#as a catholic i have a particular view of this

[percki]

the catholic church really revolutionized religion with the concept of guilt

[mystichistoria]

Like I'll be real and add a disclaimer: it might seem like I'm spiritually obsessed if someone were to stumble across my social media, ie. This blog, but that's just because of how I organize my social media. I keep separate socials for separate themes with only some overlap. If you met me in person without knowing me ahead of time, you likely wouldn't know that I'm religious or that I study theology, several religions, and angelology unless the topics came up in conversation. I don't advertise it except for in appropriate spaces.

[barnbridges]

no but it's funny that.... bunny corcoran doesn't just hate women, he hates nuns, the virgin mary and his classmate. women with agency. women revered and regarded in catholicism.

[perasperaadpasta]

I have no empathy for Good Omens or Sandman or whatever other Gaiman work fans who 1. just cannot help making the allegations about themselves and 2. are genuinely heartbroken to the point of being unwilling to reasses their attachment to these works (these usually overlap).

When I found out an author I was obsessed with, whose works I read nearly in their entirety and voraciously, whose stories inspired me and filled my imagination for years, turned out to be a paedophile who abused her children, facilitated the abuse of multiple others by her also paedophile husband, and raped her daughter, none of that... mattered anymore. How could it possibly?

I'm talking about Marion Zimmer Bradley, if her rap sheet isn't familiar. Having grown up a nerd who could read at highschool level at 7, and who was, at 12, already sick of how male-centered fiction (and particularly fantasy, my favorite genre) was, discovering The Mists of Avalon was a revelation. The pointedly anti-Christian, unapologetically female-centered narrative was a near-spiritual balm for a closeted lesbian kid in a Catholic small town.

I read all of her Arthuriana books and all of her Darkover series I could find. I'm interested in Arthuriana to this day because of the point of view she offered. The possibility of shifting the male gaze pervasive in art to a female view from within was so instrumental to how I approach art at all. And this is, of course, not pioneered nor exclusive to Bradley, but it was my introduction to it, to this critical and yet respectful framework of experiencing art.

And yet. When I learned what she'd done, it fundamentally and irrevocably changed what she'd said.

Is it really still a work of feminist expression if composed by a rapist? I cannot reconcile the thought that the most execrable creature in feminist thinking can be capable of anything but farcical, hypocritical emulation of sincerity, convincing as it may be. It cannot possibly be earnest and its pretense is pervasive. Even if the story was otherwise so good, so entertaining that its message could be sidelined, there's hardly a lack of that that makes this particular one indispensable.

My admiration for her is all revulsion now. I have no interest in what this sort of thing has to say about anything, safe for possibly in the context of criminal psychology.

I will never reread it. I will never recommend it as entertainment and least of all feminist entertainment.

And here's the thing, this wasn't life-ruining for me. This did not hurt me personally. My world didn't shatter, it didn't even crack. Important as it may have been, the loss of a THING, a book, ONE story in a world so saturated with them several hundred lifetimes wouldn't suffice to know them, is not a loss I would ever have the self-indulgent embarrasment of mourning. It was what it was once, and it is what it is now.

The only people who were hurt were her victims.

Absolutely no exceptions. It's vulgar to a degree I can't wrap my head around to consider otherwise.

[avelera]

It makes me sad when I see posts by people who are enjoying the Interview with the Vampire show but say they've decided not to even try to read the books.

To be clear, it's fine to just not want to read the books, there's plenty of reasons the books might not be everyone's bag, and one reason is that people might just want to enjoy the show without spoilers or the source material muddling the experience.

But I just want to clarify a few points that people might be hung up on with regards to reading the books in case they've decided not to on false premises:

Anne Rice was not homophobic or otherwise anti-sex or against queer relationships for her characters - those are lies, lies, and damned lies. Anne Rice was a queer writer before being queer-- much less writing about it--was cool (to say the least). She more or less defined herself as nonbinary before there was terminology for it, her son is gay, and she left the Catholic Church the second time because they wouldn't accept him (even though the Catholic Church had basically become her life at that point after her husband died, which is a long complicated story). She also wrote tons of erotica, specifically bdsm erotica, which was also very queer. She would not be horrified by the queerness of the show.

Anne Rice was anti-fanfic - Yes, she was. Yes, she was one of the most aggressive authors against fanfic (though she softened later). But just to be clear, she had a legal reason for it. I was one of the people most heartbroken in the early '00s by her aggressive take down of fanfic over the years but even then, I always understood why she did it, she reasonably believed she had to be aggressive in order to defend her copyright. You can dislike her for it but she wasn't just hating on fanfic for the sake of it, the early internet was extremely muddy when it came to the legality around fanfic and copyright and as an early adopter of the internet, she was very concerned on that front specifically.

The books are not poorly written/not fun to read - Look, your mileage may obviously vary, and many have found flaws in her writing (IWTV in particular is probably the slowest read of the bunch) but Anne Rice wasn't a NYT Bestseller on basically every single one of her books for no reason. Her style is easy to read, fun, engaging, and often darkly beautiful and deeply empathetic. She basically defined the modern vampire genre and modern supernatural gothic romance for the last 50 years, I mean she dominated the genre. Don't take an out of context excerpt of the opening of The Vampire Lestat sounding like "My Immortal" as an indication of anything. (The whole point of that intro is that Lestat is supposed to sound like a self-obsessed drama queen in the opening pages, that's the conceit of the book and introduces him as a self-centered unreliable narrator, which she then plays with to great effect. It's actually rather deftly handled how she introduced Lestat as a POV character with that introduction. As a writer, I will defend that introduction as actually genius.)

Anne Rice wasn't perfect, to say the least. And the books might not be everyone's cup of tea, she was often dealing with transgressive topics and probably held many ideas or presented many concepts decades ago that would be side-eyed today.

