Worth a Thousand Words: Chiffchaff

Chiffchaff by Remo Savisaar

Well Said: Our battle-flag

The battle-flag is always placed among warriors, as a sign to which they look during the hardest fighting of the battle. We are continuously at war with the princes of darkness ... If anyone is troubled, vanquished, and overcome, let him look to the Lord hanging on the gibbet of the cross.

St. Thomas of Villanova

Amen.

Genesis Notes: Isaac, the Bridge Between Generations

GENESIS 25 & 26
Other than nearly being sacrificed by his father, Isaac's life seems pretty boring. He can't keep his sons straight, has trouble controlling "bad boy" Jacob, and generally doesn't seem as if we can learn too much from him. Wrong, as Catholic Scripture Study showed me. I fell into that same old trap of thinking that there is only a lesson if something is interesting. But God doesn't work that way.

"And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.(KJV);
  illustration from the 1728 Figures de la Bible

The life of Isaac seems insignificant next to the careers of his father Abraham and his son Jacob. There are few chapters of Scripture devoted to Isaac, and most of his story is entwined with the story of the other Patriarchs. Even the Catechism moves from "God chooses Abraham" (59-61) to "God forms his people Israel" (62-64) without mentioning Isaac by name. Yet he is a Patriarch, his name forever included when Israelites call on the name of God, the father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Isaac's main role seems to be one of a bridge between Abraham, father of those who believe, and Jacob, father of Israel. Isaac safeguards and transmits the promise through his own faithful obedience. He embodies the continuity of God's promise, the link through whom it passes from generation to generation. But there is more significance to him than that:

1. Isaac waits for God's promise, as indeed do all of the Patriarchs. Those 20 years spent praying for a son not only helped form Isaac in faith, they became an example for Israel as it waited for God's promised Messiah. As it is pointed out in Dei Verbum, "through the patriarchs...[God] taught this nation to acknowledge Himself as the one living and true God,...and to wait for the Savior promised by Him. In this manner He prepared the way for the gospel down through the centuries (DV3)."
2. Isaac is also the fruit, the evidence of God's promise. He is the impossible child, born of two people well past the age of childbearing. His name means "laughter," and his name is a perpetual reminder that God promises the impossible and keeps His promises.
3. And as the obedient son of the promise, Isaac prefigures Jesus Christ, the promised Son of God. He walked willingly and obediently up the hill to be sacrificed, even as Christ would so many years later. His life is a living testimony to "the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were (Rom. 4:17)." He is the loving son and father and husband, the obedient son through whom God pours His blessing on a nation and on the world.

All quotes from Genesis, Part II: God and His Family. 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: Tuna Assortment

Source

Spicy Tuna Fish Cakes

Not yo mama's regular fish cakes ... these have a definite Asian style. Get them at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Well Said: Sacred Idleness

Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.

George MacDonald

We don't really know how to react to such a statement in our rushed, busy world. That in itself is probably a sign that we need to practice sacred idleness. Otherwise, when do we even have time to listen, to hear?

Nerds, Start Your Engines: Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Firefly - and Boethius

Initial depicting Boethius teaching his students from folio of a manuscript of the Consolation of Philosophy (Italy?, 1385)

I never heard of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius until a couple of years ago when a friend mentioned, somewhat diffidently, that she was reading it. She said just enough to intrigue me and the book looked intriguingly short. It went onto my mental "read someday" list and that was as far as I got.

Until now. Corey Olsen's first Mythgard Academy class on The Consolation of Philosophy hit my iTunes feed. I've mentioned the Mythgard classes before, especially those to do with the Lord of the Rings and Dracula. They are really excellent and they are free.

As it turns out The Consolation of Philosophy is not only one of the most influential books through Middle Ages and Renaissance, but strongly influenced J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Not to mention that the ideas continue to filter through pop culture and can pop up in such unlikely places as Firefly.

You're not likely to find a better guide or an easier way to learn about this classic work.

Read more about the book and class at Mythgard Academy.

Here's where you can find the podcast at iTunes.

Worth a Thousand Words: Self-portrait with two pupils

Self-portrait with two pupils, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1785.

