download horror movies
The Rev. Dr. Kosuke Koyama, a Japanese Christian theologian who was a proponent of contextual theologies rooted in the experiences of everyday people, died March 25, 2009 in Springfield, Mass. Koyama, 79, taught at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
His 1974 book, Water Buffalo Theology, was “one of the first books truly to do theology out of the setting of Asian villages,” said Donald Shriver, president emeritus. 
As a missionary in northern Thailand, Koyama said he was inspired to write the book as he listened to the “fugue of the bullfrogs” while watching farmers working with water buffaloes in the rice fields.
“The water buffaloes tell me that I must preach to these farmers in the simplest sentence structure,” he wrote. “They remind me to discard all the abstract ideas and to use exclusively objects that are immediately tangible. ‘Sticky rice,’ ‘banana,’ ‘pepper,’ ‘dog,’ ‘cat,’ ‘bicycle,”rainy season,”leaking house,’ ‘fishing,’ ‘cockfighting,’ ‘lottery,’ ’stomachache’–these are meaningful words for them.” 
Directed at the concerns of peasants, the book points out that Christianity and Buddhism do not communicate; rather Christians and Buddhists do. Rev. Dr. Koyama advocated seeing God “in the faces of people” to achieve good neighborliness among religions. He spoke of trying to “season” the Aristotelian roots of Western theology with Buddhist “salt.”
Besides Water Buffalo Theology, Dr. Koyama wrote 12 other books including Three Mile an Hour God (1980) which reflects his thought that God moves at walking speed through the countryside.
Kosuke Koyama was born on December 10, 1929 in Tokyo. In 1945, as American bombs rained down on Tokyo, he was baptised as a Christian. He was struck by the courageous words of the presiding pastor, who told him that God called on him to love everybody, “even the Americans.”
Once, in discussing death, Rev. Dr. Koyama recalled the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. He said Jesus would be with others the same way: “Looking into our eyes and heart, Jesus would say: ‘You’ve had a difficult journey. You must be tired, and dirty. Let me wash your feet. The banquet’s ready.’”
St. Adamnan, the biographer of St. Columba, recorded an encounter with the Loch Ness Monster in 565 A.D. 
St. Columba was on his way to visit with the Pictish king in Inverness, came upon some Picts burying the remains of one of their people. They told Columba that the poor man had been bitten and mauled to death by a water monster.
The dead man’s boat lay on the other side of the water. Columba ordered one of his followers to swim across and retrieve the boat.
One of his companions, Lugneus Mocumin, stripped down to his tunic and plunged into the water.
The monster saw him swimming, and having tasted blood, broke the surface of the water and made for him. Everyone who was watching was horrified, and hid their eyes in terror.
In the words of St. Adaman: “The monster suddenly rushed out and giving an awful roar, darted after him with its mouth wide open, as the man swam in the middle of the stream.”
St. Columba raised his hand, made the sign of the Cross and “commanded the ferocious monster saying, ‘Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed.’ Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, and feld more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes.”
Joseph and Chico: The Life of Pope Benedict XVI as Told by a Cat (Ignatius Press, 2008) is a children’s book written by Chico with the “aid” of Italian journalist, Jeanne Perego. 
The book, which has been translated into 10 languages and has sold 12,000 copies in the U.S., tells of young Joseph Ratzinger’s childhood love for all furry animals and the adult cardinal’s deep bond with the narrator, who lives in the Bavarian village of Pentling.
Chico’s owner, Rupert Hofbauer, confirmed the substance of the book and said that Chico, now 10, misses his old friend, who has not been back to visit since becoming pope.
“Sometimes Chico goes over there on his own,” Hofbauer said in a telephone interview, “and sits on the door sill or walks through the garden.” 
When Cardinal Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he tended to the cats that frequented the garden of the congregation’s building in the Vatican and bandaged their wounds.
But he could not bring his two beloved cats when he moved into the papal palace. Rome’s animal rights commissioner protested the ban on pets, and urged the Vatican to “give the two papal cats access to the Apostolic Palace.”
Though Benedict is the first pope to be written about by a cat, he falls squarely within a long Vatican tradition.
According to The Papacy: An Encyclopedia by Philippe Levillain, Pope Paul II, in the 15th c. had his cats treated by his personal physician. Leo XII, in the 1820s, raised his grayish-red cat, Micetto, in the pleat of his cassock. And according to The Times of London, Paul VI, from 1963 to 1978, is said to have once dressed his cat in cardinal’s robes.
Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, has two silver tabbies named Raphael and Gabriel. Mahony believes that cats are perfect pets for clergymen “because they are wonderful companions. There is a spirituality about them. Their presence is very soothing.”
Pope Benedict’s publicly announced fondness for cats has resulted in one of Rome’s hottest selling tourist momentos–a little cardinal hat for cats. The hat goes for $15 in stores such as Barbiconi, which specializes in clergy robes and accessories.
Cardinal Mahony’s cats both have cardinal hats, given to him during a recent trip to Rome.
But currently, Pope Benedict XVI must abide by the rule against pets in the Vatican apartments, “although one cardinal has a dog and everyone in Rome knows it,” said Cardinal Mahoney.
Father Theodore Hesburgh, 91, the president of Notre Dame from 1952-1987, was known for his work on many of the biggest social issues of the day: equal rights, the ethical application of scientific advances, justice and academic freedom. 
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Fr. Hesburgh answered a question on evolution:
WSJ: You wrote that you and the popes you represented at the IAEA had deep appreciation of the sciences. Now, a m0vement, supported by some Catholics, is fighting the teaching of evolution.
Fr. Hesburgh: I have no problem at all with evolution. I think God can create in any way he wants. If he wants to create through an evolutionary process, it wouldn’t happen without him, because he has to put beings there in the first place. But it could be a very simple kind of life, and it could evolve, as I think it did, through various, different, more-complicated organisms until eventually you get to a point where there is a human being. That requires at least one act of God, to create an immortal soul. Evolution can’t create a spiritual and immortal moral soul.
I’m not afraid of science, because the more I learn from science, the more I know about God and his creation.
Pope Benedict XVI may go down in history as the greatest papal advocate for the environment, but Pope John Paul II started things off. He made statements in support of creation, but his major contribution is his example–he loved nature, and found God there.
My favorite image of Pope John Paul II is a snapshot during a camping trip. A vigorous and robust man, he liked camping, hiking and relaxing outdoors. 
His nature experiences found their way into his poems. The Poetry of John Paul II: Roman Triptych: Medications begins with “The Stream.”
I. The Stream
Ruah
The Spirit of God hovered about the waters
1. Wonderment
The undulating wood slopes down to the rhythm of mountain streams.
To me this rhythm is revealing You, the Primordial Word.
How remarkable is Your silence
in everything, in all that on every side unveils the created world around us..all that, like the undulating wood, runs down every slope…all that is carried away by the stream’s silvery cascade, rhythmically falling from the mountain, carried by its own current–carried where?
What are you saying to me, mountain stream? Where, in which place do we meet? Do you meet me who is also passing–just like you.
Read the poem here.
In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes of a great journey through Heaven and Hell in a manner similar to Dante’s Inferno. As they enter heaven, the visitor observes a woman enfolded in the glory of the divine energies surrounded by animals. The visitor is awed–thinking this is the BVM.
When he finally gets up his courage to ask the bus driver about the woman, the driver responds that no, this isn’t the BVM, but some humble woman who had rescued all of these creatures of God, and in her care, they became fully themselves. I would take Lewis a step further, in relationship with these animals, the woman also became more fully herself as well. They were her companions in prayer and life.
- From the blog, Bending the Rule
Walk the Blue Fields is a new book of short stories by Irish writer Claire Keegan. All but one of the seven stories is set in rural Ireland. 
In the title story, a priest marries a young couple and throughout the celebrations he is haunted by the memories of a love affair and the choice he made. When everything begins to close in on him, he leaves the party to walk.
Reflecting on the perennial question, “Where is God?” he discovers “tonight God is answering back. All around the air is sharp with the tang of wild currant bushes. A lamb climbs out of a deep sleep and walks across the blue field. Overhead, the stars have rolled into place. God is nature.”
A mermaid is rising in the desert. 
When complete, she will stand 25 feet tall. Through an entrance at the front of her hips one can access her interior and climb on top of her. Her scales are cut from colorful 55-gallon steel drums. Blue and green lights glow from within.
Designed by Lisa Nigro, Dahud-Ahes the Mermaid is an interactive installation in process.
A Breton princess, Dahut was the daughter of Gradlon, a king, and the sorceress Malgven. Gradlon built the beautiful city of Ys for his daughter, because Dahut loved the sea. Ys was also known as Ker-Ys in the Breton tongue.
King Gradlon was a christian, his daughter Dahut was a pagan like her mother. The king’s advisor was a monk, St. Guenole. He whispered against Dahut, and predicted her way of life would bring the downfall of the city. 
