Which is Quicker? Outwaiting 199 book readers or 51 book listeners?

Reading Jeff Miller's review of The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith at Goodreads this morning made me interested in reading it. I remember hearing that J.K. Rowling had written a mystery under a pseudonym which I thought was a good way to see if she could write an adult book without the hoopla that now accompanies her name.

I didn't stop to even mentally register the pseudonym although the rest of Dallas evidently did. I was in a quandary as to which version of the book I should request when faced with monumental numbers waiting ahead of me. It takes longer to listen to a book than to read it, but then some people are slow readers. Did that make the 51 audio requests equal to the 199 print requests?

Then, oh happy day, I found I could request both versions. Kind of like sending your kid to stand in the  grocery line next to you in case it moves faster. (Yes, I've done it. We all have.)

I'm curious to see which line gets me there the fastest ...

A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz

A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family & Faith Throughout the Christian Year by Evelyn Birge Vitz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At Pentecost a few years ago the usefulness of food for teaching religious ideas really became apparent to me. I was trying to explain to my children what Pentecost was, and their eyes were getting that glassy look that mothers know so well. I was losing them fast. Then (providential inspiration?) I declared, "We are going to bake a cake to eat on the great feast of Pentecost. How shall we decorate it?" Now, as it happens, my children love to decorate cakes and cookies. Their eyes brightened and their ears pricked up. We made a pretty wild-looking bakery item, with flames and doves and rays of light, but we all had a wonderful time, and they certainly knew what Pentecost was by the time we were through.

Evelyn Vitz goes on to give a recipe for making and decorating the Pentecost Cake, but as we can see, this is much more than a cookbook. As the subtitle says, it is: "A cookbook to celebrate the joys of family and faith throughout the Christian year." This book is perfect for the family who wants their faith present in every part of their lives, including the kitchen and dining room.

The first half of the book focuses on "All the days of our lives" with meals for celebrations, daily dining, and hospitality. This is also where the section on fasting and meat-free meals is included. As Vitz points out, abstinence from meat is still required of American Catholics unless they replace it with some other form of penance or good work. And that puts it squarely in the regular part of our meal planning lives.

"The Christian Year" is the focus of the second half which is organized according to the liturgical calendar. Vitz gives good explanations of the evolution and meanings of different customs and rites. Aimed primarily at Catholic and Orthodox families there is still a lot of information for exploration by Protestant families interested in tradition. The recipes in this section include a big section for saints days and special feast days, organized by season.

Lovely drawings and food-faith quotes are scattered throughout the book in pertinent spots. Some of the recipes are simple, some complex, and they are drawn from countries around the world. All were obviously chosen a lot of care and I was impressed with the range. Most of all, though, Evelyn Vitz's warm personality and love of faith come through in every headnote for each recipe.

Here's a sample recipe that caught my eye since autumn is upon us, which means All Souls Day looms ever nearer (November 2). I want to try these.

Beans of the dead

Fave Dei Morti

Here is a recipe for Italian "soul" cookies called Fave dei Morti, "Beans of the Dead." The theme of beans suggests, among other things, the idea of burial in the ground and rebirth. Sometimes "soul" cookies are called Ossi de Morti--"Bones of the Dead"--and are made in the shape of bones. In fact, the central ingredient in all the forms of this cookis is ground or crushed nuts, which are understood to suggest bones. (This theme is also common in bakery items for this day in other countries, such as Mexico.) These perhaps morbid considerations notwithstanding, Fave (and Ossi) dei Morti are delicious.

2/3 cup blanched almonds
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces and softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated rind of 1 lemon

Place the almonds on a baking sheet and dry them out for 10 minutes or so in a slow oven: 200°. Reset the oven for 350‚.

Grind the almonds very fine. Place them in a large bowl. Add the sugar, and blend the mixture well with a fork. Add the flour and the cinnamon, then the butter, and finally the egg, the vanilla, and the grated lemon rind, mixing well with each addition. With a fork or floured hands, work the mixture to a smooth paste.

