Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Sick Pilgrim

Home
Catholic
Sick Pilgrim Goes to the Movies: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Sick Pilgrim Goes to the Movies: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Last updated on: July 18, 2018 at 7:45 am by Maren Grossman

Sick Pilgrim Goes to the Movies: Kiki’s Delivery Service 2018-07-16T18:52:33-05:00 Maren Grossman

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

If you happen to visit our house sometime and find yourself invited down to our basement, you will notice two things: 1. board games, and 2. this large figure made out of a cardboard box.

He used to have ears, but they fell off.

These things happen.

For those of you not in the know, this is a cardboard sculpture of Totoro. Totoro (or, more properly, My Neighbor Totoro) is a film by the Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli. If you haven’t seen a Studio Ghibli film, you are missing out. Their films are favorites in our house. They are brilliant, whimsical, and emotional. They can also be incredibly bizarre, weird, and frightening – sometimes a bit too much for the youngest members of the household.

The most gentle of the Ghibli films is a charming movie called Kiki’s Delivery Service. The protagonist, Kiki, is a young witch striking out on her own. In this fictional world, witchcraft is something a girl inherits from her mother, like brown eyes or red hair. It is a traditional profession, and one of its traditions is witch children striking out at the age of twelve to try their skills and gain independence as a professional witch. Kiki is beyond excited to spread her metaphorical wings and strike out on her own, but there is a problem: her mother hasn’t had the time to teach her how to make potions, and she is not a fortune-teller. Her only real skill is flying a broom, and even that skill is somewhat shaky.

Despite her parents’ trepidation, Kiki sets out to find her independence. She settles in a seaside town, where she decides to use her one witchy skill to open a delivery business. She is lucky to find a handful of adults who recognize her abilities and value her, and she in turn sees these adults as friends and companions. She values them.

But there is a problem – Kiki is not able to make any kind of connection with her peers. Afflicted with pre-teen anxiety about boys, she isn’t able to connect with a boy (Tombo) who finds her fascinating, and who pursues her with touching devotion. What’s more, she finds that her world has become more akin to the world of adults than the world of children. As a witch, she has abilities that the other kids have never seen before. She has to work and support herself. She recognizes that the other kids she meets see her as something “other,” and that this causes them to disengage from her. As Kiki becomes more and more lonely, she begins to see herself as “other.”

Eventually, Kiki’s unhappiness and sense of alienation lead to the unthinkable: she begins to lose her magic. Unable to fly, and unable to maintain her delivery service, she cries, “If I’ve lost my magic, I’ve lost everything!” She is desperately unhappy, but once again the adults in her life come to the rescue. An artist friend invites her to come and stay with her for a few days in her cabin in the woods. There, Kiki is confronted with a painting of herself. As she gazes as the Chagall-esque picture, she is amazed to discover that this is how her friend sees her. It’s a moment of poignant contrast between the beauty of the painting and the way Kiki feels about herself.

This scene sets the stage for a moving conversation between Kiki and the artist. The artist tells Kiki about a time when she too lost her abilities. She had been driven to paint, and loved to paint, but one day all desire to paint seemed to go away. She was dissatisfied with herself and with her work, and she wondered if she’d ever paint again. She explains that she had to discover within herself the reasons why she wanted to paint. She reminds Kiki that painting and magic are works of the spirit, and that the ability to make art or perform magic comes from the heart. She assures Kiki that her abilities will come back – she just has to discover her own reasons for wanting to do magic at all.

Matt has already written about the difference between external and internal reasons for faith. Kiki echoes those themes. We grow up Catholic, or we convert, and for a while we are more than content to be directed to by the Church. We want the security of an external source that can guide us and help us see our way through life’s ambiguities. We mistrust ourselves, and tie our spiritual lives to the workings of an external community that frequently operates independently of us. We see this as a feature, not a bug.

There can come a moment, however, when we find ourselves losing our ability to believe. Maybe our local community has failed us. Maybe the Church as a whole has failed us. Maybe we just aren’t sure about what once seemed so certain. Referring to something external no longer satisfies us. Referring to something external no longer seems wise.

This is the moment when we start to look within and discover something astonishing: we have a spirit. I have a spirit. When my children were small, I used to tell them that Jesus was in their hearts. It’s remarkable, as an adult, to discover that this is true.

Like Kiki, we look to our spirit for our reasons for belief, and the spirit’s reasons for belief turn out to be very different from reasons that come from without. Discovering them is not entirely unlike the experience of an awkward twelve-year-old witch looking at her portrait, as painted by a friend.

Kiki eventually regains her abilities, and discovers that her reasons for wanting to do magic have a lot to do with love and with friendship. Her recovery of her magical ability is at first unpredictable. She has to find new tools for channeling her magic. She has to find new ways of doing what had previously come naturally, but she gets there.

And so will we.

Maren Grossman is an assistant editor at Sick Pilgrim. She holds an M.A. in philosophy from Catholic University and currently lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

Sick Pilgrim Goes to the Movies

witches

Previous Post

July 17, 2018

Vatican Treasures: What's Actually on Display in the Met's Heavenly Bodies Exhibit, Part III

Next Post

July 20, 2018 Dark Devotional: Bigger Than Holy Dirt

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Approaching Mystery art Book Reviews Catholic Ghost Story Catholicism community Confession Current Events Dark Devotional Deconstruction Deconstruction Fellow Travelers I Want To Believe Interview Laudato Si Lent Mary Matthew's Letters Movie Reviews Music Reviews Our Charism Personal Essay Pilgrims Pope Francis Popular Piety Prayer Publishing Richard Beck Saints Satan Sheed and Ward Sick Pilgrim Charism Sick Pilgrim Chats Sick Pilgrim Events Sick Pilgrim Travelin' Medicine Show Sick Pilgrimage to The West Sick Pilgrims Small Joys Spiritual Autobiography Spooky Files of Ave Maria Magazine Spooky October Spooky Pilgrim Spooky Pilgrimage Strange Journey The Inklings Things Keeping Us Going Trying to Say God TV Reviews Uncategorized women in the Catholic Church Wonder Podcast Write the Vision

Select a Month February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: The apostles drew lots to choose Matthias to replace Judas.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE