Worth a Thousand Words: Suit Yourself

Suit Yourself, Karin Jurick

Karin Jurick's museum paintings are some of the most popular I share and I'm always so glad that she graciously gave me permission long ago to do so. She usually gives some background and context for the original being viewed or her own overall painting. Click through the link for more.

Well Said: A dealer in words

I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Not only do words infect, ergotise, narcotise, and paralyse, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain ...

Rudyard Kipling

I've begun listening to a lecture series by Michael Drout, Singers and Tales: Oral Tradition and the Roots of Literature. Between that and the strong impression that The Storytelling Animal (my review here) left upon me, I think we'd have to say Kipling is absolutely correct.

Genesis Notes: More About Judah's Story

GENESIS 38
Chapter 38 of Genesis has a lot of elements that really need cultural context for us to get the point. That happens when you've got prostitution as a main feature of a story. (And people are always saying how nice the Bible is. Nope - it gets right down to brass tacks.)

Here are some useful details in fully understanding the implications of everyone's actions in the story of Judah.

Judah and Tamar, school of Rembrandt

PROSTITUTES IN CANAAN
Why does this story seem to take a light view of prostitution? Prostitutes were common in pagan cultures such as Canaan. Public prostitutes served the Canaanite goddesses and were common elements of the religious cults. Fornication was encouraged to improve fertility in crops and flocks. They were more highly respected than private prostitutes who were sometimes punished when caught. Tamar was driven to seduce Judah because of her intense desire to have children and be the matriarch of Judah's oldest line; Judah was driven by his lust. Neither case was justified.

WOMEN IN CANAAN
Why was Judah so open about his relations with a prostitute, yet ready to execute his daughter-in-law for being one? To understand this apparent contradiction, we must understand the place of women in Canaan. A woman's most important function was bearing children who would perpetuate the family line. To ensure that children belonged to the husband, the bride was expected to be a virgin and the wife was expected to have relations only with him. If a woman committed adultery, she could be executed. Some women, however did not belong to families. They might be shrine prostitutes supported by offerings or common prostitutes supported by the men who used their services. Their children were nobody's heirs, and men who hired them adulterated nobody's bloodlines.

Judah saw no harm in hiring a prostitute for a night; after all, he was more than willing to pay. He was ready to execute Tamar, however, because if she was pregnant as a result of prostitution, his grandchild would not be part of his family line. Apparently the question of sexual morality never entered Judah's mind; his concern was for keeping his inheritance in the family. Ironically, it was Tamar, not Judah, who acted to provide him with legal heirs. By seducing him, she acted more in the spirit of the law than he did when he refused to send his third son to her.

This story in no way implies that God winks at prostitution. Throughout Scripture, prostitution is condemned as a serious sin If the story has a moral, it is that faithfulness to family obligations is important. Incidentally, Judah and Tamar are direct ancestors of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1-6).

All quotes from 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.

Thank You for Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare

I was surprised and delighted to find Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare delivered to my door this morning. I don't know who sent me this gift, but thank you! This is a book I felt I was going to have to keep until the library demanded it back (and with 99 renewals, that could be a long time). Now I have my very own copy to peruse. I have been meaning to review it so this is a good opportunity.

Shakespeare's genius is marked by his rare ability to appeal to theatergoers of all types and all levels of education. But for most modern folks, the Greek and Roman mythology and history, let alone the history of England and the geography of sixteenth-century Europe that his works are laden with, are hardly within our grasp. Isaac Asimov comes to making obscure issues clear to the layperson, selects key passages from 38 of the great bard's plays plus two of his narrative poems and, with the help of beautifully rendered maps an figures, illuminates us about their historical and mythological background.

When Scott and I discussed Hamlet recently, it prompted me to request Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare from the library. Rose laughed when she saw it because, like most people, she thought of him solely as a science fiction author. However, Isaac Asimov wrote over 400 books during his lifetime, many on factual subjects. I'd glanced through his guides to the Old and New Testaments and found them informative, even if I felt he sometimes over-reached in conclusions about theology. Indeed, our pastor told me that he sometimes uses those books as reference materials for historical context.

