist and also the Team Lead’s girlfriend. Everything begins to come to a head, and then-

Well, and then aliens invade. The Carryx and their servitor-species more-or-less effortlessly destroy every human attempt to resist, and then execute one eighth of the population where they stand. Like some massive, chitinous, latter-day Assyrian Empire, they then sort through and abduct a few hundreds or thousands of humanity’s administrative and intellectual elites. Hostages to bring to one of their world-palaces to live at their pleasure and prove their worth as subjects until a place in imperial society can be decided for them – with ‘mass grave’ being an entirely plausibly option if they fail to please. Dafyd, honestly a pretty shit scientist but a natural courtier and schemer, then finds himself desperately trying to understand the Carryx actually want from humanity, and why they refuse to communicate any of it.

Complicity and Collaboration

So this is overwhelmingly a novel about how to react to subjugation – of different emotional and trauma responses to seeing your loved ones killed to make a point, to seeing everything you know destroyed in the space of an afternoon, to being forced into an overcrowded ship and sent to a terrifying new world where your life is valued exactly in proportion to your captors' whims. As the novel reaches its climax, it becomes increasingly about the morality of fawning, servile collaboration and nobly suicidal resistance – of whether it’s better to live kneeling or die standing, essentially.

This is one of very few books I can ever remember reading that make a big dramatic point of that question, and then come down on the side of ‘live kneeling, bide your time until you’ve earned their trust and know enough to stab the knife somewhere vital’. Partially just because every other genre story in the world does stack the deck towards resistance (making victory an almost foregone conclusion if people just have the courage to fight) and this does in the opposite direction (‘resistance’ would be at best a few spectacular terrorist attacks before they’re all hunted down and executed, the first thing the rest of humanity would know of their noble fight is when the retaliatory genocide starts), but still.

I found the start of chapter epigraphs a greater flaw, honestly – they’re quotations from an imprisoned Carryx after some future fall of the empire, who lays the blame squarely on humanity. I’m sure this is building up to some lovely dramatic irony in future books (and is a fun window to Carryx state ideology), but the constant reassurance that the plan works and isn’t just a rationalization for surrender really does drain some of the moral stakes out of the question, you know? From a dilemma with genuinely unclear outcome to just a particularly cruel and slimy trolley problem. Which I mean, still juicy character drama! I did enjoy it.

As Space Opera

There are many works of SFF which are, frankly, setting bibles with an excuse of a story stapled on out of obligation. This isn’t one of them, but it is a book written by people who clearly enjoyed the worldbuilding for its own sake and were always looking for little excuses to show off a bit of it. This is probably clearest with Anjiin – from a plotting perspective, they could have sketched out the basics of the world in a paragraph, assuming they didn’t just use some vague future Earth or Mars instead. But Anjiin actually feels like a fully realized world with its own politics and hypocrisies, its own culture and theology, and (especially) its own beautiful and profoundly alien landscapes and architectures. The last thing makes the book’s job much harder, really – the sense of shock and alienation (as well as a guilty sort of curious wonder) at the Carryx world-palace is vital to the book, making the home the cast is stolen away from so strange and unfamiliar as well can only make it harder to evoke in the reader.

The book spends something like the first fifty pages on Anjiin before the Carryx arrive – before (almost) anyone have the slightest idea they exist – introducing the main cast and their dynamics, sketching out their daily lives, and grounding Anjiin a real, vibrant place that it’s possible to get properly attached to. Vitally, it’s not a world without conflict – Dafyd et al spend the entire time embroiled in high stakes academic intrigues and interpersonal dramas, of a kind that could easily sustain a book on their own. This was a big part of why the book worked so well for me, I think – the loss of Anjiin felt like a loss, the cutting off of possibilities I wanted to see play out, the execution of characters I enjoyed seeing on the page. Given how often these sorts of stories can (unintentionally or no) read ‘and then they were whisked from boring mundanity with dramatic fireworks accompanying them’, I’m glad the book spent the wordcount on it.