Break off large-bean-sized pieces of paste (about 1 inch long), and place them about 2 inches apart on a greased, floured baking sheet. [My comment ... I would use parchment paper here.] Squash each bean slightly to produce an oval shape like a lima or fava bean.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until they are a golden color.

Yield: about 100 one-inch beans.

Variation:
Form pieces of dough into the shape of bones, 1 or 2 inches long.

Please Note:
I received this review copy of A Continual Feast from the good folks at Catholic Family Gifts. They've got a lot of great items there, including this cookbook and several others.

It's All Downhill From Here

A little Wednesday humor to get us to the weekend, courtesy of xkcd.

Well Said: Opposition from the Good

From today's reading in In Conversation With God. I myself tend to forget this over and over, becoming quite indignant. That's why this is a good reminder for me. I don't have to like it, but I shouldn't be surprised.

It is difficult to understand calumny or persecution -- either open or veiled -- in an era in which one hears so much about tolerance, understanding, fellowship and peace. But the attacks are more difficult to understand when they come from good men, when Christian persecutes, no matter how, another Christian, or a brother his brother. Our Lord prepared his own for the inevitable times when those who would defame, calumniate, or undermine their apostolic work would not be pagans or enemies of Christ, but brothers in the Faith who would think that with these actions they would be doing a service to God. This opposition from the good, an expression that the founder of Opus Dei coined to describe a phenomenon that he experienced so painfully in his own life, is a trial that God sometimes permits. It is particularly painful for the Christian to whom it happens. [...]

In any case, the position of the Christian who wants above all to be faithful to Christ has to be one where he can pardon, make amends and act with rectitude of intention, all the time looking towards Christ.

Francis Fernandez, In Conversation With God, vol. 4

Notes on Mark: Gradual Journeys

MARK 8:22-26
Jesus usually healed people instantly. I never stopped to wonder why this might be a more gradual healing. It makes me feel a little better at my lack of understanding sometimes when I think that the disciples had the same need for gradual understanding that I do.

The man's more gradual return to sight reflects the gradual journey of Jesus' disciples from spiritual blindness to spiritual insight. Surely they had seen Jesus perform many signs and wonders. Peter later confessed that Jesus was the Christ (Mark 8:29). Yet, as Jesus began to reveal to them what was going to happen -- that he would suffer and die -- the disciples struggled to comprehend God's plan for redemption. "And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him" (8:32). They still lacked the spiritual acuity to grasp God's plan for the salvation of the world through Jesus.

Mark: A Devotional Commentary
(The Word Among Us)

The gradual healing also has been seen by Church fathers to contain even deeper meaning.

Allegorically (St. Bede, In Marcum), Jesus heals the blind man to announce the mystery of redemption. As God Incarnate, Jesus heals man through the sacrament of his human nature, here signified by his hands and spittle. This grace cures our spiritual blindness gradually, and, as with the blind man, progress is measured in proportion to our faith.

Allegorically (St. Jerome, Homily 79), the restoration of the blind man signifies our gradual increase in wisdom, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth. Christ's spittle is the perfect doctrine that proceeds from his mouth; it enhances our vision and brings us progressively to the knowledge of God.

The Gospel Of Mark
(The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)

Well Said: Do not squander time...

From my quote journal.

Do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.

Benjamin Franklin

I heard this on the Monday Morning Memo podcast, wrote it on an index card, and have been putting it in prominent spots around the house for several days. It's a lesson I need, especially in these times of increasing distractions.

I Was On Conversion Corner This Morning - on Seize the Day with Gus Lloyd

I have to say that Gus Lloyd was unlike other interviewers I've talked to because he slowed down to talk more about my parents' attitudes toward religion, whether I'd been exposed to religion or church in my youth, and went on past God's reaching out to me ... in spectacular fashion ... to explore my further conversion into Catholicism.

