Big Bend National Park

Jason Merlo Photography, Big Bend National Park (February 24, 2019)

Signs of Life by Scott Hahn

A clear and comprehensive guide to the Biblical doctrines and historical traditions that underlie Catholic beliefs and practices. Single chapters for each topic illuminate the roots and significance of all things Catholic, including the Sign of the Cross, the Mass, the Sacraments, sacred images, the celebration of Easter, Christmas, and other holidays, daily prayers, and much more.

I picked this up cheap on the Kindle during a daily deal at Amazon but never got around to reading it. Then my book club chose it and once I began, I was impressed at the depth with which each custom was covered. Partly that has to do with the connection to the biblical roots, as the subtitle says. Partly it is due to the way it is written, which is thoughtful while being very accessible.

Sometimes I was surprised by what I found in a custom I thought I thoroughly understood, like the idea that the longing of Advent now reflects the post-Christian world. Sometimes I was reminded of practices which I'd fallen out of, like intercessory prayer. I was often especially struck by the "Ponder in Your Heart" segment ending each custom, taken from the writing of saints, Church Fathers, the Catechism, or modern spiritual writers.

I had to get a print copy so I could mark my favorite parts for later reference. I read a custom a day which made a great devotional for 40 days. Definitely recommended.

Note: be sure you get the full book with all 40 customs. There is a special Augustine Institute version out there which only has 20 customs. I was sent that one by used book stores more than once until I bit the bullet and bought the hardcover.

Flaming June

Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895

I simply love looking at this gorgeous painting, the fresh and beautiful young woman, and thinking about the wisp of dazzling vista presented tantalizingly behind her.

Sita Sings the Blues

This is a creative delight. The Indian story of The Ramayana is told three ways, all from Rama's wife's point of view ... the titular Sita. An illustrated conversation between Indian shadow puppets is interspersed with musical interludes voiced with tracks by 1920's jazz singer Annette Hanshaw and scenes from creator Nina Paley's life. You can stream this movie free on YouTube as the creator, unusually, makes it available under a Creative Commons License.

We watched this way back in 2010 after reading Roger Ebert's 4-star review. It introduced us to Anette Hanshaw's music and the Ramayana, though we had no idea what that was.

Having now watched so many Indian movies we thought we'd rewatch it and see how it held up. We still found it delightful and now had a further frame of reference, having come across so many movie shortcut references to celebrations of the Ramayana. To the point when Rama goes after the golden deer, three of us exclaimed, "That's why there's a deer!" At which point our oldest daughter, who hasn't seen nearly as many of these movies as we have, shot us a look that made us realize just how deep we were diving.

We also could appreciate the intermission and the fact that there were so many song and dance numbers, albeit Annette Hanshaw and not Indian music. Clearly creator Nina Paley knew her way around a Bollywood movie or two.

It's not perfect and the modern day story is not that interesting, despite the parallels. But the three shadow puppets retelling the story, correcting each other's versions, and commenting on the classic tale more than made up for other imperfections. It was great the second time around.

It isn't a Bollywood film, but if you want an easy to understand, entertaining version of the Ramayana, this is it. Many of the pantomimes at religious festivals featured in movies will be much clearer!

Rating — Introduction to Bollywood (come on in, the water's fine!)

Arrrr Mateys! It's The Pirates of Ersatz on SFFaudio

We discuss one of my very favorite humorous science fiction books - The Pirates of Ersatz by Murray Leinster. Episode 535 of SFFaudio.

Spit of Land

Remo Savisaar, Spit of Land

Click on it to see the photo larger ... I love the way the water moves and the sun hits the trees.

O Lord Jesus, let me be your lute.

O Lord Jesus, I surrender to you all my will. Let me be your lute. Touch any string you please. Always and forever let me make music in perfect harmony with your own. Yes, Lord, with no ifs, ands or buts, let your will be done in this family, for the father, for the children, for everything that concerns us, and especially let your will be done in me.

St. Jane de Chantal

I especially like the lute imagery with God choosing the string of my life which he'll blend in harmony with the others with which he plays a symphony. Beginning with my family.

Plum and Birds

Plum and birds, Emperor Huizong

The Joyous Festival

The Joyous Festival, Gaston La Touche
via J.R.'s Art Place

Theology is about happiness

Theology is never reducible to the utilitarian function of apologetics. Theology is about happiness. Happiness is as much in the intellect as in the heart, and it stems from understanding the truth about ultimate things, and being headed in the right direction, being oriented existentially.

Thomas Joseph White, OP, The Light of Christ

Hand coloured photographs of 19th-century Japan

Hand colored albumine prints – a process which used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper – taken around 1880.

Here are a couple of my favorites but be sure to see all of them at The Public Domain Review.

Faith in Action: Pro-Life Women Deliver Semi-Truck Full of Supplies, $72,000 to the Border

The #BottlestotheBorder campaign ... collected more than $120,000 worth of supplies and donated more than $70,000 in aid funding to multiple respite centers, where migrants who are legally in the U.S. are temporarily housed and cared for while they connect with family members and figure out their next steps.

A fellow church-goer of one of ATTWN staff members had heard about the initiative and, as the owner of a trucking company, offered to drive an 18-wheeler to the border for the group, Johnson said. The catch: the truck had to be full.

“We did the first registry and filled that up in a couple of days, like in 48 hours it was full,” Johnson said....

“By the end it was completely packed full of supplies,” Johnson said. [...]

The politics behind the border crisis are frustrating to Johnson, she said, because they often dehumanize migrants and distract people from doing something concrete to help the situation.