The Carryx needed to really overawe and impress, which I think the book mostly manages. Their society seems both plausible and viscerally alien. The book does a neat job of obscuring the exact border between their (weird and fascinating) biology and their obsessively eugenic imperial ideology, in a way that seems very fitting given that both the characters we spend any time with at all are middle/lower-middle ranking strategists and overseers in the imperial project.

This is very much an empire which starts with the iron fist and only bothers mentioning the existence of carrots after a new subject population is brutalized and terrified into full submission. Their ideology is a half-step short of pure power worship, and makes no excuses butchering and exterminating to make the world more convenient for them – none of them ever refer to other species as anything but ‘animals’. This isn’t an empire that tries to convert and persuade – but then, it’s not one that needs to.

The world-palace and assembled ranks of other species gathered in it does an excellent job of being genuinely awe-inspiring even for the characters who hate every solitary thing about it. One great advantage of written science fiction over more visual media is that there’s no real need to make your aliens humanoid or relatable-looking, and Corey takes full advantage of it to fill the prison camp with dozens of memorable, different species – absolute none of which could be played by an actor in makeup.

Of course, those aliens are mostly just set dressing – with the exception of one species of primates that humanity is placed into competition with that ends up in a mutually escalating and quite bloody vendetta – the only alien species represented by actual characters with names and points of view are the Carryx and the infiltration-swarm sent by their great enemy to get scooped up along with humanity and gather information about their inner workings. It does this by consuming and possessing one of the main cast, and the book has great fun keeping coy about who for half the book while still using it as a secondary Point of View. Even more than the Carryx, it does a good job of coming across as both genuinely alien (probably because it is an alien-ness in conversation with the humanity of the two hosts it has assimilated) while still being an incredibly compelling character.

Characterization

Dafyd has a habit/nervous tic of looking for people’s ‘pathological behavior’ – the habits and tendencies they default onto in situations of high stress or while they feel in danger or powerless. This is, then, the lens the book invites as far as its characters go. Every one one of them spends the vast majority of the book cycling from one trauma response to another, and each is probably mostly characterized by the way they respond and the things they fixate on as their world is destroyed and they reckon with their own powerlessness. Fixate on the research the Carryx want and at to try and pretend life is still recognizable, or get angrier and angrier and jump at the first chance to justify beating some other inmates to death to feel a bit of agency and control. Plot out a nobly suicidal strike back against your oppressors, or try desperately to understand what they want so you can manipulate them and ensure the survival of you and yours. Or just constantly make off-color and mostly unfunny jokes.

None of it is exactly subtle, but it all rings pretty true, and does a good job making (almost) every cast member compelling and memorable. It helps, I suppose, that we end up spending at least a chapter or two in the head of half the main human cast, and get plenty of careful observation or intimate conversation with the rest. I’m aware some people really despise this sort of POV-hopping in a story (especially when it’s mostly just different perspectives on the same broad events/circumstances) but personally I rather adore it when it’s done well and they each seem both plausible and distinct, which this book easily manages.

In Conversation with the Wider Genre

I am at this point a bit of of a connoisseur of the hyper-specific subgenre of ‘space opera/spec fic more generally deeply concerned imperialism, colonialism, the experience of subjugation, and the internal logics of complicity and collaboration’ – a shelf which its always great to add new works to. I don’t particularly think Mercy was written in direct response to or is actively commenting on any similar works, but it is fascinating to do a bit of a compare/contrast. Well, it is for me, anyway.

Compared to your Memory Called Empire’s and your Imperial Radch’s the most salient really thing is how uncomplicatedly awful the Carryx are. Not that the empires in those books ostensibly aren’t, but they’re simultaneously also cultured, elegant, rich – in a word, alluring. We spend as much or more time on the intricacies of Radachi tea ceremonies and soap operas as we do on their atrocities, and even that makes the messy brutality of imperialism far more foregrounded relative to the seductive beauty of salon poetry and monumental architecture than it is in Memory. Mercy, in contrast, mostly shows the awe-inspiring beauty of the Carryx world palaces through the windows of a prison-camp. It’s there – we even meet the subject-species who were enslaved instead of exterminated because they can architect such wonders – but only really incidentally. The glory of the Carryx is their vastness and their overwhelming might, all the elegance and beauty they have is the fruit of conquest – and more often than not, different subject-species are introduced with hints or notes of how much more they were, before they were crushed and carved into something the empire could use. (This is almost certainly related to the fact that the only point of view we get whose at all a native or wiling agent of the empire is very minor, and clearly a villain without much in the day of redeeming or morally interesting features).