It was a real pleasure and lots of fun to talk with him. It looks as if they rerun Seize the Day for late night listening on the Catholic Channel so if you are listening then you may hear me!

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

This review originally appeared at my A Free Mind column at Patheos. Scott and I discuss the book at A Good Story is Hard to Find. I wanted to get it on the record here at Happy Catholic.

=======================

There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still.

It is appropriate that during Lent, when the depth of God's love is the lesson made plain to us, The Hiding Place came to my attention; it contains vivid examples of God's deep love set in a story of man's inhumanity to man.

I read The Hiding Place in high school, so it was with a sense of nostalgia for an excellent "holocaust survival autobiography" and the vague memory of a few key inspirational passages that I downloaded it as the free April audiobook from christianaudio.com. In fact, I believed I remembered it so well that I only began listening from curiosity, to see how the narration sounded.

I soon realized my memory was severely at fault as the honest and beautiful story unfolded. I was completely absorbed, and listened in every spare moment.

The Hiding Place begins in 1937, in Haarlem, Holland, with preparations for the one hundredth anniversary celebration of the ten Boom family's clock shop. The story is told by Corrie ten Boom who is the then-45-year-old youngest daughter of the family. She and her sister, Betsie, who is seven years older, are spinsters living with their elderly father. As such, they make an unlikely pair of heroines but God does not see with our eyes, as their tale tells.

The early pages of the book reveal a family truly living a Christian life, with a soup kettle always bubbling to feed the poor, numerous foster-children raised, and a challenging extended family borne with patiently. Corrie's father, Casper, keeps Christ at the center of their lives. His gentleness, rooted in strength and wisdom, serves as a Christ-like example. Several instances of her father's guidance become touchstones throughout Corrie's life, as in this childhood recollection:

And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sex-sin?"

He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.

"Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said.

I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.

"It's too heavy," I said.

"Yes," he said, "and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you."

Corrie's sister, Betsie, is often a source of much needed Christ-like perspectives. When Corrie is troubled by a premonition of being taken from Haarlem against her will, she consults Betsie, who tells her:

If God has shown us bad times ahead, it's enough for me that He knows about them. That's why He sometimes shows us things, you know -- to tell us that this too is in His hands.

That trust is soon tested as the Nazis conquer Holland. When a well-dressed woman with a suitcase in hand appears at the shop's front door saying that she is a Jew afraid of being arrested, she is welcomed by Casper, "In this household, God's people are always welcome."

Thus begins the ten Boom family's surprising involvement in the Dutch underground.

Corrie soon finds herself the leader of one of the largest resistance groups in the city, centered at their home. She shares engrossing details about how the family eluded detection, managing to feed and house Jewish refugees until they could be spirited to safety. However, such a large operation made it inevitable that there would be a slip-up, and eventually the family is arrested.

From that point, the story reads like Dante's descent into the circles of Hell. The two middle-aged sisters are moved from one prison to another, each worse than the one before. It is during this point, however, that God makes His presence unmistakably known. As Corrie says in the movie made from the book, "God does not have problems. Only plans."

This revelation lifts The Hiding Place above other holocaust stories. Although the sisters suffer immense indignities and hardships, their story is about God's triumph over evil, even in the midst of the very place where evil reigns. They do not perform what we might think of as heroic acts, yet as Corrie and Betsie persevere in their efforts to stay in the center of God's will, they make it possible for God to work through them.

In fact, it is in their very powerlessness that they reveal God to others as their plight continues.

I was struck by the timelessness of the message and the values contained therein. Casper ten Boom models God the Father for his children, and those with good fathers recognize how powerful that can be. Those of us who were not so blessed can recognize in this hero a model of God the Father that we can relate to and call our own. Their mother, though not a key figure in the story, is instrumental in showing how it is possible to live a fully Christian life when home caring for a family, or when stricken by illness.

