burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

There's something that's always going to be sacred about the Cross. That Cross is so deeply entrenched in God's psyche that it's always going to be somewhere in Christianity, but the entire history of theology -- of Christian theology -- has never resolved what that story is truly meant to define. That's because trauma can't be resolved, because doctrines are developing, God is still discovering new ways to handle that experience of being crucified.

And I want to just throw in here that though trauma might not be resolved cleanly, that we work through trauma and those of us that have survived trauma know this -- that our lives might be heavy laden with flashbacks and we might experience challenges working through it, but we do heal. We might not solve it, you might not wash it away, but we do resurrect ourselves and we do keep moving. (emphasis mine)

• Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa by Jeremy Dutcher
  
• The Ballad of the Runaway Girl by Elisapie
  
• Standing in the Light by Leonard Sumner
  
• Nitisanak - Brothers and Sister by Northern Cree
  
• The Average Savage by Snotty Nose Rez Kids

• C is for Consent written by Eleanor Morrison & illustrated by Faye Orlove
  
• Will Ladybug Hug? by Hilary Leung

thedeadparrot

• Young Gun: Part I (Reel Rock S3E5) "Fifteen-year-old Ashima Shiraishi and 16-year-old Kai Lightner are the leaders of the next generation of climbers, and have sent shockwaves through the sport."
• Young Guns: Part II (Reel Rock S3E6) this one is just Ashima
  
• Break on Through (Reel Rock S4E1) "Follow American climber Margo Hayes on her quest to make history and become the first woman to ascend two of the most revered climbs in the world – La Rambla in Spain and Biographie in France." [She's white, but RedBullTV was continuing to offer me videos about young climbers and I was into it.]

thedeadparrot

• the opening episode of Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon ("Alola to New Adventures!") -- set in the "Alola Region," aka fictionalized Hawaii; this Waypoint piece has some good commentary/contextualization:

  Clearly Sun and Moon shot for a tropical vacation tone, and largely nails it. Rather than trying to depict island life from a local perspective, Game Freak constructed what is, essentially, a classic Japanese tour of Hawai'i—an idea so embedded in their culture that, like the great American road trip or summer backpacking Europe, it has its own host of expectations and tropes.

• episodes 1&2 of Pokémon XY (set in the Kalos region -- aka, fake France) Bonnie learns about consent! (I had just read C is for Consent the previous day and had been showing it off to people all day when we watched these episodes, so the issue of consent was very much on my mind)

• incl 3 more categories from Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" [6 "Most Clever," 6 "Best on Creativity," 6 "Best Concept"]

• Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and illustrated by Jonny Sun
  
• the 4 novellas in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells (the first 2 for Boston SFF Bookclub)
  
• Full-metal Indigiqueer: poems by Joshua Whitehead
  
• Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
  
• Shaming the Constitution: The Detrimental Results of Sexual Violent Predator Legislation by Michael L. Perlin and Heather Ellis Cucolo

• 9 Jewish picturebooks (After someone I follow RTed a thread about a culturally-clueless Kirkus review of Where's the Potty on This Ark?, I checked out Kar-Ben's catalog.)
  
• finished the water-themed books I had started reading in July (I read ~13 in July, ~8 in August [not counting the ones M already owned], and ~18 in September)

• What the Werewolf Told Them / Lo que los dijo el licantropo by Chely Lima -- queer trans Cuban-American poet
  • & Waves Breaking podcast episode
• Fifteen Steps Out of Darkness: The Way of the Cross for People on the Journey of Mental Illness written by Scott Rose, Fred Wenner, and Al Rose #TheBook
  
• Redeeming Capitalism by Kenneth J. Barnes (my boss is friends with the author and asked me to buy a copy of the book and it arrived while he was out of town and I was curious)
  
• Made for Love by Alissa Nutting (feminist sci-fi bookclub)
  
• We're Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology ed. Tara Madison Avery and Jeanne Thornton

• Jennifer's Body
  
• Yellow Is Prohibited (documentary about female Chinese couture designer Guo Pei, whose dress Rihanna wore at the Met Gala 2015 [China: Through the Looking Glass])
  
• Wild Nights With Emily (dramatic comedy biopic about Emily Dickinson -- pushing back against the myth that she was a total recluse and that she didn't want to be published in her lifetime #queer)

• 5 Juneteenth
  
• 10 of Taylor Pittman's "17 LGBTQ-Friendly Books To Read To Your Kid In Honor Of Pride"
  

• the much-hyped An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
  
• Jady City (The Green Bone Saga #1) by Fonda Lee (Asian Mafia urban fantasy)

• Layli Long Soldier — The Freedom of Real Apologies (early 2017)
  
• Ernie LaPointe and Cedric Good House — Reimagining Sitting Bull (2009)

• and learned that the Golem of Prague (Part 1 and Part 2) is a much more involved story than I'd imagined
  
• I also listened to a story from India (Part 1 and Part 2) and had a couple moments of. "Hey, I know this bit!" (some pieces of Holi in the first story, and the Ramayana in the second story -- though okay the latter I knew from a middle grade/young adult graphic novel, so it doesn't quite fit with my increasingly frequent refrain of "I know that from a picture book" ... and I think I recognized a piece from the third story from art at the MFA)