She said people have asked her if her efforts to bring supplies to migrants means that she supports an open-border policy. She doesn’t.

“No I don’t support lawlessness, I don’t support an open border, I support legal immigration, doing it the right way, but the bottom line is I don’t have the answer, I don’t know the answer,” she said, “but I can deliver these wipes so that babies’ butts are clean and they’re not getting infections. And I know how to make sure that a baby can get fed, and that’s really what this is about. And that’s what it is to be the Church, to meet the needs that are right in front of us.”

Absolutely. There's a lot more to the story. Read it at National Catholic Register.

Jury Duty Today!

Fingers crossed I'll be back soon, but in the meantime I'm off doing my civic duty at federal court. Later gators!

UPDATE
I wasn't selected from the 70 person jury pool for the 2-1/2 week criminal federal trial. Whew! Though it sounded as if it would have been interesting.

Why it is fitting that Jesus did not write a book

Christ is unique among teachers, because he does not only instruct externally through words, ... but also enlightens us interiorly by grace. Christ, the eternal Wisdom of God, moves the heart and mind from within so that we can perceive intellectually the truths that he reveals. This, Thomas Aquinas argues, is one of the reasons it is fitting that Jesus did not write a book during his lifetime, but entrusted his teaching to others: so that we would not confuse the real presence of Christ among us with a text he wrote, but would instead learn of his presence through the teaching of the apostolic Church, a process that he assists and works through, by the presence of his grace acting in those who teach and in those who are instructed.

Thomas Joseph White, The Light of Christ

That never occurred to me. But, yes, it makes sense.

Wild Raspberries

Wild Raspberries, Duane Keiser

The Gripping Story of the Second Approved Miracle for Cardinal Newman

Melissa was bleeding because the placenta had become partially detached from the wall of her uterus and blood that was meant to nourish her eight-week-old unborn child was escaping through the tear.

An ultrasound scan had also identified a sub-chorionic haematoma, a blood clot on the foetal membrane that was by that time almost three times the size of the child.

Doctors could treat neither mother nor daughter. They fully expected Melissa to miscarry and warned her that her own life might be in danger from a haemorrhage. She had to be ready to call 911 at any time.

What happened when crisis came resulted in the second miracle required for Pope Francis to recognize Cardinal John Henry Newman as a saint. It's a gripping story. Read it at Catholic Herald.

Rehearsal

The rehearsal, Peter and Barbara Bridgmont by Edward B. Gordon

This painting is part of Edward B. Gordon's tribute to his acting teacher. It has several paintings and a lovely written tribute (scroll to the bottom for the English). I love the teacher just from the tribute, especially this bit.

He was not a big fan of Stanislavsky. „Method Acting“ was just as absurd to him as painting by numbers for a painter. Why should you experience something real when you could play it? Acting is not real, it should never be. It is a game that may become the mirror of the soul of the audience. Reality is transformed, a board becomes a jeweled sword. An old limping man becomes a young Romeo, an inconspicuous girl a powerful queen, that’s the magic of acting.

Yes.

Masks and Truth

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.

Oscar Wilde

So true. And it sends my thoughts off in a lot of directions: the people I know who absolutely will tell you the truth without a mask, Adam and Eve hiding their nakedness from God (which is where the mask comes in), confession behind the screen versus face-to-face, and much more.

Dangal

Dangal is an extraordinary true story based on the life of Mahavir Singh and his two daughters, Geeta and Babita Phogat. The film traces the inspirational journey of a father who trains his daughters to become world class wrestlers.

I really enjoyed this sports film with Aamir Khan showing his commitment by gaining 66 pounds for a total of 216 in order to play the role. Superb acting all round and a sport I was unfamiliar with added to our interest.

Most compelling of all was the way this movie hit the expected sports film/coming of age beats with unexpected twists. The girls are being forced to live their father's dream but his dreams also are for his country's honor. Beyond that his tough methods become a celebration of women's abilities and talents (twist!) — this in a country where often women are seen as nothing more than a burden to marry off to an unknown man for a life of domesticity.

By the end, we'd traveled Geeta's path with her — learning to appreciate her father's wisdom and her own hard won skills. We were also exhausted — the wrestling sequences were so vivid that we were worn out.

I especially loved the moment when Geeta is watching DDLJ with her new teammates. I myself don't love this movie but know it is a quintessential Hindi film. The moment shows so much about what Geeta has been missing and what she will gain from this time of her life. (And also, in a very small way, how much Indians connect through their favorite films, which I just heard discussed in the Movie Wala Podcast episode about Monsoon Wedding.) Of course, what Geeta is experiencing is far from her father's path and we also see the results of a different way.

It is, of course, a story celebrating women, but that point became even more vivid when I read this in a review.

What's very significant is that Mahavir's family hail from a village in the state of Haryana. Due to female foeticide, Haryana has the lowest female-to-male child ratio in India. This film was actually allowed tax-free status in a number of Indian states, including Haryana, as part of the Indian government's campaign against female foeticide. And from what I can tell, the true facts of the Phogat family's life were twisted a bit in the film to support this agenda - reportedly, in reality Mahavir was not disappointed that all the children born in his family were female.

As the reviewer mentions, the real coach's story is even more amazing. For one thing, all of his four daughters and his two nieces (taken in when his brother died) became respected, medalling wrestlers. This story obviously had special resonance in India but it applies worldwide on a variety of levels, as witnessed by the fact that it is in China's top 20 top grossing films. It is India's top grossing film in foreign markets - it's a universal story.

Rating — Introduction to Bollywood (come on in, the water's fine!)

Worth a Thousand Words: Starry Night Over the Rhone

Van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888