The better comparison is really Exordia. Or maybe I’m only saying that because it’s the one I read this year, and thus the one whose interesting little complications are at least somewhat clear in my head. Better put, Mercy is exactly the story Clayton from Exordia thought he was in. In both the empire is both alien and undisguised in its malice (two things that are probably related, really), in both the empire doesn’t feel any need to understand or integrate humanity, when overwhelming superiority in technology, scale, and availability of coercive force allow it to just threaten and brutalize until it gets what it wants. The humans in Exordia are just both more and less lucky. Less, because their alien invaders are even more monomaniacally (indeed, metaphysically) malevolent to the point that even being their willing accomplice only buys hours to days of life. More, because they have an ancient relic of a plot device buried in the mountains to give a bit of cause for actual hope in violent resistance (and so a final act of the story concerned with an entirely different suite of messy trolley problems).

It’s an interesting addition to the subgenre anyway – I really can’t recall any other books that have a protagonist collaborating with the empire while not at any point being seduced by it. Well no, that’s a lie – Machinaries of Empire does hit the same beat, just in extraordinarily different ways.

Should Your Read This Book?

The answer is at least partially conditional on how the rest of the series turns out – the narrative absolutely requires sequels, and oh how they could retroactively absolutely ruin it. But with just the one book and a bit of optimism? If the premise seems even slightly intriguing, then absolutely.

[and-her-saints]

Hey sorry idk if you'd know this but I quite literally don't know where to turn about this so I'm sending this ask to every queer+catholic blog I can find

Are there *any* resources out there for queer/trans Catholics that go beyond affirmation and show how to pursue a religious life that goes beyond the laity (e.g. priesthood, joining a convent/monastery, something similar) without having to brush your queerness aside. I feel like if I don't find something soon I might go insane

years ago, i attended a Zoom event with Fr. James Alison as a keynote speaker, and something he said has been glued to my brain ever since. he said it in Spanish, so i'll try to remember, paraphrase and translate: "while they try to get us to stop being queer, what we must try to do is to be better queers."

i love what you said about "beyond affirmation" and that is precisely why i got reminded of the quote and WHY this quote resonated with me to begin with.

imho, there is a fundamental issue with a lot of queer theology and it's that it doesn't go beyond apologetics. it's not pragmatic nor does it seem to engage critically with the material conditions that work with or against queerness. and it's truly such a shame, because living "religiously" to me, as a queer catholic, it's infinitely more a matter of coherence, love, devotion and solidarity, than learning how to "reconcile" gayness/transness with the Bible.

it's a journey, of course. the apologetics were and are necessary for many of us to unlearn the hatred that might've been instilled in us through religious education and upbringing. however, here are some resources that, in my opinion, show how to pursue queer-religious-life.

💌 catholic/christian resources:

[book] The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus by Dorothy Day. Unlike larger collections and biographies, which cover her radical views, exceptional deeds, and amazing life story, this book focuses on a more personal dimension of her life: Where did she receive strength to stay true to her God-given calling despite her own doubts and inadequacies and the demands of an activist life? What was the unquenchable wellspring of her deep faith and her love for humanity?

[book & account] Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley. Black Liturgies is a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body. In this book, she brings together hundreds of new prayers, along with letters, poems, meditation questions, breath practices, scriptures, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer forty-three liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community.

[book] Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor by Leonardo Boff. Focusing on the threated Amazon of his native Brazil, Boff traces the economic and metaphysical ties that bind the fate of the rain forests with the fate of the indigenous peoples and the poor of the land. He shows how liberation theology must join with ecology in reclaiming the dignity of the earth and our sense of a common community, part of God's creation. To illustrate the possibilities, Boff turns to resources in Christian spirituality both ancient and modern, from the vision of St. Francis of Assisi to cosmic christology.