Dahut was seduced by a demon or a fairy, who took the form of a beautiful young man. As proof of her love, he asked her to open the seagate at night to let him in. She stole the key while her father slept, opened the gates, and the sea flooded in, drowning most of the people of Ys.
King Gradlon and St. Guenole were among the survivors. The king would have saved his daughter, but Guenole urged him to throw Dahut into the water. Afraid for his life, he did. The water immediately receded, but the entire city was submerged and became part of the Bay of Dourarnenez. The legend said Dahut did not die, but was transformed into a mermaid. 
Dahud-Ahes was probably the daughter of 6th c. king of Kernev, or Cornwall, with branches in Wales and Brittany. Dahud was undoubtedly a druidess adhering to the old religion, and a force against St. Gwennole (St. Guenole) who wanted to convert the entire region to Christianity.
There are many Celtic legends about lost cities. Perhaps they have their inspiration from the tale of Atlantis. Most likely the reworking of the legend of Ys by christian scribes and missionaries was to link it to Sodom and Gomorrah–what disasters can befall a town with a pagan influence and practices.
King Gradlon rode on to the city of Quimper and established it as his new capital. On the cathedral is a figure of him on his horse, looking back toward the sea at Ys. 
The Dextera Dei, the Right Hand of God, is portrayed on the north face of Muiredach’s Cross, the largests of the stone “high crosses” at Monasterboice in Co. Louth, just north of Dublin. The Hand of God is shown resting on a round carved disk; underneath it two snakes intertwine three human heads.
The monastery was founded around 520 A.D. The cross was carved in the 10th century, and is dedicated to an abbot of Monasterboice, Muiredach mac Domhaill. His death is recorded in 923 A.D.
I was in the presence of the cross on a cold, bright spring morning. The ground was still wet with dew. I remained standing by the Right Hand of God long after the other members of my group moved away. I studied, and looked, and counted, but I couldn’t crack its mystery.
Since I returned home, I have not been able to find any discussion of the iconography of this part of the cross. Are the roots of the artwork in the ancient Irish symbols for the sun, victory and divinity? The Old Testament? The New Testament? All three? The images portrayed have their roots in both traditions: Life, Death, Kingship, Victory, Divinity. Snakes could symbolize the ancient native religion, Satan or fallen angels.
The location of the cross was in an ancient grove had its own meaning. That gently sloping knoll served as a sacred place to the local people well before the arrival of Christian missionaries and monks.
There are referrences to ”right hand of God” throughout the Bible. As the messiah, Jesus is supposed to be seated at the Right Hand of God.
But the cross of Muiredach pays as much attention to David as it does Jesus, so I think the origin for the symbols come from one of his stories or psalms.
In my first attempt as a Biblical art detective, I propose the inspiration for the carving comes from Psalm 109. It begins: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at might right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool.”
A new movie starring my favorite comic character, Hellboy, is currently playing in theaters across the U.S. Hellboy and the Golden Army, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, has the same kind of fantastic monsters as Pan’s Labyrinth. There is also the same clash of realities – Christian and pagan.
How can I not love Hellboy,? He’s such a contradiction – a demon who wears a wrist rosary. Kind, brave, implusive, born a demon but raised a man, he is loyal to his friends and his mission. He make messes and gets in fights, but picks himself up and keeps at it.
In Golden Army, Hellboy comes up against Prince Nuada, an elf prince who wants to destroy mankind for making such a mess of the earth and laying waste to the environment. One of the creatures Nuada summons as a tool of destruction is an Elemental. This green force of nature terrorizes and tries to destroy a neighborhood, but after a terrible inner struggle, Hellboy finally kills it. As it dies, its blood and body blanket the streets and buildings with beautiful flowers and vegetation. Instead of cowering, the people and their other-worldly protectors walk among the flowers, enchanted. 
Hellboy finally succeeds in overcoming Prince Nuada, but at the cost of realizing his own mission also relies on death and destruction. He walks away from it, deciding to live for the joy of living, not following orders to destroy things that are different. 
The film is an entertaining fable of good and evil. But it also can be seen as a darker allegory of the struggle between Christianity and paganism, a spirituality rooted in nature. Nature has some fearsome ways to retaliate, if humanity hurts it too much or tries to dominate at its expense.
Christianity has a lot to learn about life, nature and natural law from paganism. Chiefly, don’t try to kill things you don’t understand or are afraid of. Much to our surprise, there may be flowers in the blood and body.