Betsie's point of view displays a Christ-like love for their captors even under the most terrible circumstances. Corrie is the example for the rest of us. She is uncertain, afraid, and needs the examples of Betsie and her father to keep her eyes on Christ. Even so, Corrie steps out in faith throughout the book whenever there is a need.

The Hiding Place also serves as a warning. I was quite surprised at how certain attitudes portrayed in the book resonated with our times; the Nazis showed utter disdain of the elderly, the very sick, and "feeble minded" because they were not productive members of society. If the ten Booms couldn't comprehend such attitudes, I realized with chagrin I understood them all-too-well as the utilitarian ideas of our "modern" society. As Flannery O'Connor said,

If you live today, you breathe in nihilism . . . it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.

When I began telling people about this audiobook, I was surprised at how many people had never heard of The Hiding Place. Many others, like me, believe they remember it well, despite having read it many years ago. Even if you know and love the book well, I encourage you to take advantage of christianaudio's download. Narrator Bernadette Dunne brings Corrie to life in a matter-of-fact but sympathetic reading.

We could do with a revival of The Hiding Place on American bookshelves. Not only does this story remind us that God is with us always but it shows where we may find ourselves, if we do not heed His will. We will be in a very unsafe place where there is no hiding at all.

A Life-Changing Book: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Scott and I discuss it at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

Worth a Thousand Words: Diplomats

Diplomaten
painted by Edward B. Gordon

I love it when artists capture the everyday things which we take for granted. Edward B. Gordon is a master at this. Girls with umbrellas, street lights, cars in the rain ... everyday things are his daily subjects but he makes me see them in a new way. In this case, I'm thinking of these men's suits. Very typical and not really worth recording seemingly, but so much a part of today's work fashion.

Cardinal Dolan and The Colbert Report - a match made in Heaven?

Cardinal Dolan's trademark charm and humor come across full strength in this interview with Stephen Colbert. (The link goes to part 1 and automatically loads up part 2 ... about 8 minutes total).

Saturday, September 7, Proclaimed a Day of Fasting and Prayer for Peace in Syria

Bold emphasis is mine.

… All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursuing peace. I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian of other confessions, as well as to followers of every religion and to those brothers and sisters who do not believe: peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs all of humanity!

I repeat forcefully: it is neither a culture of confrontation nor a culture of conflict which builds harmony within and between peoples, but rather a culture of encounter and a culture of dialogue; this is the only way to peace.

May the plea for peace rise up and touch the heart of everyone so that they may lay down their weapons and be let themselves be led by the desire for peace.

To this end, brothers and sisters, I have decided to proclaim for the whole Church on 7 September next, the vigil of the birth of Mary, Queen of Peace, a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East, and throughout the world, and I also invite each person, including our fellow Christians, followers of other religions and all men of good will, to participate, in whatever way they can, in this initiative.

On 7 September, in Saint Peter’s Square, here, from 19:00 until 24:00, we will gather in prayer and in a spirit of penance, invoking God’s great gift of peace upon the beloved nation of Syria and upon each situation of conflict and violence around the world. Humanity needs to see these gestures of peace and to hear words of hope and peace! I ask all the local churches, in addition to fasting, that they gather to pray for this intention.

Let us ask Mary to help us to respond to violence, to conflict and to war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation and love. She is our mother: may she help us to find peace; all of us are her children! Help us, Mary, to overcome this most difficult moment and to dedicate ourselves each day to building in every situation an authentic culture of encounter and peace. Mat, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

So declares Pope Francis and so we should follow in his lead.

(One of the few downsides to not reading blogs much is that one tends to miss the news when it breaks. You've probably seen this mentioned elsewhere already. However, just in case, like me, you are out of the loop ... you've now been alerted. I picked this up via Jeff Miller's "ember alarm" which makes me laugh every time I think of it.)