But they're bestsellers for a reason and she's an era-defining author for a reason. The show is doing some interesting stuff with modernizing and deconstructing the books but the rich material they have to do it with comes from the books.

At the very least, I suggest trying out "The Vampire Lestat" and then "Queen of the Damned" which I think are two of her best and will go a long way to informing how audiences view the show and what's coming next.

[princesssarisa]

That post about all the different possible interpretations of Frankenstein, and my response post about the different interpretations of Little Women, have made me think of all the different ways that other stories can be interpreted.

For example, the opera The Magic Flute. Some people wonder why I never get tired of that particular opera. Well, one reason is that no two productions feel exactly the same, because it can be looked at in so many different ways.

Here's a list of different interpretations I've read. This is probably just scratching the surface of possible perspectives, though.

Nor are these readings mutually exclusive: several can be and have been combined with each other.

*The Magic Flute is about the Age of Enlightenment. The Queen of the Night represents the Baroque era (hence the pseudo-Baroque style of her music), with its powerful Catholic church and ancien régime: luxuriantly beautiful and captivating, but decadent, manipulative and ruthless. Sarastro and his priests represent the Enlightenment, and in particular the Freemasons, with progressive values of reason, mercy, fraternity, self-control, etc. The Queen's ultimate downfall and Sarastro's rise in her place represents the social, cultural and philosophical changes that swept the Western world in the 18th century, leading to the American and French Revolutions, among other reforms. (As for why the progressive men still oppress women and own slaves... well, just look at real life.) Tamino and Pamina are an idealized young everyman and everywoman, who learn to embrace Enlightenment values and will carry them into the future.

*The Magic Flute is a socio-political and Masonic allegory focused expressly on Austria. All the sentiments above still apply, but the Queen specifically represents the staunchly Catholic Empress Maria Theresa, Tamino her more progressive son Emperor Joseph II, Sarastro the prominent Masonic leader Ignaz von Born, and Pamina the country of Austria itself, whose soul they struggle for.

*The Magic Flute is about Freemasonry as religion, namely as an offshoot of Christianity. Pamina's late father, who bequeathed his power to Sarastro, represents Jesus Christ himself. His widow the Queen of the Night, who sees herself as his rightful heir, expressly represents the dazzling yet corrupt Catholic church, the so-called "Bride of Christ." Sarastro and his priests, again, represent the Freemasons, who are portrayed as the true heirs of Christ, faithful to His teachings of mercy, brotherhood, endurance, and forgiveness. Tamino and Pamina learn which religion is false and which is true, then prove their worthiness to be initiated into the true religion.

*The Magic Flute is about the progress from nature to civilization. The Queen of the Night is a matriarchal nature goddess who reigns in a realm of stars, rocks, birds, and animals, where there is no law, only emotion, intuition, and personal will. Sarastro, by contrast, rules a patriarchal city and religious order, where laws, rituals, collectivism, and codes of virtue reign supreme. The opera celebrates the progress from the former to the latter, which has occurred in every country since recorded history began. Yet because humans need emotion and intuition as well as law and order, Sarastro's world keeps the best aspects of the Queen's world: her daughter Pamina, the Three Boys, and the magic flute and bells.

*The Magic Flute is about man vs. woman. Sarastro and his followers define all their values as "manly," while all things "womanly" are associated with the Queen of the Night. "Manhood" equals strength, reason, self-control, steadfastness, and light, while "womanhood" equals passion, intuition, vulnerability, manipulation, and darkness. The entire struggle between the Queen and Sarastro, which Tamino, Pamina, and Papageno are caught up in, embodies the tension between the sexes and all the principles associated with them. As for the resolution, there are two ways of viewing it:

**(a) The story is entirely pro-man and anti-woman. Masculinity triumphs, femininity is defeated. An individual woman (Pamina) can only redeem herself by renouncing her femininity (her bond with her mother the Queen) and aligning herself with masculine principles (joining Tamino in his trials and being initiated into Sarastro's order).

**(b) While the male characters think the solution will be the triumph of man over woman, they're wrong: the true solution is for man and woman to reconcile. The conflict is resolved not by the Queen's defeat (which is almost an afterthought), but by the union of the sexes through Tamino and Pamina. Both the hysterical Queen and the stern Sarastro are too extreme in their feminine and masculine principles, so they can never reconcile, but Tamino and Pamina succeed by loving each other and by balancing the feminine with the masculine (using the Queen's magic flute to survive Sarastro's trials).

*The Magic Flute is about growing up. It's a fantastical version of a Bildungsroman. The Queen of the Night represents the mother, nurturing and indulgent, but smothering if the child stays in her care too long, as personified by Jung's "devouring mother" archetype. Sarastro represents the disciplinarian father, who teaches the child right from wrong and trains him to be an adult. Tamino and Pamina are symbolic children: they start out in the Queen's thrall, like a baby attached to its mother, but then switch to Sarastro and undergo his trials, like an older child who outgrows his mother's apron strings and switches his focus to earning his father's respect. In the end, they achieve a synthesis of both parents, using the Queen's flute to succeed in Sarastro's trials, and are initiated into adulthood.

*The Magic Flute, contrary to popular belief, is a post-Enlightenment work of early Romanticism, which revolves around spirituality. Sarastro and his brotherhood are priests, after all, not scientific philosophers or politicians. Tamino and Pamina's journey involves rejecting not only "nature" (i.e. base instinct, which reigns supreme in the Queen of the Night's realm), but cold, worldly reason too. They learn to "renounce the world," transcend earthly fears and temptations, and achieve unity with the divine. Central to this journey is their love for each other, which transcends mere mating instinct in favor of a mutually inspiring spiritual bond, and the spiritual power of music via the magic flute and bells. The Queen of the Night's downfall is that she seeks worldly power. But Sarastro leads Tamino and Pamina down a more godly path instead.