[book] Undoing Theology: Life Stories from Non-normative Christians by Chris Greenough. The fundamental issue with ‘queer’ research is it cannot exist in any definable form, as the purpose of queer is to disrupt and disturb. Undoing Doing generates a process of ‘undoing’ as central to queer research enquiries. Aiming to engage in a process which breaks free from traditional academic norms, the text explores three life stories

[podcast] The Magnificast. "A weekly podcast about Christianity and leftist politics. The Magnificast is hosted by Dean Dettloff and Matt Bernico. Each week's episode focuses on a unique or under-realized aspect of territory between Christianity and politics that no one taught you about in sunday school."

💌 non-christian but still excellent resources:

[book] Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. A memoir by a butch hijabi that follows the experiences of the author through stories and figures from the Qur'an.

[book] Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care by Lynne Segal. Questions of care, intimacy, education, meaningful work, and social engagement lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. In Lean On Me feminist thinker Lynne Segal goes in search of hope in her own life and in the world around her. She finds it entwined in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective endeavours.

i don't think these are precisely what you were looking for. but i hope these resources bring you as much peace and hope as they have brought me.

[another-goblin]

One of Dr. Ratio's PhDs is in Natural Theology, where he published the work "Aeons: A Natural Phenomenon" and got hailed as the "most sacred prophet of Aeon non-theism" (basically, the way I understand it, "Aeons exist, but they are not special, they are not gods")

So it's not just "Stop worshipping geniuses yall", it's "Stop worshipping Aeons" too. Which is quite ballsy.

Then I did a little research about the meaning of "non-theism", and it can mean different things, but look at this quote I found on the "non-theism" Wiki page (by Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun):

Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold […] Non-theism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves […] Nontheism is finally realizing there is no babysitter you can count on.

Does this remind you of something?

Dr. Ratio: ...but even a life marked by failure is a life worth living — it is only in moments of solitude and despair, when help is absent, that fools grasp how to pick themselves up.

Basically the same idea: don't rely on these higher beings who don't care about you; you'll do better if you realize that you are on your own. 

BTW, the aeons who get personally involved in human affairs tend to do more harm than good, so whether they are actually worth worshipping is a good question for another time.

But returning to the 'Aeon non-theist' thing. What is funnier, him writing this paper after not being accepted into GS (totally not being bitter about failing to get the attention of a certain someone, nope) or before (I wouldn't be surprised by Nous' reaction. "Oh wow. F you too, dude. No Genious Society for you")

On a slightly unrelated note, what "being recognized by Nous" entails anyway? It's not about being an emanator or belonging to the path of Erudition, it's used as a euphymism for "being invited to Geniuos Society." Is Nous involved in it at all? Do they decide whom to invite? Do they send a magical letter to the chosen ones? Imagine Nous considering Ratio but immediately noping out because he's clearly Lan's guy.

But what if Nous isn't involved? What if there's a boring commission that decides whom to invite to GS and then proclaims it as "someone has attracted the gaze of Nous". So again, imagine them considering Ratio, ever-hyperactive, getting 8 PhDs, making discoveries left and right, and teaching dozens of courses. Now imagine him finally being invited to GS: getting a GIANT confidence boost and having access to the Guild resources, starting, like, 10 Simulated Universe-sized projects at the same time. GS just wouldn't be able to handle it.

PS: I'm aware of (and agree with) the prevailing theory that he wasn't invited because he wasn't just seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge, something something. So don't take the last part too seriously, I'm just being silly.

[tabernacleheart]

Lord, help me to see what work you need me to do in this fallen world, [especially when its brokenness causes me pain and sorrow. I know all mankind hurts along with me, and that You likewise know our pain]. If my suffering is meant to show me how to [help You] repair and restore [some aspect of Creation], lead and guide me in doing that. Help me [to use this experience to grow in empathy and humility, so that I can better understand, comfort, and] work to bless others who are suffering, too. Amen.

