Filmspotting - Lord of the Rings 15th Anniversary episode

Filmspotting's latest episode is devoted to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy to mark the 15 year anniversary of the last film coming out.

It is fascinating because one host has watched the films before and loves the book, while the other watched only the first film when they came out and never read the book. Their conversation is really interesting.

Well Said: The accursed inventions that are ruining everything

Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king's robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

"I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing nigh."

"I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs," said the fur–merchant.

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

I always love seeing the "current" complaints of our time show up in times long past.

Worth a Thousand Words: Flames

Flames, Uemura Shoen

Lagniappe: Lazarus and David Copperfield

One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, that Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead alllying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

It never would have occurred to me to think about the story of Lazarus as terrifying children. I can see it though. The walking dead ... not a comforting idea without deeper context.

Well Said: I loved the Church for Christ made visible.

I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said the Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified; one could not separate Christ from His Cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church.

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

That is what we really must remember. We will often be dissatisfied with the Church or the people associated with her. But with proper perspective we can love her at the same time as we are scandalized.

Oops! We join the Novena to the Holy Spirit in progress.

I completely forgot that I should have begun the Novena to the Holy Spirit the day after the Ascension. Nine days between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost is perfect for a novena, which is where the word comes from - nine. The apostles obediently prayed with Mary in the Upper Room during that time, not knowing what they were praying for ... but receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

It is these gifts for which we pray during this novena. My apologies as we join the novena halfway through. I've posted all the prayers on the proper days so you can catch up (as I am doing). This link has them all in order (backwards!).

These gifts are worth praying for and this novena is still the only one officially  prescribed by the Church. So it is worth catching up on!

Well Said: Does Prayer Work?

The very question ‘Does prayer work?’ puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. ‘Work’: as if it were magic, or a machine—something that functions automatically. ...

Petitionary prayer is, nonetheless, both allowed and commanded to us: “Give us our daily bread.” And no doubt it raises a theoretical problem. Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?

It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God’s mind—that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

For He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to neglect what He would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to coexist with Omnipotence ...

C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays

Somehow reflecting on that passage changed the way I feel about petitionary prayer. It is an action like other actions I might take. It is supernatural action, but it is putting ourselves to some trouble nonetheless. I have prayed my petitions like anyone else, but I haven't (I think) taken my own part in them seriously enough.

It goes hand-in-hand with something that Matt Fradd said on the Pints with Aquinas podcast. Answering a similar question, St. Thomas said that perhaps God has so ordered some events that the only action it takes is our prayer to make things tip one way or the other. Happen or not happen.

Both those thoughts taken together have, as I said, changed how I think about prayer. My prayers matter. It is not all just in God's hands. He invites us to participate also in the creation of miracles.

Weekend Joke: The Farmhand and the Mentally Challenged Worker

The North Dakota Department of Governmental Oversight heard that a small Bismarck farmer was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.

ND Gov employee: “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.”

Farmer: “Well, there's my farmhand who's been with me for about a year. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

Then there's the mentally challenged worker. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”

ND Gov employee: “That's the guy I want to talk to...the mentally challenged one.”

Farmer: “That would be me.”

Change North Dakota to Texas and farmer to small business owner, and you've got our lives, right here. As a good friend and fellow small business owner told us when we began our company. "It's great working for yourself. You only have to work half a day. And you can pick which twelve hours!"

Met Gala: Outrage or Opportunity?

Rihanna attends opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition gala.
STEPHEN LOVEKIN/VARIETY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

For anyone like me who wasn't paying attention until I got an email asking for my reaction, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has put together a collection of pieces showing the way the Catholic Church served as an inspiration to designers throughout history. Working with the Vatican, they were able to include a number of pieces usually kept only in Vatican City.

None of this is worth raising an eyebrow over until you get to the fashion gala that accompanied it where celebrities and designers used "inspired by the Catholic Church" as a launching point for heights of imagination. It got a whole lotta crazy. As did the discussion that followed.

Most people have landed on either being outraged or looking at this as an opportunity to reach out about the faith.

I was on the fence.

On the outrage side, I felt none of these "tolerant" people would express themselves in this way if the topic were a different religion, say Islam or Judaism. However, I imagine they were going for edgy, as is the case with fashion and celebrity, rather than outright mockery. And if we do feel they were mocking Catholicism, what do we expect? Jesus said that the world would treat us no better than it treated him, so this was predicted. And do they know how this would make Catholic feel? Probably most of them haven't been around a devout Catholic in years, if ever.