Blogging Around: The "I Hardly Ever Read Blogs These Days" Edition

I don't know how or why it happened. Perhaps it is a combination of going to my niece's wedding, vacation, Tom's mother's death and various other things that have jerked me out of my regular routine.

I only remember to read other people's blogs about once a week. It won't be a surprise to find that I now have more time. And I do have more time.

It also allows me to easily sift through what I am not interested in and find what I do want to read.

Here are a few bits which I hope you enjoy also.

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming
The title alone makes this sound great. Melanie reviews this at The Wine Dark Sea.

Boots and Saddles by Elizabeth Bacon Custer
Yes, that's the right name, Custer. Boots and Saddles is a new, free audiobook at LibriVox where the narrator begins the description thusly:

Elizabeth Custer has penned an engaging portrait of 1870’s life on a U.S. cavalry post in the Dakotas, just before her husband and his troops met their tragic deaths in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. “Our life,” she writes, “was often as separate from the rest of the world as if we had been living on an island in the ocean.”

I haven't tried it yet but if I like it, you'll be the first to know!

LibriVox: Where Are the New Releases?
Perhaps, like me, you have subscribed to LibriVox's New Releases rss feed. Perhaps, also like me, you have noticed that it has been three weeks since something new has showed up. LibriVox is overhauling their infrastructure and they have an alternate way to find out what's new (such as the above-mentioned Boots and Saddles) while that is going on.

My Son (movie trailer)
I'm not a Christian movie fan, as anyone who hangs out here already knows. They tend to forget about telling a story in favor of hammering in their point over and over. This one, however, looks different.

Here's the story we saw that made us watch the trailer. Burleson is a nearby town. Here's where you can watch the trailer.

Elmore Leonard, Modern Prose Master, Noted For His Terse Prose Style And For Writing About Things Perfectly And Succinctly With A Remarkable Economy Of Words, Unfortunately And Sadly Expired This Gloomy Tuesday At The Age Of 87 Years Old
The Onion does it again. I've been hanging onto this one for a bit, as you know if you read of Leonard's death. A perfect tribute delivered the funny way.

If you spend all your time looking for errors ...

Why I read Will Duquette:

...if you’re spending all of time looking for errors, you can begin to forget what the truth looks like.

Don’t just stand against the false, the bad, and the ugly. Stand for the true, the good, and beautiful, not simply in principle but also in practice. It’s better for you, and you’ll have less to repent of.

Read the whole thing at his blog: The View From the Foothills.

And yes, this is going into my quote journal.

Notes on Mark: Only One Loaf

Mark 8:14-21
I have never noticed the discrepancies in this bit of scripture. I guess, like the disciples, I wasn't paying enough attention, especially to this very interesting point about "one loaf" being in the boat.

Mark begins by noting the seemingly irrelevant detail that the disciples had forgtten to bring bread and had only one loaf with them. On one level, this simply means that they have failed to replenish their food supplies. But the two miraculous feedings and the ensuing discussions have prepared us to understand: What is the real "one loaf" (literally, "one bread") with them in the boat? It is Jesus! Mark clarifies in verse 16 that actually they have "no bread"--no earthly bread, that is. Bread will not be mentioned again in the Gospel until Jesus announces that the bread is his own body, to be given up for us on the cross (14:22).

Mary Healy, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of Mark

Well Said: A Home That Has a Cat

From my quote journal and this seems very appropriate for Labor Day.

There's no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat.

Wesley Bates

Just When I Thought an Audible Membership Couldn't Get Any Better ... I Discovered They Have The Great Courses For One Credit

I've been longingly reading and then discarding those brochures from The Great Courses for years. Even at the wildly discounted price of $99, I could never afford my heart's desire. How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition, Narrated by Professor Robert Greenberg.

I figure that has to be everyone's heart's desire from The Great Courses because it always has a place of honor in the center spread to tantalize you into dropping that century bill on them.