*The Magic Flute is about the search for love. It revolves around three lonely young protagonists, Tamino, Pamina, and Papageno, whose deepest desire is to love and be loved. At first they look to the Queen of the Night to grant them love, and then to Sarastro. But neither the Queen nor Sarastro can do so, because they're both too detached from love – the Queen in her hatred, Sarastro in his noble yet chilly ideals – and use the young people as pawns in their battle against each other. Yet with help from the ethereal Three Boys, the story's purest embodiments of goodness, they find love in the end. Tamino and Pamina unite and save each other, Papageno finds Papagena despite not having "earned" her, and love conquers all.

**For a more sympathetic view of both Sarastro and the Queen, we can argue that they're both seekers of love too. The Queen loves her daughter and is desperate to get her back, but fails because her love is possessive and selfish. Sarastro's love is an idealistic, detached, universal love for all mankind, which is admirable, yet cold in a way. Tamino and Pamina strike a balance between the two by loving each other in a personal yet generous and unselfish partnership.

*The Magic Flute is a symbolic, proto-Jungian or -Freudian journey through the psyche of Tamino, a young everyman. Pamina is his soul, or his self, whom he needs to find and unite with to be complete. The Queen of the Night is his "feminine" unconscious, who embodies all his powerful and dangerous emotions, which he learns to resist... yet not discard completely, as symbolized by the fact that his soul, Pamina, is her daughter. Sarastro embodies his moral conscience and his noblest ideals and aspirations, which he learns to embrace as his ultimate guides. Meanwhile, Papageno represents his base, "animal" side that cares only for bodily safety and pleasure, which needs to be kept in check (hence Papageno can't be initiated), yet still honored (hence he does find joy with Papagena). And Monostatos represents his darkest and most selfish urges, which his nobler self (Sarastro) must suppress. Tamino's journey with all these aspects of himself represents the process of self-actualization that we all go through.

**With a few small tweaks to this outline, it can also be read as a more gender-neutral journey through the human psyche, with Tamino and Pamina as co-protagonists who represent two halves of one person seeking to unite.

*The Magic Flute is specifically a journey through Mozart's psyche. Tamino and Papageno each reflect aspects of Mozart – his "higher" and "lower" selves, respectively – while Pamina and Papagena likewise reflect his beloved wife Constanze. The Queen of the Night can be viewed as a caricature either of his difficult mother-in-law Cäcilia Weber (as Amadeus indicates) or of her daughter Aloysia Weber, Constanze's sister, whom Mozart once loved and who rejected him. (Make what you will of the fact that the soprano who first sang the role was Constanze and Aloysia's other sister and Cäcilia's daughter.) The trials of initiation into Sarastro's brotherhood reflect Mozart's relationship with Freemasonry, and possibly also his efforts to please his difficult father Leopold. While of course Mozart didn't write the libretto, he put his soul into the music, and he may have influenced Schikaneder enough to infiltrate the libretto too.

*The Magic Flute is just a classic fairy tale of good vs. evil, with some Masonic overtones, which Mozart and Schikaneder wrote as a crowd-pleasing, moneymaking spectacle.

Some of these interpretations I like better than others, but none of them are necessarily wrong.

@ariel-seagull-wings, @leporellian, @tuttocenere, @cjbolan

[alicentsgf]

You think being born out of wedlock is comparable to killing a guy? What are you, Catholic

Lapsed actually. My free trial ended.

But yes actually now you ask, I do think that. Well actually, no, not being born out of wedlock part, but passing off bastards as trueborn? Now that is comparable to murder specifically when we’re talking about how this particular society would view the severity of Rhaenyra’s “crime”. In passing her children off as trueborn, she is committing a crime that would be seen as punishable by death, banishment, etc (as we saw Harwins father remind him). Whilst this is a crazy comparison in real life, where fortunately we have in most parts of the world moved past killing women for having babies out of wedlock, it isn’t a crazy comparison within the confines of asoiaf.

[hellframe]

Henry Winter, flirting

The first day of his visit to Francis’s country house Richard had a little voyage with Henry and Camilla in a boat. And here we have this introduction to Henry’s habits:

“He had a habit, as I was later to discover, of trailing off into absorbed, didactic, entirely self-contained monologues, about whatever he happened to be interested in at the time"

Richard was wrong, of course. Henry’s monologues were not ‘entirely self-contained’, they had particular purpose — at least, two of them were an instrument of mild pressure on Camilla, including this one which Richard heard during their voyage:

"That day he was talking about Elizabeth and Leicester, I remember: the murdered wife, the royal barge, the queen on a white horse talking to the troops at Tilbury Fort, and Leicester and the Earl of Essex holding the bridle rein… Camilla, flushed and sleepy, trailed her hand in the water… It was many years later, and far away, when I came across this passage in The Waste Land: Elizabeth and Leicester beating oars…”

T. S. Eliot left notes for these lines of his poem, citing History of England:

Author of this letter, Alvaro de la Quadra, was a Spanish diplomat and Catholic clergyman, he apparently had a right to marry a couple. For many years Leicester was queen’s favourite and suitor for her hand, but she didn’t want to marry — didn’t want to share her power with anyone, and used her claimed virginity as a political asset. Eventually, Leicester got tired of waiting, and married another woman, which broke the queen's heart.

In view of these facts, the boat scene in TSH looks so ironic. Richard’s surname, Papen, means ‘priest, cleric’ in North German, and he also was a foreign figure in their group, like that Spanish bishop in England. However, Richard wasn't able to marry anyone.

I guess, in such a manner Henry was telling Camilla: "I’m ready to be with you right here, now. But don’t make me wait for too long". And Camilla was flushed, because she understood this reassurance mingled with warning.

Another instance of this mild pressure was quoting passages about Emma Bovary, whose chaotic love choices ruined her life: Sa pensée, sans but d'abord, vagabondait au hasard, comme sa levrette, qui faisait des cercles dans la campagne… “Her thoughts were wandering at first without any purpose” — could it mean "Camilla, make up your mind, or you’ll end up like madame Bovary''?

From Henry’s point these monologues were probably a sort of flirting, an indirect way to show romantic interest towards Camilla.

Come on, Henry, why spend so many words, when you can say Cubitum eamus?

[nicklloydnow]

““Dorothy reminds me in so many ways of Toni Morrison,” West said. “You know Toni Morrison is Catholic. Many people do not realize that she is one of the great Catholic writers. Like Flannery O’Connor, she has an incarnational conception of human existence. We Protestants are too individualistic. I think we need to learn from Catholics who are always centered on community.”

(…)

She viewed belief in God as “an intellectual experience that intensifies our perceptions and distances us from an egocentric and predatory life, from ignorance and from the limits of personal satisfactions”—and affirmed her Catholic identity. “I had a moment of crisis on the occasion of Vatican II,” she said. “At the time I had the impression that it was a superficial change, and I suffered greatly from the abolition of Latin, which I saw as the unifying and universal language of the Church.”

Morrison saw a problematic absence of authentic religion in modern art: “It’s not serious—it’s supermarket religion, a spiritual Disneyland of false fear and pleasure.” She lamented that religion is often parodied or simplified, as in “those pretentious bad films in which angels appear as dei ex machina, or of figurative artists who use religious iconography with the sole purpose of creating a scandal.” She admired the work of James Joyce, especially his earlier works, and had a particular affinity for Flannery O’Connor, “a great artist who hasn’t received the attention she deserves.”

What emerges from Morrison’s public discussions of faith is paradoxical Catholicism. Her conception of God is malleable, progressive, and esoteric. She retained a distinct nostalgia for Catholic ritual, and feels the “greatest respect” for those who practice the faith, even if she herself wavered. In a 2015 interview with NPR, Morrison said there was not a “structured” sense of religion in her life at the moment, but “I might be easily seduced to go back to church because I like the controversy as well as the beauty of this particular Pope Francis. He’s very interesting to me.”

Morrison’s Catholic faith—individual and communal, traditional and idiosyncratic—offers a theological structure for her worldview. Her Catholicism illuminates her fiction; in particular, her views of bodies, and the narrative power of stories. An artist, Morrison affirmed, “bears witness.” Her father’s ghost stories, her mother’s spiritual musicality, and her own youthful sense of attraction to Christianity’s “scriptures and its vagueness” led her to conclude it is “a theatrical religion. It says something particularly interesting to black people, and I think it’s part of why they were so available to it. It was the love things that were psychically very important. Nobody could have endured that life in constant rage.” Morrison said it is a sense of “transcending love” that makes “the New Testament . . . so pertinent to black literature—the lamb, the victim, the vulnerable one who does die but nevertheless lives.”

(…)

Morrison is describing a Catholic style of storytelling here, reflected in the various emotional notes of Mass. The religion calls for extremes: solemnity, joy, silence, and exhortation. Such a literary approach is audacious, confident, and necessary, considering Morrison’s broader goals. She rejected the term experimental, clarifying “I am simply trying to recreate something out of an old art form in my books—the something that defines what makes a book ‘black.’”

(…)

Morrison was both storyteller and archivist. Her commitment to history and tradition itself feels Catholic in orientation. She sought to “merge vernacular with the lyric, with the standard, and with the biblical, because it was part of the linguistic heritage of my family, moving up and down the scale, across it, in between it.” When a serious subject came up in family conversation, “it was highly sermonic, highly formalized, biblical in a sense, and easily so. They could move easily into the language of the King James Bible and then back to standard English, and then segue into language that we would call street.”

Language was play and performance; the pivots and turns were “an enhancement for me, not a restriction,” and showed her that “there was an enormous power” in such shifts. Morrison’s attention toward language is inherently religious; by talking about the change from Latin to English Mass as a regrettable shift, she invokes the sense that faith is both content and language; both story and medium.

From her first novel on forward, Morrison appeared intent on forcing us to look at embodied black pain with the full power of language. As a Catholic writer, she wanted us to see the body on the cross; to see its blood, its cuts, its sweat. That corporal sense defines her novel Beloved (1988), perhaps Morrison’s most ambitious, stirring work. “Black people never annihilate evil,” Morrison has said. “They don’t run it out of their neighborhoods, chop it up, or burn it up. They don’t have witch hangings. They accept it. It’s almost like a fourth dimension in their lives.”

(…)

Morrison has said that all of her writing is “about love or its absence.” There must always be one or the other—her characters do not live without ebullience or suffering. “Black women,” Morrison explained, “have held, have been given, you know, the cross. They don’t walk near it. They’re often on it. And they’ve borne that, I think, extremely well.” No character in Morrison’s canon lives the cross as much as Sethe, who even “got a tree on my back” from whipping. Scarred inside and out, she is the living embodiment of bearing witness.

(…)

Morrison’s Catholicism was one of the Passion: of scarred bodies, public execution, and private penance. When Morrison thought of “the infiniteness of time, I get lost in a mixture of dismay and excitement. I sense the order and harmony that suggest an intelligence, and I discover, with a slight shiver, that my own language becomes evangelical.” The more Morrison contemplates the grandness and complexity of life, the more her writing reverts to the Catholic storytelling methods that enthralled her as a child and cultivated her faith. This creates a powerful juxtaposition: a skilled novelist compelled to both abstraction and physicality in her stories. Catholicism, for Morrison, offers a language to connect these differences.

