Worth a Thousand Words: The Gardeners

Gustave Caillebotte, Les jardiniers, 1875

Well Said: Understanding Life ... and Living It

It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard

Well Said: A Great Love Constrains Us

Do not see us as coming to force upon an unknown people benefits against their will. Be assured that only a great love constrains us to do this. For we long, beyond all the desires and glory of the world, to have as many follow citizens with us as we can in the Kingdom of God.

St. Augustine of Canterbury
via The Voices of the Saint by Bert Ghezzi

I like this way of putting it. I'm so accustomed to seeing Christianity attacked that I can become diffident about wanting others to join me in the faith. When you hear the voices long enough you are in danger of beginning to believe them.

This is a wonderful reminder that it isn't because I want to force people to something. It's because I want them to join me in my great happiness and freedom!

Genesis Notes: Adam's Resume

Adam, figure from the Brautpforte (Rathaus Hamburg), Jacob Ungerer

The Life Application Study Bible has a great feature for major Biblical characters. They do a profile on each one including a summary of their lives, a resume style listing of information, and key verses. It really helps bring the lessons learned from each into focus. I won't reproduce the entire thing here but liked this summary for Adam.

Strengths and accomplishments:

• The first zoologist -- namer of animals
• The first landscape architect, placed in the garden to care for it
• Father of the human race
• The first person made in the image of God, and the first human to share an intimate personal relationship with God

Weaknesses and mistakes:

• Avoided responsibility and blamed others; chose to hide rather than to confront; made excuses rather than admitting the truth
• Greatest mistake: teamed up with Eve to bring sin into the world

Lessons from his life:

• As Adam's descendants, we all reflect to some degree the image of God.
• God wants people who, though free to do wrong, choose instead to love him
• We should not blame others for our faults
• We cannot hide from God

Vital statistics:

• Where: Garden of Eden
• Occupation: Caretaker, gardener, farmer
• Relatives: Wife - Eve, Sons - Cain, Abel, Seth, numerous other children. The only man who never had an earthly mother or father

Key verses:
The man said, "The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. (Genesis 3:12)

Adam's story is told in Genesis 1:26-5:5. He is also mentioned in 1 Chronicles 1:1; Luke 3:38; Romans 5:14; Corinthians 15:22, 45; 1 Timothy 2:13, 14.

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Worth a Thousand Words: Girl with a Pomegranate

Girl with a Pomegranate, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1875

Well Said: What gets us into trouble ...

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.

Mark Twain

3 Godfathers

3 Godfathers

★★★

This is a sweet Western about three desperados who come across a dying woman and promise to save her newborn baby. The outlaws seem like pretty decent guys, except for their habit of robbing banks, so we aren't ever worried about the child's fate as they immediately bend all their slim resources to getting the baby to civilization. That isn't easy because there's a posse on their trail.

I've been interested in this movie since seeing Tokyo Godfathers which is a family favorite. The idea of the Japanese director being so taken with this film that he created his own version (and an excellent one it is), almost boggles the mind. It certainly makes me take the movie more seriously than I might have otherwise.

The fact that John Ford shot this in Technicolor in 1948 shows how seriously he took it and how much pull he had with the studios at the time. That made it very expensive indeed.

Is it the best movie I've ever seen? No. But there was something about it that I can't quite shake so I thought I'd mention it to y'all.  It is worth keeping in mind since it'd make a good Christmas film to break the monotony of the usual candidates, as we often do with Tokyo Godfathers.

Worth a Thousand Words: Pomegranate

Pomegranate, late Southern Song dynasty or early Yuan dynasty circa 1200–1340

Blogging Around: Real Christian Responses to Massacre

Chick-Fil-A's Example of Living the Christian Faith

Chick Fil A has made national news for its owner’s stance on gay marriage. Anytime they do something even remotely non-PC, their supposed slip up goes viral. ...

In a shocking move the Orlando location, at University and Rouse Road, fired up its grills on Sunday. The chain is notorious for not being open—ever—on the first day of the week. Employees cooked up hundreds of their famous chicken sandwiches. They brewed dozens of gallons of sweet tea.

