Posts

A Manifesto for Christian Rebels and Ex-Vangelicals

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 A very quick post today: I wrote this text after yesterday's reflection regarding spirituality and sexuality (which you can read here ), and was inspired just now as I was reading the introduction to Georg Feuerstein's book Enlightened Sexuality: Essays on Body-Positive Spirituality , which I'm already loving and will probably seek a physical copy of. Here is what I wrote: Yes! We urgently need a new Christian spirituality that carries the Gospel of Christ today, where the Kingdom of God is found here and now ! And what I see is a vision that is body-positive and corporeal, present, sensual, creative, erotic, intimate, passionate! Romantic! (Even Artistic!) That values Agape love in the here and now, that values and celebrates individual experience, that accepts all bodies and all genders as they are and will be, that teaches Love, Compassion and Eros across all forms of sexualities and relationships. That defends individual autonomy and nourishes self-expression. That fo...
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Link Dump No. 1 - Sexuality & Spirituality, (Neo) Tantra & Christian Mysticism, BONUS: M.A. Thesis "Voices from the Mountains"

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    Okay, so here is another thing I've been wanting to do with this blog for some time now. So far, I've mostly just shared thoughts and ideas which take me definitely up to a few hours to write, and require my concentration for long stretches at a time, which is an opportunity I rarely have, and thus this limits how often I can write on this blog, which then also becomes a new hurdle whenever I want to try writing something again, once I'm terribly out of practice. No problem, because now I have a revolutionary idea that will work for me, but that is not really all too applicable to other people's blogs, so maybe it's not as revolutionary after all?? As I said: no problem. Today, I want to simply share a few links to resources for topics and ideas I've been thinking about lately, which will serve as a helpful base from which to later perhaps write more fleshed out rambles, like the ones I'm an expert at writing. However, this kind of post will only require...
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Corn, Beans and Squash: The Limits of Video Games as an Artform? (A Ramble)

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 So, this (and a number of other topics I hope to get around to eventually) has been on my mind lately, and I thought I'd make a short post about it, to see if I can get my thoughts in order. As I've shared before in this blog (when I was developing the video game [zu] ), I've been interested in the expressive and artistic potential of video games ever since high school, and have since then been interested in learning to develop short games that express ideas or feelings in ways that other artforms cannot do. I very clearly think this is possible, otherwise I would not have developed [zu] the way I did, and previous experiences with games such as The Beginner's Guide, Disco Elysium, Night in the Woods, Kentucky Route Zero, Dear Esther , and even The Outer Wilds and A Short Hike, not to mention the works of artists like Kitty Horrorshow, Cosmo D, Bryce Bucher, among others (or the fascinating Interactive Fiction experiences crafted by artists like Steve Meretzky, Andre...
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On Eros Love in Friendship

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 I've been thinking lately about love, specifically Eros love, in friendships. Last year I read an article by Tara Isabella Burton, an author I really esteem, about this topic, and just now a few days ago I finally read through The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. Recent talks with friends and my wife too have encouraged me to desire and think differently about the types of relationships I have with those whom I choose to love Platonically (in an original sense) and I've been more honest with myself and others in expressing that what I crave most in intimate personal relationships is physical touch. I love hugging, I love kissing, I love caressing and holding my friends' heads on my shoulders, as well as resting my head on theirs as we talk about questions or problems, or just as we watch a movie together. I love sharing my bed with friends, embarking on new projects with them, I even love (in a way) having somewhat-heated discussions about plans or ideas for solving joint prob...
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Survival Horror Inspiration Playlist

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I'm finally almost finished fixing the final bugs in [zu], which you can check out here by the end of March to play the finalized version. In the meantime, however, during my leisure time sitting in the bus or taking a break from work and my studies, I've been compiling an inspiration playlist of unsettling music from different genres (there's pop, electronic, progressive, metal, punk, and ambient so far). You can check that out here if you want: Mostly this is a way to toy around with an idea I have for a horror game. It's perhaps way too ambitious at this moment, but I've been diving back into making music and I've been learning 3D modeling for environments in Blender these past few months. Work has built up quite a bit in the last weeks, so I haven't gotten to do any actual new development work, and probably won't in some months if I hope to learn the ropes again on music production and environment modeling. In any case, I can always dream... And tho...
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[zu] - Short Game Devlog 1

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I haven't posted in this blog for quite some time, but this is exactly why I opened it in the first place. I've been quite busy these past months, but I shouldn't give up on writing and publishing something every so often. On Monday I finally handed in a term paper on Atheism and Progressive Christianity in North America that was long overdue. You can read it here , if you're interested. In any case, I've been sick and sta (d)ying in my apartment this week, which has allowed me to revisit this game idea I've been playing with for over a year now. I started this project exactly twelve months ago when I started suffering from clinical depression. However, this only worsened during the long winter lock-down in Germany from October 2020 to May 2021, after which I spent some time at a psychiatric center, so I've only been able to get back to it now, after getting back into Unity for the past few months during my free time. Well, shit. I've been feeling much b...
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The Light Below Is Brighter

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The light below is brighter Under the sea it glows     buried in the sand. The moon is reaching out to get it. Jealously it ripples,     but the light does not give in. I yearn for it and keep it to myself,                                 its presence.   To float above its waters,        is all I could desire The light below is brighter.     PlsD'tStpSpnngOrWeWllAlDy · hauntingpianofile.wav Written for this song, which I composed back in 2016, when making the first music for this project. (If the track does not load, use this link instead.) main inspiration:  
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