For Morrison, the traits of black language include the “rhythm of a familiar, hand-me-down dignity [that] is pulled along by an accretion of detail displayed in a meandering unremarkableness.” Syntax that is “highly aural” and “parabolic.” The language of Latin Mass—its grandeur, silences, communal participation, coupled with the congregation’s performative resurrection of an ancient tongue—offers a foundation for Morrison’s meticulous appreciation of language.

Her representations of faith—believers, doubters, preachers, heretics, and miracles—are powerful because of her evocative language, and also because she presents them without irony. She took religion seriously. She tended to be self-effacing when describing her own belief, and it feels like an action of humility. In a 2014 interview, she affirmed “I am a Catholic” while explaining her willingness to write with a certain, frank moral clarity in her fiction. Morrison was not being contradictory; she was speaking with nuance. She might have been lapsed in practice, but she was culturally—and therefore socially, morally—Catholic.

The same aesthetics that originally attracted Morrison to Catholicism are revealed in her fiction, despite her wavering of institutional adherence. Her radical approach to the body also makes her the greatest American Catholic writer about race. That one of the finest, most heralded American writers is Catholic—and yet not spoken about as such—demonstrates why the status of lapsed Catholic writers is so essential to understanding American fiction.

A faith charged with sensory detail, performance, and story, Catholicism seeps into these writers’ lives—making it impossible to gauge their moral senses without appreciating how they refract their Catholic pasts. The fiction of lapsed Catholic writers suggests a longing for spiritual meaning and a continued fascination with the language and feeling of faith, absent God or not: a profound struggle that illuminates their stories, and that speaks to their readers.”

[life-as-gwen]

The Spiritual Awakening of a Struggling Agnostic

Growing up in the Catholic Church, I had a keen understanding of rules, protocol, commandments and punishment. I was not, however, a spiritual person.

When I went into rehab, there was a lot of focus on finding your higher power. What motivates you? Where will you get your strength from for fighting your addiction? It felt like a homework assignment. I needed to find a higher power. I struggled to try and understand my feelings towards church, God, Buddhism, chakra healing and many other concepts of a higher power. I felt as if I was failing.

Every morning, very early, I would go outside the center, under a little gazebo, and have a smoke and a cup of coffee. I would stare at the mountain in the distance and wish that I was up there hiking with my kids and enjoying being with them, like I used to. I though about enjoying the beauty of the mountain, the fresh air and the peace that comes with that. I would stare at the mountain and wish for what once was.

One particular morning, there was a very thick fog outside. You couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. I stood there staring in the direction of the mountain, because this was where I always stood when I had my coffee and my cigarette in the morning. I was looking through the fog and appreciating the fact that even though I could not see it, I knew for certain that the mountain was there, just hidden right now.

It was then that my body started to shake. I started to cry and was completely overwhelmed with emotion. In that moment, I understood that just like the mountain; my freedom, my happiness, the enjoyment I got from spending time with my kids, all that life had to offer, was still there. I simply could not see it through my own fog. My fog, that had been created by sadness, depression and alcoholism. My fog that had me in a very dark place, not able to see what was ahead of me. But just as the morning fog obstructing my view of the mountain would lift, so would my own fog. The sun would come out.

The tears and the trembling continued for a long time, I had a warm feeling throughout my body and I truly felt that I was not alone there in the gazebo.

What was this experience? Where did his insight come from? Was it a logical conclusion or something more? Was I having a spiritual awakening or had I simply drank too much coffee?

What I do know is that, in that moment, I realized that there was truly something greater than myself, that there was a power out there. I was not alone on my journey. I had something or someone looking after me.

It changed everything.

[thosedangnuns]

Random 'Dark Ava' thoughts…

One of the things Warrior Nun did (ahem does DOES DOES!!!) well is making its villains believable. Aside from Frances (😤) they're all doing the wrong thing but for the right reasons.

Vincent in particular is not a 'bad' guy - he's doing what he things needs to be done to bring A LITERAL ANGEL to earth, who he believes will solve war, famine, etc etc…

(He's wrong - but he's not EVIL)

Having Ava come back 'changed' and suddenly just plain evil (be it mind control or what have you) I think would not only be untrue to her character, but also (more importantly) unINTERESTING.

But what if Ava came back from the other realm - her eyes open to some truth that she knew all along? And what if she came back from the other realm with the power to make actual change, only at a cost.

There's a bunch of ways to do this, but the two biggest motivators for Ava are Beatrice - and her disdain for everything about the Warrior Nun and what it represents.

And if you could put Dark Ava in between the two - to create conflict between those two motivators - as well as the other points of the triangle (Ava-Beatrice, Beatrice-Church, Church-Ava) then you could REALLY tell a dark and meaningful story.

And because there's history (good and bad) between all three points it would be not only believable but intense. There'd by layers upon layers of character driven story to be told.

Here's how you'd to it:

Ava would return from the other realm. She'd be different. The other sisters would comment on it behind her back. They'd worry.

They'd go on the mission to find Beatrice, thinking that only she can snap Ava out of it…

And after Avatrice finally meet, and words and kisses are tearfully exchanged…

Ava would drop the bomb…

"Beatrice… I told you I was going to be the last Warrior Nun. This cycle has to come to an end, and now that I've been to the other realm, I've figured out how…"

Ava takes Beatrice by the hand. What the's about to say may lose Beatrice from her forever. She swallows hard.

"I'm going to destroy the entire Catholic Church."

They'll fight, obviously. Beatrice has given her whole life to the Church - for better of for worse.

But Beatrice knows two things.

One - if she crosses Ava now, she might lose her forever.

And two - despite her love for the church, she knows full well that the church is behind an entire lifetime of pain for her - and for many others.

So maybe when Ava says "Just this one thing, Beatrice, and then we can go to he alps…"

Could we blame Beatrice for hesitating?