Then, instead of making a single dime, they crated the product of their labor to the One Blood donation center. The food and drinks were handed out, free of charge, to all the people who had lined up to donate blood.

This is how we show love ... or should. And they did it without seeking any publicity for it. Read it all here at the DC Gazette.

More on Orlando, and the depths of meaning in this tragedy.

Gerard M Nadal says it well. This is only on Facebook ... be sure to click through and read the whole thing. Here's a bit from the body of his comments.

So into a club walked an Islamist extremist who only saw entities who, in his eyes, all commit sexual sin. What he never saw was the beauty, the care, the grace present in these people. In fact, he never saw persons at all. He never contemplated "The Book" his faith reveres, whose Psalm says, "If you should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive?"

Worth a Thousand Words: Wavering Canal

Wavering Canal, 2001, Andrew Jones

Supremes

Rich walnut-oatmeal bars with a baked-in sweet chocolate filling. And they're super easy and super popular. Pick them up at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

In which Miss Cornelia gets sneaky.

Episode 309 of Forgotten Classics, The Bat, chapters 13-14. Come join us!

Worth a Thousand Words: Place d'Anvers

Place d'Anvers, Paris; Federico Zandomeneghi; 1880

Genesis Notes: Pride and Suffering

Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

GENESIS 3:16-19
The punishment meted out to Adam and Eve seems severe. What about another chance? It turns out that human suffering is that second chance.

All Adam would have had to do was to cry out to God for help from the serpent. Yet he didn't. Genesis Part 1: God and His Creation looks at this using the example of a good parent who must punish their child to get them to save them from a greater ill.

That singular act in the Garden — crying out for God's help — would have altered the course of human history. Why? Because it would have given expression to the life God's grace intended man to live. Man's faith would have prized the unseen God as his greatest good, no matter how intimidating the serpent or how appealing the fruit. His cry for help would have meant humility and obedience. Instead of love for God, man chose self-love. In his pride, there was silence.

Is it any wonder, then, that God allows a measure of suffering to overtake the human creatures? When they lost God's grace, and spiritual blindness set in, they would need some strong incentive to choose to do what they were originally designed to do-put themselves into God's hands, no matter what. Suffering, then, means that God has not given up on His human creatures. He wants them to run into His arms, as every good father delights in the love and trust of his children. He will do whatever it takes, even if it means playing the ogre, to provoke His children to cry out to Him. If Adam and Eve have lost the grace of God in their lives, a loss they will pass on to their progeny, then this kind of suffering and misery, still with us in the world today, is the greatest act of love God could bestow on them and us. Anyone who suffers has an opportunity to experience his own frailty, powerlessness, and desperate need for God's help. One cry will change everything.

The Complete Bible Handbook points out that the Jewish understanding of The Fall is about as opposite as you can get from the Christian view.

Judaism does not see in the Genesis story the "Fall of Man." It may be that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, but God stayed in conversation with them. Seeking wisdom and distinguishing between good and evil become essential human attributes. Toiling for food and suffering pain in childbirth are the prices paid for knowledge. For Judaism, if there is a "fall" in Genesis, it is a fall upward into new opportunities of responsibility and achievement. Christians see a radical fault that affects all subsequent humans. The fault of the first Adam has been dealt with by Jesus, who as the second Adam, brings redemption to the world.

This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.

Worth a Thousand Words: 1930's Modern Publicity

Via BibliOdyssey

Many more images from this early commercial art magazine may be found at BibliOdyssey.

Well Said: The Rhodora

On being asked, whence is the flower.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Vatican Cookbook by David Geisser

The Vatican Cookbook: Favorite Recipes, Stories, and Prominent Portraits of the Holy Fathers by David Geisser

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is as much about the Swiss Guard as it is a cookbook, but I counted that as a plus. With the brief biographies and history of the Guard, plus the gorgeous photography, I wound up feeling as if I'd gotten an insider's tour of the Vatican and met some of the people who live and work there. One interesting point, which shows just how varied the Swiss Guard's members are, is that the person who wrote the recipes was an accomplished and respected master chef before he left that behind to join up. Originally the Guard had planned to write a little booklet of their history but after he came on board the book took on a new life to become The Vatican Cookbook.