In the Shakespearean case, I was delighted with the material on the plays I sampled in Asimov's book. Asimov explains possible sources for Shakespeare's story ideas, gives historical context which includes maps and family trees, and explains cultural ideas that the audience would have understood at the time but that may escape us. This includes every literary, historical, or mythological allusion explained so that we don't have to wonder what's being gotten at.

Asimov also gives his commentary on the plays as he explains the story.

... It isn't generally pointed out that Claudius' predicament in this play is exactly that of Hamlet. Hamlet wants to kill the King, but the King wants to kill Hamlet. Neither is safe as long as the other is alive. But the King, as well as Hamlet, cannot take the simple road and simply kill. The King is but new on the throne and can scarcely yet feel secure; to kill the son of the preceding King would easily raise enough hostility against himself to hurl him from the throng. Just as Hamlet needs to do more than merely kill the King, but must gain the throne too, so the King needs to do more than merely kill Hamlet, but must keep the throne too.

The comments are generally insightful although I sometimes felt he was over-reaching or reflecting too much thinking from the 1970s when he was writing. The frequent, though usually brief, attribution of close male friendship to homosexuality is one of those moments when we must recall we are under no obligation to agree with everything. And those moments are few and far between.

Asimov's style is fresh and personable, while his knowledge is encyclopedic. You can tell he loves these plays and is having a good time talking about them. And we have fun reading him. This is indeed a wonderful reference which anyone will treasure while diving into Shakespeare.

Again, thank you so much to my anonymous benefactor!

Worth a Thousand Words: Elegante Près d'une Source

Elegante Près d'une Source, Georges de Feure, circa 1903
Via Lines and Colors

Well Said: I gave you a brain and you never used it.

Intelligence and compassion are the heart of what it means to be human. Help others where you can. That is clear enough. But a Creator may well want us to open our eyes, as well. If there is a judgment. God may not be particularly interested in how many hymns we sang or what prayers we memorized. I suspect He may instead look at us and say, "I gave you a brain and you never used it. I gave you the stars and you never looked."

Jack McDevitt, Firebird

I might need to reread the Alex Benedict novels. It's been a long time and I remember them being rather like Indiana Jones crossed with sci-fi mysteries.

Nabeel Qureshi, Rest in Peace

I just discovered this young man died of cancer at age 34 a few days ago. His book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is one I liked for a lot of reasons, but most of all I recall the look it gave me into a loving Muslim family. The Gospel Coalition has a really good overview of his life, conversion, and work.

Nabeel Qureshi, rest in peace, and may your loved ones be comforted as they grieve.

Via Brandywine Books.

My review of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is here.

Well Said: The real religious mystery for Judaism is not our faith in God but God’s faith in us.

The great institutions of modernity were not constructed to provide meaning. Science tells us how the world came to be but not why. Technology gives us power but cannot tell us how to use it. The market gives us choices but no guidance as to which choices to make. Modern democracies give us a maximum of personal freedom but a minimum of shared morality. You can acknowledge the beauty of all these institutions, yet most of us seek something more.

Meaning comes not from systems of thought but from stories, and the Jewish story is among the most unusual of all. It tells us that God sought to make us His partners in the work of creation, but we repeatedly disappointed Him. Yet He never gives up. He forgives us time and again. The real religious mystery for Judaism is not our faith in God but God’s faith in us.

This is not, as atheists and skeptics sometimes claim, a comforting fiction but quite the opposite. Judaism is God’s call to human responsibility, to create a world that is a worthy home for His presence. That is why Jews are so often to be found as doctors fighting disease, economists fighting poverty, lawyers fighting injustice, teachers fighting ignorance and therapists fighting depression and despair.