Maybe Beatrice will go along with it, half-heartedly at first. Maybe she'll grow to understand Ava's point of view. Maybe, slowly, she'll also become … 'Dark Beatrice'

Or maybe she'll try to understand… she'll try to ignore the atrocities committed during Ava's crusade

Maybe in the end they'll share a tearful kiss. A heart-wrenching goodbye - as they realize that they cannot reconcile their two different lives…

Or maybe, in the final episode of the season, with Ava ready to unleash literal hell-on-earth to destroy Vatican City - Beatrice's final appeal to Ava's good nature - to the orphan who smiled - will break the spell, so to speak…

Leaving Avatrice on the run from the Catholic Church, the OCS, international police, Reya and the Tarasks and more … in Season FOUR 🤯

idk just a thought 🤷‍♀️

[cath-lic]

hi i discovered your blog somewhat recently and ive always sorta not fit in with evangelical christianity (being trans and kinda a freak /pos) i was raised in to the point where i had even started to call myself an atheist. recently-ish, though, i found myself in an episcopal church and now sorta see myself as like anglo-catholic? (like following in beliefs/ practices of the episcopal church but also using some catholic interpretations and leaning more toward that side of things) i was wondering how catholics that are more left leaning and/or queer view your anglo-catholic and episcopalian siblings?

hi my sibling!! the “kinda a freak” (/pos) made me snort because i was def the weird kid in catholic school. solidarity 🤝

as far as i know, queer and leftist catholics have no particular beef with anglo-catholics and episcopals. i myself go to an episcopal church, and my catholic mother joins me occasionally to sing in their choir! as well as for the server i’m on, everyone (mix of roman catholics, anglo catholics, and everyone outside and in between) seems chill with it. i think leftist & queer catholics really appreciate that many episcopals are very accepting, and have very similar beliefs.

the only possible thing i could see striking up some conflict is the big debate on transubstantiation, though i think as long as you set up a “live and let live” rule, everyone’s pretty happy. at least, i haven’t seen any arguments arise!

so happy to hear from you, my sibling. i’m glad that you’re finding a place to be yourself. sending love ❤️❤️❤️

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

What does it mean that you're a catholic presbyterian? What are your views on Church authority and predestination?

I like to imagine myself as a tree with Irish Catholic roots, a Presbyterian/Protestant trunk, and agnostic/ecumenical/interfaith-reaching branches.

I need all parts to be whole. All parts rely on Divine warmth, water, breath for life. All parts depend on a rich soil of scripture, story, and the wisdom of those who've come before me for nourishment and grounding.

___

The roots:

I was baptized and raised Roman Catholic. My family (and a large number of families in the area I grew up) has a proud history of Irish Catholicism in particular. My childhood church was Catholic, and I was passionate about participating in that community's life all through grade school.

Some of my earliest religion-related memories are of reading Saints' stories, establishing relationships with those who most spoke to me. Mother Mary has had my heart as far back as my memories go.

As I discovered my queerness in college and gradually realized the need to seek fully welcoming community, I did not leave behind those things I held most dear from Catholic spirituality.

Over the years, my connection to the Roman Catholic Church as an institution has fractured more and more; last May it splintered entirely. But I refuse to let Rome have a monopoly on Catholic faith, or on Mary and the Saints.

...Especially because Mary and the Saints were my greatest spiritual supports in college: with delighted wonder, I came to recognize how very queer my closest Saints were! They helped me embrace my queerness as a holy gift; I carried them with me into a little PC(USA) church that my then-girlfriend, now-wife found near our college campus.

The trunk:

The Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination holds me up in sturdy community: this is the denomination I'm currently "officially" part of — got my Masters of Divinity at a PCUSA seminary, got married in a PCUSA church, am on this denomination's ordination path.

This doesn't mean I think the PCUSA is the best religion or even the best form of mainline Protestantism. They all have their strengths and their flaws. But the PCUSA was the one that first came into my path, and I'm currently satisfied with my decision to commit myself to it — so long as it continues to make plenty of room for my Catholic roots and ecumenical branches.

The branches:

Though Louisville Seminary is a Presbyterian institution, when I attended from 2016-2019 at least 40% of my classmates and some of the staff there belonged to other denominations (or in a few cases, aren't Christian at all).

The opportunity to learn alongside folks from a variety of traditions was invaluable to my continued spiritual growth. I learned so much from them! I grew into my sense that all individuals and faith communities have something to teach us the Divine and about what it means to be human in relationship to Divinity and to Creation.

Then there's the agnostic part of the "branches":

Over the years I've also experienced more and more seasons where I'm just not sure that the Trinity, the Incarnation and Resurrection, and all that Christian-specific stuff is "real." But whether or not it is, I choose to remain committed to this path I'm on — with openness to fresh insights — because I do draw spiritual nourishment here. I do believe that the story of the Trinity and the Incarnation can guide us into living for Goodness, Justice, abundant life for all beings.

...Basically, I don't know whether it's all "true," but I do believe it holds powerful Truth; I remain committed to the Story.

(Also the bible has been my main special interest since i was like 6 so it's one of the main lenses through which i view the world so i'm stuck here for better or worse lfadfjalfjdalk;j! )

I believe it's imperative for Christians living in Christian supremacist cultures to practice humility above all else — to accept the fact that we don't have all the answers, that we're not the Most Right, that we don't enjoy unique favor with God. For me, identifying as agnostic reminds me that I don't know everything about God by any means, and may actually know very little at all. It reminds me to remain humble, open, and curious.

The fruit:

My hope is that this little tree that is me yields good fruit. I don't care if I have all the right answers, so long as I'm glorifying the Divine in some small way; easing suffering in some small way; bringing joy into this world in some small way. That's what matters to me.