Now, I don't do badly at all with Exploring Music from Bill McGlaughlin. In fact I am a dedicated fan of Bill's (yes, that's how much I like him ... I call him Bill). But somehow it isn't like a planned class.

Then my dreams all came true. I was wondering how to squander my monthly credit at Audible and ... lo and behold, can it be true? ... The Great Courses are at Audible, each entire class for one credit.

Oh, how quickly one can download when in the grip of such a passion? (Pretty darned quickly it turns out.)

Brad Bird's Tweet - Hollywood's Lesson

The lesson Hollywood should draw from this summer: GOOD FILMS SUCCEED. The lesson Hollywood WILL draw from this summer: ORIGINAL FILMS FAIL.

Truer words were never spoken.

Sent to me by Scott Danielson who shares my desire to see good films succeed.

Well Said: A Divine Voice

From my quote journal.

To wantonly destroy a living species is to silence forever a divine voice.

Father Thomas Berry

What We've Been Watching: Parrots, Politicians, Psychiatry, Psychiatrists, Prisoner Number 1, and Pubs

We had an epic moviewatching weekend. I rented three films and we also went to the theater to see The World's End.

LINCOLN
★★★★½

I'd had a number of people tell me that this film was boring because all everyone did was talk, talk, talk ("and no action!").

Being history nerds who enjoy reading about the personalities of the Civil War, this was fine with us. We bravely settled down to watch President Abraham Lincoln's efforts to formally abolish slavery by getting the Thirteenth Amendment passed in the House of Representatives. It was well told, engaging, and respectful to the history.

I, for one, felt it went on too long after the bill passed and would have been happy to see the film end without taking us to the bitter end. We knew that already and didn't need to be dragged through it again. However, second guess editing aside, I can highly recommend it.

THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL
★★★

I got this because we have a wild Monks Parakeet/Quaker Parrot flock that occasionally hangs out in our Dallas, Texas, neighborhood. This is a fairly straight forward film which is truly more about the fellow who feeds these wild parrots than about the birds themselves. Thinking it over later, we realized that his life somewhat parallels that of the birds he cares for and that gave it a welcome bit of added depth. A sweet film really and I can recommend it.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
★★★

This movie surprised me because, although I knew it was a romantic comedy with a mental illness twist, I didn't expect the first half to two-thirds of the movie to really be a mental illness movie with a possible romance somewhere ... ending up with a solid romantic comedy end of the film. A very odd combination but somehow they pulled it off and the acting and story kept us watching even though we were also made rather uncomfortable by the film's first half.

I can recommend it but I can also say that its not a movie I feel I'll ever need to rewatch.

THE WORLD'S END
★★★★

I am loathe to say more than people have seen in the trailers, which is that five old school chums reunite to see if they can finish that 12-pub crawl they failed at when they graduated from high school. They have the common feeling that the town is exactly the same, while simultaneously not feeling quite right somehow. In this case, there is an invasion of the bodysnatchers situation and they've got to survive and save the day.

The combination of reunion and alien invasion is pretty funny and has many nods to the previous two in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). I particularly enjoyed all the fence jumping.

I think this is the weakest of the three but that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it immensely. As with the other two films, this is one that will benefit from rewatching since there were several comic things that only became clear when I was thinking over the movie.

DOCTOR WHO, Season Five

We just watched the first episode of this season (streaming free, thank you Amazon Prime) and while Matt Smith is no David Tennant (but, really, who is?), his Doctor seems to capture that sense of wonder and joie de vivre. I also like that there wasn't a lot of angst about picking up a new companion.

In grabbing this graphic from Wikipedia, I noticed that this season marked a new creative team which explains the new feel also. We shall see how it wears going into the future.

FRASIER, Season Three

Frasier (also streaming free on Amazon Prime) has been our night-time watching lately. I had forgotten how consistently amusing it was until both Hannah and Rose began watching it and commenting approvingly. Just plain entertaining, without that mean edge that some smart comedy can sometimes have.