Judaism is a supremely activist faith for which the greatest religious challenge is to heal some of the wounds of our deeply fractured world. As [Viktor] Frankl put it: The real question is not what do we want from life but what does life want from us.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Challenge of Jewish Repentance

This is just a bit from a really great piece written to lead into Rosh Hoshana (the Ten Days of Repentance) which begin tomorrow.

Rabbi Sacks's article is one we can all benefit from whether we share the Jewish faith or not. And Catholics know that the Jews are our elder brothers in the faith so it is a good thing to get that extra perspective.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

To podcast or not to podcast. That is the question.

Scott says yes. Julie says no. After they talk about it, they change sides. Still no decisions get made. But, somehow, the podcast did! (Probably because Scott reasoned so lyrically.)

Alas, Julie, Sit down awhile;
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story
What we two have seen.

Join us to discuss Hamlet (1990) - starring several famous people and directed by Franco Zeffirelli - at A Good Story is Hard to Find.

Well Said: What human curiosity can achieve

Show a human a closed door, and not matter how many open doors she finds, she'll be haunted by what might be behind it.

A few people liked to paint this drive as a weakness. A failing of the species. Humanity as the virus. The creature that never stops filling up its available living space. ... But Anna rejected that idea. If humanity were capable of being satisfied, then they'd all still be living in trees and eating bugs out of one another's fur. Anna had walked on a moon of Jupiter, She'd looked up through a dome-covered sky at the great red spot, close enough to see the swirls and eddies of a storm larger than her home world. She'd tasted water thawed from ice as old as the solar system itself. And it was that human dissatisfaction, that human audacity, that had put her there.

Looking at the tiny world spinning around her, she knew one day it would give them the stars as well.

James S. A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate

Genesis Notes: Judah's Story

GENESIS 38
Judah's story never even registered with me on any previous readings of Genesis. As I was taking it in, my jaw dropped. Quite the parallel to Joseph indeed. If y'all don't know what I'm talking about, go read this story in chapter 38.

Judah and Tamar, Horace Vernet

Chapter 38 provides a "story of Judah" that is parallel to the story of Joseph in time while being completely opposed in moral tone. It serves to set off the story of Joseph in a number of ways: both leave home, one voluntarily, the other against his will. One leaves to seek his fortune among the Canaanites, the other is sold as a slave to Egypt. One seeks out a prostitute, the other flees sexual temptation. What becomes of these men, who will father the two leading tribes of Israel, is a study in contrast. There is great irony in the outcome, for what appears to be true on the outside (one man moving freely and in control of his destiny; another man enslaved, in control of nothing but his response to the situation) does not take into account the unseen — the will and the presence of God....

Two of Judah's sons were so wicked, God killed them before they had children. According to custom, Judah should have given his third son to the first son's wife so the family name would continue, but he was afraid that son would die too so he sent his daughter-in-law home to her father. This left him with one son who was betrothed to a woman he was not allowed near -- hardly a recipe for building a family. The wickedness of Judah's sons makes one question Judah's ability to "father" properly in any sense of the word -- and yet God had chosen Judah to father the tribe that would one day produce the Messiah, and He would bring that about.

Onan's sin was preventing pregnancy by spilling his seed on the ground. In doing so, he was taking selfish measures to make sure no child would come between himself and his brother's property. But it was not just his intent but the act itself that was wrong. Onan was going through the motions of a covenant act while denying it meaning and purpose. According to the Catechism, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposed, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible — is intrinsically evil." (#2370)

Tamar, with her courageous plan to get that which was hers by right but which Judah refused her, became the means by which Judah's line — the line from which the Savior would come — is continued. This is yet another illustration of the fact that membership in the family of God is determined not by natural order but by God's providence in determining who will be heir to promise and blessing.

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.

Well Said: Editing History to Popular Taste

As a construct, history is too often revised to match contemporary views. It has been said that each generation must rewrite history in order to understand it. The opposite is true. Moderns revise history to make it palatable, not to understand it. Those who edit "history" to popular taste each decade will never understand the past—neither the horrors nor the glories of which the human race is equally capable—and for that reason, they will fail to understand themselves.

