Jesus, Pope Francis, and a Protestant Walk into a Bar

Jesus, Pope Francis, and a Protestant Walk into a Bar by Paul Rock

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So Jesus, the pope, and a Protestant walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "What will it be today?" As the pope reaches for his wallet, Jesus winks at his companions and say to the bartender, "Just three glasses—and keep the pitchers of water coming."

Presbyterian Paul Rock is a Pope Francis fanboy and consistently uses examples of papal humility, poverty, and Christlike love as a springboard for promoting Christian dialogue and ecumenism. This author's heart is in the right place but that isn't enough to make this book appeal across denominational lines.

These chapters began life as a sermon series … and it shows both in good and bad ways. The author's enthusiasm and ability to promote religious harmony is evident. It can be very inspiring.

However, Rock's drive to make a point is so rapid that it often only skims the surface, occasionally in a way that may leave various Christians (and certainly this Catholic) confused or indignant. In some cases this is a good opportunity to strive to ignore what divides us, but surely a better way would have been to educate both sides about each other's reasons.

A better way would be the example set by How to Defend the Faith Without Raising Your Voice: Civil Responses to Catholic Hot-Button Issues. They are careful to examine what the thinking is on the "opponent's" side before laying out the explanations and reasoning that inform Catholic teachings. The result is that both sides may agree to disagree, but they understand why each thinks what they do and can respect those opinions.

Paul Rock's drive to unity feels forced precisely because he overlooks the many valid reasons people may have for not agreeing with another denomination's teachings. It is fine to promote ecumenism and, indeed, praiseworthy. This effort feels somewhat slapdash and is as likely to raise hackles as to smooth them.

This was a NetGalley review copy which obviously didn't influence my opinion.

Well Said: A Forgotten Fact About the Holocaust

That the Holocaust was initiated by a mostly Protestant nation is sometimes forgotten; that the Catholic Church, by virtue of its stronger institutional identity, did much more than the Protestants did to resist Hitler was revealed to the White House in many secret reports to Roosevelt.

Mark Riebling (Church of Spies author),
interview with Sam Harris, Rethinking Hitler's Pope

This never occurred to me, actually. It was surprising. I've begun Church of Spies, which read like a great spy novel at times, and had gone looking around to see if Riebling is Catholic. Turns out he was raised Catholic, left the Church, and doesn't actually seem like a fan of religion in general. Or perhaps it is fairer to say he seems wary of religion. That, at least is what I gleaned from a quick take on his interview.

It's refreshing to read the book which seems to be doing much to redeem Pius XXII's reputation during WWII and know there seems to be no authorial bias other than a desire to find the truth.

Worth a Thousand Words: Princess Praskovya Yusupova Before Becoming a Nun

Princess Praskovya Yusupova Before Becoming a Nun (1886), Nikolai Vasilyevich Nevrev

Happy Birthday Rose!

Croquembouche

This is what I'd make if you were here with us. (Luckily I know you're going to make your own — can't wait to know how that works out!)

And we'd go to dinner. Maybe Mariano's since you don't have any decent TexMex in L.A.

Most of all, we'd give you many birthday hugs and kisses, since I know a 26 year old is never too old for those!

Happy Birthday! We love you!

Well Said: Our Principles

Our principles are engraved in the history and the law of this land. If the free world is not faithful to its own moral code, there remains no society for which others may hunger.

James B. Donovan, defending Rudolph Abel
(Donovan's story is told in the film Bridge of Spies)

Early Happy Birthday to Me! Vibrant Paradoxes by Robert Barron

Many thanks to Ellen P. for giving me the newest book by Bishop Robert Barron. (Could Ellen tell I'd been repeatedly downloading and reading the Kindle sample ... while determinedly holding myself to my monthly book budget with much agony?)

G.K. Chesterton once said that Catholicism keeps its beliefs "side by side like two strong colors, red and white...It has always had a healthy hatred of pink."

Catholicism is both/and, not either/or. It celebrates the union of contraries--grace and nature, faith and reason, Scripture and tradition, body and soul in a way that the full energy of each opposing element remains in place.

In Vibrant Paradoxes, bestselling author Bishop Robert Barron brings together themes and motifs that many would consider mutually exclusive or, at best, awkward in their juxtaposition. But seen through the Incarnation, these opposites crash together and reflect new light in every direction. This book will train you to see.

The collections of Bishop Barron's essays strike me very much like those which people experienced when G.K. Chesterton was writing during his heyday. They bounce around fascinatingly from topic to topic but always have an underlying anchor of solid Catholicism and truth.

I will be digging into these right away! What a treat!

Well Said: Time Enough for Everything

There is time enough for everything in the course of the day if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time.

Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son, 1747

Worth a Thousand Words: In the Forest

In the Forest, 1905, Arkady Rylov

Blogging Around: Dracula, Fiats, Amoris Laetitia and Bathrooms

Dracula Blogged

Dracula is an epistolary novel, which means the entire text is made up of letters and journal entries. Jonathan Harker's journal begins the story on May 3 and the book ends in November.

Dracula Blogged posts the entries as they happen throughout the year, along with interesting maps and other tidbits of information that may interest the reader. It began again last week so if you've ever wanted to read Dracula this would be a fun way to do it!

Our Franciscan Fiat

Sister Christina wrote to let me know about her community's blog, Our Franciscan Fiat. You can also find out more about their fiat there, which is not ... a car.

The blog began​​ ​last February. Here, we discuss issues connected with our catholic faith (and religious life) and give a glimpse into how religious life is lived in our community on a day-to-day basis. We cover a variety of related topics.

Amoris Laetitia and the Trans-Bathroom Can of Worms

No one wants surprise or horror when they go to the bathroom. No one wants social awkwardness. We just want to go to the bathroom. Quickly, if it can be helped.

Catholics being both/and people can assert with confidence that (a) you can’t change your gender, you get what God gave you and (b) you can’t wait until you get your moral life in order before you run to the restroom.

When Amoris Laetitia talks about pastoral accompaniment, the bathroom problem is right up there. What do you do with someone during the long stretch between “I’d like to be Catholic maybe?” and “Hey, look, I’ve finally got my life together!”

The answer is that you do your best to help the person grow closer to the faith. The only way to do that work is one soul at a time. You have to know the person, be in a relationship with the person, and be working together on this path towards holiness.

This is how, until the recent public drama began, we as a culture have handled the bathroom problem.

Good observations and advice, as always, from Jennifer Fitz at Sticking the Corners. Go read it all.

Worth a Thousand Words: The Joyous Festival

The Joyous Festival, Gaston de La Touche
via Lines and Colors

Well Said: War Makes Death Real to Us

War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right.

C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time

It's not a popular attitude, of course, but as time goes by I begin to agree more and more. We are so prone to forget our ultimate end, to get settled and complacent and to think that we can get on with that spiritual stuff tomorrow. At least, that is what happens to me. The unsettled and chaotic times of something like ISIS rampaging through the world are a sharp reminder of the ultimate reality.

Lagniappe: Left-handed Hops

During their growing season, hops are astonishingly vigorous, rising six inches in a single day. The vines stretch away from the central stalk during the day; at night, they wrap themselves around wires or other supports. "You walk through the fields in the late afternoon, and you'll see all these vines reaching out at forty-five degree angles," said Oregon hop farmer Gayle Goschie. "Then you come out the next morning and they're wrapped tightly around the trellis again." They spiral around the trellis in a clockwise direction, which has inspired a couple of botanical urban legends: one is that they grow counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, and the other is that they grow clockwise to follow the sun from east to west. Neither is true. Like left-handedness, they are simply born with a genetic predisposition to grow clockwise, no matter where they are relative to the sun or the equator. (Botanists who study "twining handedness" have discovered that hops are unusual in their proclivity to twine in a clockwise direction; 90 percent of all climbing plants prefer to go counterclockwise.)

Amy Stewart, The Drunken Botanist

Wouldn't it be fascinating to be in a hopfield and see all those vines at 45° angles? It must be like something from a science fiction movie. I really love how diverse nature is, even in when it shares so many similarities for something like twining up a stick.

Worth a Thousand Words: Peasants Enjoying Beer

François Jaques, Peasants Enjoying Beer at Pub in Fribourg (Switz.), 1923

Ascension Thursday Was Yesterday

I kept seeing it mentioned but never remembering when I was blogging.

So if you'd like to read about it, especially since most of the U.S. will celebrate the Ascension on Sunday, here's the post.

If nothing else, there are some fantastic paintings featured there. I could look at them all day.

What We've Been Watching: Baking, Driving, Immigrating, and Building

THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW

Each week, amateur bakers tackle a different specialty (bread, cookies, etc.), the difficulty of which increases as the competition unfolds. Mary Berry, a leading cookbook writer, and Paul Hollywood, a top artisan baker, search for the country’s best amateur baker by testing the competitors’ skills on cakes, breads, pastries and desserts, crowning a winner after 10 weeks of competition.

I'd been told by four separate people how great this show is, including our daughter Rose who is absorbing all their baking wisdom. She is now making her own croissants since getting interested in puff pastry after one episode.

All it took was one episode and I was hooked, watching at least one every evening.

I like that the bakers are all amateurs. In fact, we get to see shots of them in real life with their families, on the job, and baking in their own kitchens. Because each episode is filmed on the weekend and they get to practice the week before at home.