Well Said: Messengers of God

Malachim, or messengers. Christianity has defined these messengers as what we know as angels. The more ancient interpretation in Judaism is that the malachim could be anything. They could be heavenly spirits. Or not. They could come in the form of ordinary people, donkeys, a flame, or even a breeze.

Stephen Tobolowsky, My Adventures with God

Worth a Thousand Words: Self-Portrait in the Studio

Francisco Goya, Self-portrait in the Studio, 1790-1795
via Wikipedia

I have a thing for self-portraits. Also I love Goya's hat. And his hair.

Well Said: Relationships and the level of your greatest weakness

Relationships never operate at the level of your greatest strengths. They operate at the level of your greatest weakness. Whoever is unfaithful, whoever is more needy, whoever is late, controls the nature of the friendship. You can swing with it or not, but you can’t count on changing it.

Stephen Tobolowsky, My Adventures with God

Getting Closer to Jesus: His Mother

This beautiful, profound meditation on Mary and why we should imitate her is from The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander.

When we are attracted to a particular saint, it is usually the little human details which attract us. These touches bridge the immense gap between heroic virtue and our weakness. We love most those saints who before they were great saints were great sinners.

But even those who were saints form the cradle are brought closer to us by recorded trifles of their humanness ...

Of Our Lady such things are not recorded. We complain that so little is recorded of her personality, so few of her words, so few deeds, that we can form no picture of her, and there is nothing that we can lay hold of to imitate.

But it is Our Lady -- and no other saint -- whom we can imitate.

All the canonized saints had special vocations, and special gifts for their fulfillment: presumption for me to think of imitating St. Catherine or St. Paul or St. Joan if I have not their unique character and intellect -- which indeed I have not.

Each saint has his special work: one person's work. But Our Lady had to include in her vocation, in her life's work, the essential thing that was to be hidden in every other vocation, in every life.

She is not only human; she is humanity.

The one thing that she did and does is the one thing that we all have to do, namely, to bear Christ into the world.

Christ must be born from every soul formed in every life. If we had a picture of Our Lady's personality, we might be dazzled into thinking that only one sort of person could form Christ in himself, and we should miss the meaning of our own being.

Nothing but things essential for us are revealed to us about the Mother of God: the fact that she was wed to the Holy Spirit and bore Christ into the world.

Our crowning joy is that she did this as a lay person and through the ordinary daily life that we all live; through natural love made supernatural, as the water at Cana was, at her request, turned into wine.

In the world as it is, torn with agonies and dissensions, we need some direction for our souls which is never away from us; which, without enslaving us or narrowing our vision, enters into every detail of our life. Everyone longs for some such inward rule, a universal rule as big as the immeasurable law of love, yet as little as the narrowness of our daily routine. It must be so truly part of us all that it makes us all one, and yet to each one the secret of his own life with God.

To this need, the imitation of Our Lady is the answer; in contemplating her we find intimacy with God, the law which is the lovely yoke of the one irresistible love.

Well Said: A vision above material things

Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants; forces terrific and devastating will be in their hands; comforts, activities, amenities, pleasures will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache, their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things.

Winston Churchill

My Year of "In Order" - TV, Novels, Movies

I just realized that I've fallen into a number of long series that it seemed logical to do "in order." That's not normally my style for things like the James Bond movies, where it is completely ok to see most of them without any reference to the others.

And, on the other side of that equation, I'm usually perfectly fine with not finishing series. I never read more than the first of the Dune series, was able to abandon Community after Season 3 (the last good season), and so forth.

But, for these seemed like it would be fun, somehow. They all seem specially suited for summer which is just around the corner.

STAR TREK

This is actually Rose's project because she's never seen the tv shows although she knows the movies. At one point (the tragic period between the original series and The Next Generation), I'd watched these enough that I practically had them memorized. It's been decades since I've seen them, especially in order, and I'm really enjoying working our way through the first season.

We'll keep going until we're done with all the Trek series, making this possibly a lifetime project.