The recipes themselves range from gourmet to such familiar basics as Spaghetti Carbonara. They are drawn from the home country favorites of Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, and Holy Pope John Paul II which is another nice touch that makes you feel a bit of connection with the Vatican. Also included are favorites of major Vatican and Swiss Guard officials, so there is a wider range than you might expect.

This is a lovely coffee table book but I plan on trying out some of the recipes too. It would make a perfect special occasion gift for your favorite Catholic friends.

I did NOT get this as a review book but spent my own hard earned cash on it. It is just the sort of book my beloved mother-in-law would have gotten me for my birthday were she still alive. So I stood in for her.

Worth a Thousand Words: Rain at Yabakei

Rain At Yabakei, Goyo Hashiguchi, 1918

Jennifer the Damned by Karen Ullo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I can't recall how this book got on my radar but it immediately piqued my interest. A teenage vampire, adopted by nuns, who goes to Catholic school, and yearns for the chance to take Communion ... with many reviews at Amazon praising it as "literature, rich with vampire lore and intertwined with Catholic doctrine." I was thrilled when the author offered me a review copy.

Sixteen year old Jennifer Carshaw, isn't living in a world where vampires are taken as a matter of fact. The nuns had no idea why their adopted charge would only eat raw meat.

With her unusual background, Jennifer's got full knowledge of good and evil. She also, which is more important, longs for the capacity to experience true love and closeness to God. All of which are impossible for someone without a soul. This provides a rich background for a fast-paced horror novel which is also funny, intelligent, and spiritually deep.

It is a YA novel so when we meet Jennifer she's worrying about the usual high school problems. This is no sparkly vampire tale. When Jennifer matures into a full-fledged vampire the true horror unfolds as she spirals out of control, pinging between good and evil desires.

This is also when the true horror unfolds for the reader. We've learned to like Jennifer by this point and watching her become evil is hard to take. The lack of a soul has real consequences and we see the devastating trail of destruction.

In fact, there was one point where I put the book down, distressed by my inability to reconcile Jennifer's decisions with the character I loved. It took me months to pick it up again. However, I am very glad that I finally did. The author opens the door for the reader to really grapple with evil, deliberate sin, the consequences of lost hope, and redemption. This is all done with full belief in Catholic dogma but without ever hitting the reader over the head with religion, believe it or not.

I didn't love some of the more obvious YA elements such as all the romances and vignettes of high school at the beginning. However, I'm not the book's prime audience and I've ignored much worse in pursuit of a good story. Since this is an excellent story, they are indeed minor quibbles.

To give you a sample, here is the bit where I knew I was really in for a unique ride.

What happens during Mass — more specifically, during Holy Communion — is one of the most contentious issues between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics believe that, during the Eucharist, bread and wine are transformed into the actual Body and Blood of Jesus, in accordance with the words He spoke at the Last Supper. Most Protestants believe Jesus was speaking in metaphor and Communion is merely a symbol. Centuries of holy wars could have been avoided if people had just invited a vampire to Mass. If the Catholics were right — if the Eucharist was really the Blood of the Son of God — then it would send us into a frothing, rabid rage.

Which, of course, it does.

My mother had discovered this truth for herself nine hundred years ago. She was walking past a tiny, rustic church in France when a scent slammed against her olfactory nerves, so overpowering that she burst through the doors and killed six people just by throwing them out of her way. As she snatched the holy chalice from the altar, one single purple drop still glistened in the golden cup.

"I am only alive today, Jennifer," she said, "because I found the strength not to drink it. That one drop would have satisfied a thousand years of thirst ‚ and that one drop would have killed me."

It is rare to find a book of this calibre. Having just finished rereading Dracula for the umpteenth time before I finished this book, I've had "the blood is the life" resonating in my head for days.

Worth a Thousand Words: Hunting Flight

Hunting Flight
taken by Remo Savisaar

This is spectacular when seen full size. Click the link above for a larger view.