________

I imagine the above implies my views on Church authority. If it doesn't, well, I'll just say I'm kind of an anarchist about church as much as anything else! The Church should never have come to wield as much power as it has. And whatever the "role" of the Church is in the Divine Story, I remember learning somewhere in seminary that the ultimate future of Church is to dissolve — that when we've experienced the full in-breaking of God's Kin-dom, there will be no more need for Church.

________

Not all Presbyterians hold to predestination — and for most I know who do, it's not really a central part of their faith life.

But sure, you could say I believe in predestination: I believe we are all predestined for participation in God's Kin-dom! :)

________

Further reading:

My tag of LGBTA patron Saints <3

My first podcast ep explores some of my spiritual journey

My queer and Catholic tag

Some other semi-related tags — good fruit tag; religious pluralism tag; evangelism tag; church hurt tag

My PCUSA tag, which includes a post with some old class notes about predestination

OH ALSO there's a podcast called "Called to Be Multiple" that interviews folks who draw from multiple faith sources. Cool stuff!

[sauroff]

I want to bring up something serious here for once, because I joined a new Silmarillion group on FB (I'm old, ok?), and it's a particularly inclusive space BUT, because of that, there is a lot of debates going on. And I wasn't allowed to make this point there because the admins were saturated with risky posts.

I have seen a lot of people say things like "Tolkien wasn't racist/anti semitic because he was against fascism!". And I'm not here to discuss the logic on that, or accuse Tolkien of any of those. I'm here to bring up the fact that Tolkien supported Franco.

I get that to most people (even to me) he is not as well known as Hitler or Mussolini, but still. Tolkien supported him, a fascist and a terrible dictator, because of anti communism and very Catholics views. Franco's opposition burned catholic churches and killed nuns and priests. Now, I don't want to get into detail about the reasons behind that, and how different those actions are viewed depending on your history (For Tolkien, to whom being catholic make him part of a minority, this was very different to what it's for people from actual catholic countries in general and latin Americans in particular, in which the church, as an institution, was always complicit of dictatorships and oppression).

Even Lewis had called Roy Campbell, a poet who fought with Franco, as a sort of catholic fascist. And Tolkien considered that Lewis was just under the influence of red propaganda, believing only the things said against Franco. He couldn't understand Lewis reactions to Campbell's stories about his fight

This is mostly talked about in letter 83 which, I must admit, I haven't read. I have read other people's summaries of it. If anyone knows of some place where I could read it, please reach out and tell me.

My point here is not bashing on Tolkien. I've decided long ago I prefer not to engage too much with his personal history, since my position as a latin american, born so many years after him, raised as a catholic in a catholic country, with a VERY different history around it, makes my personal views very opposed to his in many levels.

My point is to bring awareness on the fact that Tolkien did indeed support one fascist regimen, and this is ignored by most people. I think it's not just that Franco is not as known for some as the other two, it's also that he seems to have a very different weight for those that speak Spanish and those who don't. For starters, this facts it's not included in his English wiki, while it's included on the one in Spanish. For me, that I usually try to read the English sources for English themed things, this meant that I didn't know about this until some days ago, and I learnt it through a meme.

So yeah, I just needed to tell this in case some other people are just as ignorant as me on this. Because the whole "Tolkien was against fascism" is something I have read too many times and never questioned, tbh. But maybe it was just me.

Picture of the Spanish wiki just for attention

[egg2k16]

I think the thing that was so terrible about that fight is that I do actually think that Lestat believes that Louis is his one true mate, even with all the unreliable narrator bullshit Daniel keeps picking up on from Louis. Bcus it's always been a very consistent point that Louis brings up. Even if it's not true, that Lestat simply desired Louis to be his mate, with or without believing them to be true soulmates, the fact is that Louis believes that Lestat views their relationship like this. Louis considers this to be Lestat's motivation for keeping them together, so we the third person removed from all this (Lestat ==> Louis ==> Daniel ==> Us) can at least safely say that Lestat does hold Louis in a very esteemed position, above all others

So how this ties back to the fight, I think the reason why it was so terrible, I had said in a previous post that if loustat had had more regular fights about their relationship, it could've gone better, is that I think this means that Lestat, seeing as how Louis is essentially his northern star, wouldn't have believed their relationship merits any arguments bcus at the end of the day, they're always going to be meant to be together, n thus any trifle between them can be and should be swept under the rug

Meanwhile, Louis is still a lot younger than Lestat, and therefore hasn't lost his personal notion of time. He needs more time to become this disparaging of time and the arguments and the reconciliations etc that makes a relationship a relationship. Like how Lestat is quite blasé about hooking up w other people (very notably women), Louis takes these matters very seriously bcus he's still centuries away from being detached from his humanity. He still, at his core, holds the sanctity of marriage as holy. He's Catholic, after all (a fun juxtaposition to Lestat who we might believe had studied to be a monk and then was forced to renounce it :: Louis simply stopped going to church as a vampire by his own volition)

That fight was terrible because Lestat didn't really...allow room for arguments, and Louis never felt like he could pursue an argument. They had fights about Claudia n her adolescence, sure, but those concepts, of them as fathers n Claudia as their daughter, are kinda detached from the concept of them as a couple, n so those in particular never seemed to escalate. We even see, thanks to Claudia, that making up after these spats was quite easy

But this was a big fight, Louis was convalescing for three years! While Lestat was doing fuckall! That fight was awful bcus their little (and big) problems as a couple kept piling up on top of each other, n neither wanted to confront the pile of shit, n it kept simmering right under the surface until Claudia asked Louis to run away with her. Lestat, seeing the daughter he created wanting to take away the husband he created (his fated mate), his own pile of shit boiled over n that's why he attacked Louis so horribly. So it's pretty funny to see him three years later, thinking this is enough time for Louis to get over it. But of course he thinks so, bcus time is stretched out farther out for him, so for him it was like 3 days, meanwhile for Louis and Claudia, who're still quite young, it was three years

[lemotmo]

911 episode 7x09

Okay, I watched it.