DISCWORLD novels

I've loved some of Terry Pratchett's novels for a long time. Witches Abroad was the first book of his I read. I still remember how delighted I was by his skewering our dependence on the patterns of storytelling while at the same time telling a wonderfully funny and insightful story. I noticed Rose has been reading some of his older books and I realized they are the perfect books for summer and letting the world go hang. I'd read the first few long ago and so launched in with Guards! Guards! and got to know the Watch of Ankh Morpork who I'd only encountered before as comic side characters in the witches stories.

BOND, JAMES BOND

Our household has seen tons of James Bond movies but we realized there are big holes in our viewing. George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, and even a few Sean Connery and Roger Moore movies are missing from our Bond experience. The movies we've individually missed overlapped so much that we decided to fill in the gaps in order. Which will be most of the movies by the time we get done. What says summer better than James Bond movies?

Well Said: Peasants Versus Philosophers

It wasn’t that they didn’t take an interest in the world around them. On the contrary, they had a deep, personal and passionate involvement in it, but instead of asking, "Why are we here?" they asked, "Is it going to rain before the harvest?"

A philosopher might have deplored this lack of mental ambition, but only if he was really certain about where his next meal was coming from.

Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

Worth a Thousand Words: El puente de Alcantara

El puente de Alcantara, Aureliano de Beruete y Moret - 1906
via The Athenaeum

There is something about paintings of these old Roman roads and bridges that always appeals to me. I can feel the shimmering heat and love the way that the the colors of the earth and bridge and buildings all meld together.

Genesis Notes: Sarah's Resume

One of the things I love about Genesis is that when it focuses on a story you get the sense of "real" people, not someone who's made up to make a point. Sarah's resume shows us a woman I can relate to in a lot of ways, both good and bad. She's a mass of contradictions, because that is how real people are. Genesis shows us these people, warts and all, and so carries their stories into our lives today.

Domenico Fiasella, Abraham and three angels
[See Sarah? She's peeking out of the door. I like this view of her,
keeping an eye on things and also curious about the visitors.]

Strengths and accomplishments:

• Was intensely loyal to her own child
• Became the mother of a nation and an ancestor of Jesus
• Was a woman of faith, the first woman listed in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11

Weaknesses and mistakes:

• Had trouble believing God's promises to her
• Attempted to work problems out on her own, without consulting God
• Tried to cover her faults by blaming others

Lessons from her life:

• God responds to faith even in the midst of failure
• God is not bound by what usually happens; he can stretch the limits and cause unheard-of events to occur

Vital statistics:

• Where: Married Abram in Ur of the Chaldeans, then moved with him to Canaan
• Occupation: Wife, mother, household manager
• Relatives: Father - Terah. Husband - Abraham. Half brothers - Nahor and Haran. Nephew - Lot. Son - Isaac.

Key verse:
"By faith Abraham, even though he was past age -- and Sarah herself was barren -- was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise" (Hebrews 11:11)

Sarah's story is told in Genesis 11-25. She also is mentioned in Isaiah 51:2, Romans 4:19; 9:9; Hebrews 11:11; 1 Peter 3:6.

All material quoted is from the Life Application Study Bible. 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.

Well Said: Tolerating only the right religions

"What is, um, your role, madam?"

"I'm the godmother!"

"Which, um, god?" The young man was trembling slightly.

"It's from Old Lancre," said Agnes hurriedly. "It means something like 'goodmother." It's all right ... as witches we believe in religious toleration..."

"That's right," said Nanny Ogg, "But only for the right religions, so you watch your step!"

Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

Sounds familiar, eh?

Worth a Thousand Words: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925); Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
via Wikipedia

I've run this a few times before but I love it so much that we're getting it again today.

Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno calls on scientests to "come out" and share their faith.

“God is not something we arrive at the end of our science, it’s what we assume at the beginning,” he said, adding emphatically: “I am afraid of a God who can be proved by science, because I know my science well enough to not trust it!”

I've had the privilege of discussing books with Brother Guy (Episode 100, A Good Story is Hard to Find). Both that conversation and the book he co-authored, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial, made me admire his good sense and faith.

Read the whole "coming out" story here.