I like that everyone is so nice (that's why the only American cooking competition I watch is MasterChef Junior — even Gordon Ramsay won't be mean to kids). I like that it is, as one newspaper article said, so "aggressively quaint." In fact, I hear that at the end the winner gets ... flowers. Isn't that nice?

I like how there are still national differences between the British and Americans, even in something so small as a cookie. If this show is any guide, British cookies are never to be less than gingersnap crisp while Americans have a wider range of tolerance, depending on the cookie. (Want to start a fight? Ask in a crowded room which is the best chocolate chip cookie, soft or crisp.)

Most of all, I have realized just how much I know about baking. I can tell when the doughs are too wet or dry or not rolled properly, when something is going to rise too much or little, when a glaze is too thick or thin, and so forth. I try not to comment too much and Tom, the most patient of men, has been watching them all with me.

One season is on Netflix and you can also watch it at PBS online. I also hear that you can find it on YouTube. If this raving isn't enough, here's an article that says all I didn't take the time to articulate.

LEARNING TO DRIVE (2014)

As her marriage dissolves, a Manhattan writer takes driving lessons from a Sikh instructor with marriage troubles of his own. In each other's company they find the courage to get back on the road and the strength to take the wheel.

This film is a small gem of quiet "indie-ness" with just enough quietness and just enough content and ... most importantly ... just enough contrast between the two main characters to give us context.

Is it about living in the moment, as Patricia Clarkson said in an interview?

Is it about the woman being sent an unknown but definitely male teacher just when she has sworn "I loathe all men,", as Ben Kingsley said in an interview?

The answer is both and much more as we found when talking it over afterward. You have to be patient and let the story unwind, but it is worth it.

BROOKLYN (2015)

An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a romance with a local. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within.

This was a wonderful film, evoking what it must really feel like to be an immigrant to America. One of my daughter's roommates has an aunt from the Ukraine who saw this and told her that this was exactly what it felt like to immigrate. Coupled with that theme is Eilis's personal growth to maturity, which also captures the idea that often one has arrived (at being an American, at being grown) before one recognizes it.

Overall this is a lovely, quiet story where the people act like real people without having to face manufactured crises to reveal the truths beneath. It was refreshing and we loved it.

LILIES OF THE FIELD (1963)

An unemployed construction worker (Homer Smith) heading out west stops at a remote farm in the desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of East European Catholic nuns, headed by the strict mother superior (Mother Maria), who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much needed church in the desert...

I'd never seen this classic and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The story behind the movie is as much of a miracle as that the movie depicts. The film was made with the passion and shoestring budget which Mother Superior had for her chapel. Ralph Nelson put up his house to provide half the budget, Sidney Poitier took a small salary with the promise of a percentage of earnings (for which he earned his Academy Award), and the production designer did yeoman work in begging and borrowing props, building the chapel, and organizing the schedule so they could shoot it in 12 days.

The result was a classic which still speaks to us today over 50 years later.

Worth a Thousand Words: Bust of Aristotle

Bust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BC; the alabaster mantle is a modern addition.

Worth a Thousand Words: Maple Sugaring

Maple Sugaring, Currier and Ives

Today's quote about Thomas Jefferson's reasons for switching to maple sugar brought to mind my one of my favorite bits of Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. That sent me looking for "sugaring off" images. Just think how long ago it was that making maple sugar was a regular household activity. And in what a small part of the country. Yet "sugaring off" remains part of the American vocabulary. Or of my vocabulary at least.

Lagniappe: Thomas Jefferson and Maple Sugar

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson bought fifty pounds of maple sugar to sweeten his coffee. This was less a culinary decision than a political one: he'd been pressured by his friend and fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, to advocate for the use of home-grown maple sugar instead of cane sugar, which was dependent upon slave labor.

Amy Stewart, The Drunken Botanist

Lest people think that modern times are the only ones in which food boycotts were used to protest politics.

John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare

This is only a couple of minutes long but Cleese nails it. 

It's showing up everywhere but just in case you haven't seen it, here you go!

"If people can't control their own emotions then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior." ~ Robert Skinner, psychiatrist

"So the idea that you have to be protected from any kind of uncomfortable emotion is what I absolutely do not subscribe to." ~ John Cleese

Via Scott Danielson.

In which wealthy spinster Cornelia Van Gorder discovers a mystery ...

... at her rented summer home. Is it that dreaded criminal The Bat? We're beginning a new book at Forgotten Classics: The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

We also try to live up to noble standards already set for this book, which was released in 1933 as one of the earliest talking book recordings. The Bat was also one of Bob Kane's inspirations for Batman. Find out for yourself why this mystery was so popular.