I'm in pain. I can't stop sobbing.

What the F!?

THE PAIN!!!!!!!!!! The drama!!!!

All right, so let's see. Here are my thoughts in no particular order:

Bobby. Do not kill Bobby, I swear! If they kill him I will riot.

Athena asking Amir to talk to Bobby was such a bad idea. For all that this woman knows how to read body language, she should also understand that Amir lost everything because of Bobby. You can't ask a man who lost so much to talk to the man who caused it. He may be forgiving, but there's a limit to what a person can take.

Did Amir set the fire? I wonder. They made it seem like that, for sure. But I'm not sure if he really caused it. I hope not.

Also, that sequence with the song and Bobby going around, talking to everyone? Sobbing mess I tell you. But Bobby, giving Eddie a Bible? What are you thinking? The man is already a vat of Catholic guilt as it is. He doesn't need the Bible. He needs therapy. Give him Frank's telephone number. I think he has lost it.

Henren and Mara. Man, that Ortiz woman is brutal. But once again, just like with Amir, she is acting out of pain. We, as the audience, know that you can't just ruin the life of a young girl like that. But this woman lost her son and she's obviously filled with pain and anger and it's all pointed at Hen. What she is doing is wrong, but from her point of view it is the right thing to do.

Poor Mara though. And Denny hitting that guy. I'm just... no. Get that girl back to them Tim! I swear!

Eddie. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie... my love, what are you doing? This is soooo weird. At least he hasn't kissed her. That's something.

Buck meeting Kim was perfect. Once again Eddie and Buck's storylines collide. I loved their talk in the kitchen. That kitchen has seen some interesting Buddie stuff. I like how Buck expressed his concern and how Eddie admits that he is worried about his own sanity as well. He knows that what he is doing is wrong, but he doesn't know how to stop it.

I love how Buck talking to him and Kim showing up at the fire station, moved Eddie into gear to talk to Kim and tell her the truth. I'm so happy that he told her, because I was afraid she would find out in some other way and that would have been so much worse.

But what on Earth is Kim doing? I'm sorry, but that is some level of batshit insane. She is dressing and acting like Shannon to help Eddie release his emotions? That is so wrong and so weird. I would be out of there forever if I was in that situation. For a minute I thought he was dreaming and then they started talking. I'm glad it doesn't seem to be anything romantic or sexual though. It was literally a conversation to 'help' him move on.

Well, at least Eddie got to say what he needed to say to 'Shannon'. If this level of batshit insanity is what he needs to push the refresh button, then sure... why not?

And then of course Marisol and Chris walk in on them. The plot only thickens.

Poor Chris. This isn't going to end well. Hasn't that boy been through enough? He might just end up living with Eddie's parents for the Summer after all. Not in a 'We're taking that boy away from you' type of way. But more a 'The man needs some time to sort out his shit' type of way.

Marisol is bones, because no way she'll stick around. I don't know what Kim was doing, but she obviously has to go too. This isn't a way to live for Eddie. He needs to move on from Shannon.

Captain Gerrard being there? Oh, they are definitely going to make him the new Captain of the 118 in the finale. I can smell it. The firefam will be seperated for sure. Scattered accross different houses. Chim might be the only one left behind at the 118, having to deal with Gerrard again.

That's why Eddie will feel isolated. He'll be alone, no Chris, no firefam, no Buck to lean on because they'll have different shifts and hours. So they'll see less of each other.

As for Buck and Tommy? I'm not sure what to say here. They were kind of a non-issue in this episode. I think it's clear at this point that Tommy is a narrative foil and not some kind of great love for Buck. He is just there when he needs to be in Buck's storyline. Bobby telling Buck that Tommy is good for him harkens back to Abby as well, how he told him to step into it with Abby. Look how that ended. Not just that, it's the way it was just a throw-away line. He was trying to say goodbye and make amends, leave them all in a good place. And from what Bobby has seen so far, Tommy seems to be a good guy. It wasn't even as deep as the Abby talk and Buck didn't really care one way or the other.

Buck basically started the season in the locker room telling Eddie he had broken up with Nathalia and was single again. Now he's in the locker room in the penultimate episode and he's in a relationship again. Waaay too soon once again. He rolled into another relationship without having to make too much of an effort. Another person he met on a call, a firefighter sure, but they still met on a call. That hamster wheel keeps on turning. When will it end?

RIP to the Buck in the locker room sunset scene though. We had some great Buddie speculations for that, but alas it was just a capture that Tim liked because it looked artsy. So he posted it.

Buck and Eddie were in each other's orbit so much during this episode. They showed them cooking together, playing pool together, the kitchen scene... Eddie needs to work through a lot of shit and Buck is navigating his new relationship, but ultimately? I'm sorry, but they all but hung up a great big neon-sign that said: 'ALL OF THIS IS SOME DAY LEADING TO BUDDIE. BE PATIENT!'

Also, Lou said he isn't even in 7x10 right? If that is true... yeah, they aren't going to last long. How funny would it be if they gave BT the Bucktalia break up during hiatus?

Conclusion: What a great episode. I loved it all. They made weird choices this season though. The Shannon look-a-like is telenovella kinds of drama. But I'll take it in stride if it means it will help Eddie to move on. Bobby? Oh Bobby... I hope this scare with his own mortality will make him realise how much he needs to live for himself and his family. Henren just can't catch a break, can they? Give that child to them please! Do it next week too! I cannot wait months to see how this ends. I need that child to be happy with the Wilsons. The only people thriving right now are Madney. Good for them.