T.R. Fehrenbach,

Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans

Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

For generations, the solar system -- Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt -- was humanity's great frontier. Until now. A massive alien gate has appeared that may lead to the stars or to destruction.

Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artifact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.

This is the third book in the Expanse series and is a worthy companion to the first of the series, Leviathan Wakes.

Abaddon's Gate has a really interesting scenario of what humans find when they leave the galaxy and of alien life itself, one that I've never encountered in science fiction before. The other elements are more recognizable as we are pulled into conflicts resulting from politics, ambition, and revenge.

One other unique element is that Anna, a Methodist minister, brings religion into the story in a positive and thought provoking way. There are many religious folk but most act in the predictable and lamentable way that fame can provoke. Anna is different and although I found her frustrating at times, I also found that very frustration to be something I had to examine more personally. Anna's embrace of both science and faith were praiseworthy and all too rare in a mainstream series.

Notes:
Abaddon's Gate takes advantage of the future setting to occasionally include cultural elements that I don't always agree with — such as Anna's home situation. Just ignore it. The story's good anyway.

Except for one element which leads us to the alien gate, I now feel the second book in the series is skippable. Yes, it is entertaining but overall I found it too much like the first book in a lot of ways and kind of a waste of my time. I'm not advocating you skip it but just saying that I won't bother rereading it if I decide to revisit the series.

Worth a Thousand Words: Great White Egret

Great White Egret, Remo Savisaar

Well Said: An infinite number of crucified persons in the world ...

I see an infinite number of crucified persons in the world, but few who are crucified by the love of Jesus. Some are crucified by their self-love and inordinate love of the world. But happy are they who are crucified for the love of Jesus. Happy are they who live and die on the cross with Jesus.

St. John Eudes

via Voices of the Saints by Bert Ghezzi

Cheesy Chicken-and-Spinach Stromboli Ring

It's a sort of pizza jelly-roll filled with deliciousness. It's the latest meal at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Thank You for The Wind in the Willows!

What a wonderful surprise it was to have this show up unexpectedly in my mailbox this morning! To whoever went to the trouble of visiting my Amazon wishlist and sending me this little treasure — thank you!

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter

Born in South Africa in January 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was orphaned in childhood and brought up in near-poverty. He served in the first World War, surviving the Battle of the Somme, where he lost many of the closest friends he'd ever had. After the war he returned to the academic life, achieving high repute as a scholar and university teacher, eventually becoming Merton Professor of English at Oxford where he was a close friend of C.S. Lewis and the other writers known as The Inklings.

Then suddenly his life changed dramatically. One day while grading essay papers he found himself writing 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' — and worldwide renown awaited him.

I recently read Humphrey Carpenter's book, The Inklings, for a discussion at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast and it piqued my interest in his biography of one of my favorite authors. I liked The Inklings but this book was even better, possibly because Carpenter was focusing on one person instead of a group.

It gave a thorough story of Tolkien's life without sugar coating his flaws but in a way that allowed me to understand and appreciate him as both a person and author. I'm not usually very interested in biographies but read this in record time, which is a tribute to Carpenter's skill in finding a fascinating story in the outwardly mundane life of an Oxford professor.

Of course, like Dr. Who's TARDIS, we're all bigger on the inside and Tolkien's inner landscape held a vast imagination coupled with interest in so many topics that he was sometimes unable to finish a project unless prodded by deadlines or friends. It is Humphrey Carpenter's ability to reconcile Tolkien's inner and outer man, while including his popular fiction in the timeline, that make this book so riveting. We feel we truly know J.R.R. Tolkien by the end.

And, this is the ultimate tribute to the author's skill ... as I read the epilogue, I cried.

Worth a Thousand Words: The TV Studio

The TV Studio, Edward B. Gordon

Well Said: Tolkien and Democracy

I am not a "democrat," if only because "humility" and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power—and then we get and are getting slavery.

J.R.R. Tolkien