Theology of Work Project

[probablyasocialecologist]

There are several historical contexts for what is going on now in Israel-Palestine that cannot be ignored. The wider historical context goes back to the mid-19th century, when evangelical Christianity in the West turned the idea of the “return of the Jews” into a religious millennial imperative and advocated the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of the steps that would lead to the resurrection of the dead, the return of the Messiah, and the end of time. Theology became policy toward the end of the 19th century and in the years leading up to World War I for two reasons. First, it worked in the interest of those in Britian wishing to dismantle the Ottoman Empire and incorporate parts of it into the British Empire. Second, it resonated with those within the British aristocracy, both Jews and Christians, who became enchanted with the idea of Zionism as a panacea for the problem of anti-Semitism in Central and Eastern Europe, which had produced an unwelcome wave of Jewish immigration to Britain. When these two interests fused, they propelled the British government to issue the famous – or infamous – Balfour Declaration in 1917. Jewish thinkers and activists who redefined Judaism as nationalism hoped this definition would protect Jewish communities from existential danger in Europe by homing in on Palestine as the desired space for “rebirth of the Jewish nation”. In the process, the cultural and intellectual Zionist project transformed into a settler colonial one – which aimed at Judaising historical Palestine, disregarding the fact that it was inhabited by an Indigenous population. In turn, the Palestinian society, quite pastoral at that time and in its early stage of modernisation and construction of a national identity, produced its own anti-colonial movement. Its first significant action against the Zionist colonisation project came with al-Buraq Uprising of 1929, and it has not ceased since then.

[jupitersdoll]

Possible Career Paths for the Sun Signs🌞

As I explained in my second Astro Observations post, the sign and house your sun is in can tell you where you naturally shine best. Working in a career where you stand out naturally can benefit you in many ways because when work does not feel like work, you have more room to thrive.

Sun in Aries/1H - Management, Military, Self-Employed Entrepreneur, Acting*, Modeling.

Sun in Taurus/2H - Banking, Finance, Singing*, Chef, Real Estate.

Sun in Gemini/3H - Writer, Radio/Podcast, Middle Education Teacher (ages 7-14), Athlete*, Entertainment Critic

Sun in Cancer/4H* - Family trade (Nepotism), Early Education Teacher (ages newborn to 7), Interior Decoration, Family Therapist, Historian

Sun in Leo/5H - Entertainer, Relationship Therapist/Dating Coach, Film Director/Producer, Youth Advocate, Late Education Teacher (ages 14-18)

Sun in Virgo/6H - Healthcare, Social Work, Human Resources, Comedian, Politician

Sun in Libra/7H - Lawyer, Mediator, At-Home work, Visual Artist*, Business Owner

Sun in Scorpio/8H* - Insurance Agent, Funeral Services, Sex Therapist, Addiction Counselor, Acting*

Sun in Sagittarius/9H - Theology, Post-Grade School Education (ages 18 and over), Travel Agent, Life Coach, Blogger

Sun in Capricorn/10H* - Business Leadership (ex: C-Suite), Family Trade (self-starting), Board Member, Politics, Entertainment Executive

Sun in Aquarius/11H* - Socialite/Influencer, Entertainer, Entrepreneur (with others), Humanitarian, Project Manager

Sun in Pisces/12H* - Psychologist, Executor, Jail/Prison Employee, Artist*, Occult Worker

Notes: 

Actors, Singers, and Artists are usually found in all houses, but the work they go towards depends on the house they’re in. For example, Actors in Leo/5H tend to go for lighthearted roles like Will Smith, while Actors in Scorpio/8H tend to have darker-themed roles like Nicole Kidman.

Sun in Aquarius/11H can usually succeed in whatever career they venture into if they have passion for it because the 11H rules over hopes and dreams. It’s why most celebrities have 11H Sun.

Sun in Cancer/4H, Scorpio/8H, and Pisces/12H tend to have more mysterious or behind-the-scenes careers because the Sun prefers the attention to be on their work rather than on the person themselves.

Sun in Gemini/3H is good with athletics because the 3H is a social house along with 7H and 11H. Also, most professional athletes or athletic employees learn multiple languages to tend to their teams, which are made up of people from different cultures.