On the opportunity side, I have enjoyed the stories about people using it as a way to inject more knowledge about Catholicism into public conversation. It can be hard to remember, but shedding light instead of heat is usually the better way. I suddenly remembered the time when some podcast hosts were laughing mockingly about saints and saying that they didn't even know what a saint was. I wrote a brief email ("long time fan, first time emailer here") explaining. And got a nice response. So maybe this gala is a launching point for conversation.

Do I love a lot of the outfits? No. But to be fair, I don't love a lot of outrageous fashion. It really is a reflection of the lack of knowledge about Catholicism in America. So what else is new?

Here are some other responses. Needless to say, be sure to click through and read them all:

Elizabeth Scalia at Word on Fire wrote about how kitschy Catholic art fired her imagination as a child and also about using this as an opportunity to inform.

Parked in the #MetGala Twitter feed, I saw a man describe Zendaya’s stunning take on Joan of Arc as “some sort of Catholic soldier” and shot him a note identifying the saint and urging him to look her up. When another praised a nunnish look, I replied, “Then you’ll love the real thing!” and sent a link to an article on millennial contemplative nuns. One brilliant fellow used the hashtag to showcase beautiful church interiors, inviting people to visit and explore them.

Cardinal Dolan used his attendance and opening speech as a chance to remind people about what the Church really stands for.  He took it all in good fun. Clearly on the "opportunity" side, he told Crux (whose piece is very interesting, especially for Dolan's conversation with George Clooney):

“I did not find the spirit of the evening to be offensive or blasphemous at all,” he said.

“Was some of it edgy? Yes, but I never met any person that seemed to be snippy or snotty about the Church, or who intended anything to be offensive,” said Dolan.

Catholic News Agency has a nice roundup of different responses, incuding a lot of them from non-Catholic publications which I found interesting.

National Catholic Register explains the Vatican's involvement and that they were focused on the exhibit (which would be fascinating to see) while knowing nothing of the gala.

Ross Douthat at the N.Y. Times uses the gala as an opportunity to muse about modernizing the Church and Pope Francis.

Worth a Thousand Words: The Soul of the Rose, a.k.a. My Sweet Rose

John William Waterhouse, The Soul of the Rose, aka My Sweet Rose

Perfect for today when it is our sweet Rose's birthday!

Well Said: Marital problems and comfort zones

The biggest contributor to marital problems and, eventually, marital breakdown is that husbands and wives tend to love their own comfort zones more than they love each other.

Greg and Lisa Popcek, Just Married

Ain't that the truth! It is my continual battle with myself, which tells you where I live ... struggling with my comfort zones!

So let me give you part two to that idea, from the same source.

Learning to love your spouse more than you love your comfort zone means being willing to be loving to your spouse in ways that make absolutely no sense to you but mean everything to your mate.

Which is the biggest form of respect in a lot of ways. And also, of course, of love.

Well Said: Our capacity for patience

The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours.

John Piper

Incredible Flying Stingrays

It begins with pelicans but quickly transitions to the flying stingrays. No one knows why they fly but there are lots of theories. I just love watching them!

Worth a Thousand Words: The Family of Cain Wandering

The family of Cain wandering. Paolo Veronese

This is the beauty of artistic imagination. It never occurred to me to think of Cain with his family.

Well Said: Life's meaning

Don't invent a meaning for your life. It is there. Find it.

Dr. Viktor Frankl

Weekend Joke: In Heaven and Hell

In Heaven the cooks are French, the lovers are Italian, the engineers are German, the cops are English.

In Hell the cooks are English, the lovers are German, the engineers are French and the cops are Italian.

That checks out.

Well Said: Roman Polanski

I've never yet seen one of Roman Polanski's movies that justified his lack of jail time.

Rose Davis

This is especially timely, though Rose said it a year or two ago, since the movie academy just expelled both Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski. That is what it took to make them stop fawning over Polanski and take what he did seriously. Bill Cosby's guilty verdict and the #MeToo movement. About time.

Worth a Thousand Words: Hygieia

Hygieia, Great Hall ceiling of the Vienna University, Gustav Klimt

Recipe Revisited: Green Beans with Spicy Beef Sauce

Rose recently made Green Beans with Spicy Beef Sauce from Jim Fobel's Big Flavors cookbook, which rarely disappoints. I always mark up my cookbooks with comments for the next time I'm flipping through for a good meal option. However, I never did that and hadn't made the recipe in 10 years!

Which I discovered only when looking to see if someone had posted the recipe already so I didn't have to retype it for myself. And then I found it on my own food blog!

Well, that's way too long a lapse between us eating this delicious dish. So I'm reminding you of it too. Give it a try!

Lagniappe: Fate

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.

Lemony Snicket