Sun in Capricorn/10H careers usually take time which is why the careers I listed are mostly leadership positions. These natives are ambitious so not being in charge is not a good direction for their sun energy.

Follow for more Astrology and Intuitive Content, readings are available! 💛

Tagged: @222-justfornow-333 @nummer626 @bcjkxs @starry-sky01 @mercurydombaby

[ashes2caches]

The sixteenth and final chapter of Rad Infinitum’s third arc, The Confucian Republic, is now on AO3 (It’s officially over 238k words now!)

If you like sentient robots, transgender themes, and theology that would get you excommunicated then I think you might enjoy this series I’ve been working on. The first and second arc have already been written and are up for you to read in their entirety. Go check it out if you have the time.

Also, I can’t thank y’all enough for the recent boost in viewership I’ve been noticing, I really love to see it! :)

Also, while I’ll likely take a break first, the fourth arc, Backwater Trismegistus, will be coming out soon.

[girls--complex]

oh, and to tack on particularly in the realms of the religious influence. It's always been something i wanted to tap into but could never end up clicking with outside your and some others work. tyvm!

I'm working on the first part of your ask [about influences to my visual style] I'm actually letting it sit and cook because my ability to organize and transmit information comes from a big wet sponge made of cholesterol and gatorade that has all these wet projecting tendrils and it works on a basis of like sporadic electrical currents which I think probably come from ghosts or something IDK.

Do you want me to dump a list of theologians and religious texts? That seems rude/unhelpful because learning is discursive and the response you have to a given text is completely dependent on what your own butter sponge is doing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology maybe saved my life but I know people who don't like it because they felt it was being mean to them. Or people who don't like Suzuki-roshi because he's too ambiguous but when I read him his perspective and the content of his advice seems incredibly straightforward. Hehe. (I can dump it though I also started making one because I got scared that someone will ask me for real. I'm also not a huge books based learner so the whole concept of this idea feels really frustrating.)

I honestly don't entirely know what it is that clicks with you as I'm throwing spaghetti around a lot ......

With comics this thing I try to do and that I maybe hopefully do which is that I try really hard not to scold, or have a position of moral superiority, or make any type of moral imperative. I try really hard to limit myself to "here's some journey that I experienced" (maybe allegorized or cartoonified or whatever) and then I also relate it with attention to modulate my natural narcissism so that it doesn't protagonize me in some stupid and disingenuous way. Based on observation I would guess that this thought process is generally rare in artists of all genres, creeds, and backgrounds, which is why I do it in reaction to almost every story I have ever read. Or it might just be that it's funny and the cartoons are cute IDK.

If you don't even care about my comics and are talking about some single illustration or something I really don't know.

Hope you're having a banger day I'm going to eat some purple confections I made with my friend ...

[kulapti]

Bookbinding matching set of my four favorite Fantastic Beasts fanfics, completed 2024.

I've been working towards this for quite a while now! When I first got into binding fanfiction, this was the first project I envisioned. It's not perfect but I learned a lot in the process and improved with each piece I think. The endbands definitely get better by the time I got to Sin Eater! (far left in image 3).

The works from left to right, but otherwise in no particular order, are: This Thing of Darkness by @maggieandthedragon, l'Ombre de ton Ombre by windfallswest, A Wizard's Devotional by @polymathema, and Sin Eater by @xzombiexkittenx. These are NOT a series, I just wanted my favs from this fandom to have cool matching spines. I have been privileged with the opportunity to make gift copies for two of the authors so far, with a third in progress. YAY.

I like these four works because of how the authors chose to engage in thoughtful ways with difficult topics including differing expressions of PTSD, abuse survival, recovery, and coping mechanisms, and homophobia. I particularly appreciate how these works each have different interpretations of how one main character responds to his religious upbringing and his mother using Christianity as a tool of abuse. Depending on the story, this character either claims a different theology than what he was raised to believe and find it a source of comfort, feels conflicted and undecided, or rejects all elements of the traditions that harmed him. All of these possibilities resonate strongly with me as a queer person who finds comfort in my faith, while also fully supporting my friends who have made a variety of different decisions about whether to engage with religion at all after being harmed by it.