Thank you, Ellen!

I received a lovely gift from Ellen, but there was no way to acknowledge it! There's nothing like a surprise present to brighten your day! I can't thank you enough. :-)

10 novels every Catholic should read (or at least try once)

Source

This article, by yours truly, is the feature article in the April 26 issue of Our Sunday Visitor. Luckily it is available online now! Here's the beginning:

Humans are wired to seek the truth. God created us that way. It helps us in finding God who is Truth itself. While science and math give us measurable facts, the place where we reach real, intangible truth is usually in our stories.

Good fiction helps us recognize who we are, who we want to be and how to live a life of courage, honesty, endurance and compassion. There’s a reason that Jesus told so many parables, after all. If you’ve got the choice between a detailed lecture and an exciting story, which one would you pick?

In today’s world we may come across few parables, but we do have an abundance of novels and short stories. Here are 10 good stories for you to try. Some of the authors are Christian, some are not, but all have truth at the heart of their tales — in a very entertaining package.

Read the rest at Our Sunday Visitor where each book has an overview, food for thought, and a look from a Christian point of view for your consideration.

The Old Bridge

The Old Bridge, France, 1910, Guy Rose

A Movie You Might Have Missed #7 — A New Leaf

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

7. A New Leaf

One of Tom's favorite movies and one that I am glad he insisted I watch. Matthau is a wealthy playboy and confirmed bachelor who has run through all his money. To keep afloat, he decides to marry a wealthy woman and murder her later. Elaine May, who also wrote and directed, plays Matthau's clumsy and adoring bride. He discovers she is being cheated blind by her household staff and, while setting things straight, begins to find a different facet of himself. Not that he gives up on the murder scheme though. Hilarious and perhaps Matthau's best performance.

The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind

We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.

Dean Koontz, The Darkest Evening of the Year

I never would have thought of it that way but it is perfectly expressed.

I'll be on Meet the Author on Radio Maria - today at 2:00 CST!

Each week Ken Huck talks with Catholic authors on Meet the Author on Radio Maria about their books, both recent publications and older works that have stood the test of time.

And today it is me! We're gonna talk about the prophets in a way that goes down easy!

Listen live at 3 pm ET.

Also, use your Echo or other device to listen. Simply say "Alexa, play Radio Maria USA" and you will be connected in seconds.

The face of a good poker player

"I haven't told you everything about this woman."

"Yes, I am aware."

"Surprised, I said, "You are? How?"

"What do they call the face of a good poker player?"

"A poker face," I said.

"Yes, I believe that is correct. You do not have one. ..."

Dean Koontz, The City

One of the great pleasures of this book is the relationship between the young narrator and his neighbor, Mr. Yoshioka.

Gospel of Matthew: Let the dead bury their own dead

Matthew 8:21-22

Below is a discussion of one of the most puzzling and seemingly hard-hearted comments Jesus ever made. Until you understand the context, of course, in which case Jesus is calling the man's bluff.

Josef von Führich, 1837

But there was another man who wished to follow Jesus. He said he would follow Jesus, if he was first allowed to go and bury his father. Jesus' answer was: "Follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead." At first sight that seems a hard saying. To the Jew it was a sacred duty to ensure decent burial for a dead parent. ...

The true explanation undoubtedly lies in the way in which the Jews used this phrase—"I must bury my father"—and in the way in which it is still used in the east.

Wendt quotes an incident related by a Syrian missionary, M. Waldmeier. This missionary was friendly with an intelligent and rich young Turk. He advised him to make a tour of Europe at the close of his education, so that his education would be completed and his mind broadened. The Turk answered, "I must first of all bury my father." The missionary expressed his sympathy and sorrow that the young man's father had died. But the young Turk explained that his father was still very much alive, and that what he meant was that he must fulfill all his duties to his parents and to his relatives, before he could leave them to go on the suggested tour, that, in fact, he could not leave home until after his father's death, which might not happen for many years.

That is undoubtedly what the man in this gospel incident meant. He meant, "I will follow you some day, when my father is dead, and when I am free to go." He was in fact putting off his following of Jesus for many years to come.

Quote is from Daily Study Bible Series: Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1 by William Barclay. This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.

A Friend in Need

A Friend in Need, 1903, by C. M. Coolidge from his Dogs Playing Poker series

Rereading: The City by Dean Koontz

I recommended this book to my mother and then I realized it had been six years since I'd read it and I didn't remember it very well at all. It's been a real pleasure to reread so I'm rerunning the review.

That’s life. Always something, more good than bad, but always interesting if you’re paying attention.

The voice in this book reminds me of another classic Dean Koontz character, Odd Thomas, in its sweetness and innocence. However, this is narrated by a 10 year old instead of a grown man.

The 10-year-old is a skinny, black, musical prodigy named Jonah Kirk. The time is the mid-1960's when chaos reigns in America. The place is a mysterious City which is never named. Unless you want to call it Pearl, after the mysterious woman who appears and disappears mysteriously in Jonah's life and who tells him that she is the soul of the City.

This story looks at how we respond when it seems that the world is an unstable, chaotic place where unexpected evil can drop on you at any moment. Sound like any other time period you know? Such as the one we're living in right now? Koontz's story has a subtle supernatural gloss and doesn't focus on horror nearly as much as other books. Instead it focuses on coming of age, the power of community, the power of kindness, and overcoming adversity. As always, there is a strong theme of good versus evil but it is mostly kept in the real world.

A lot of the charm of this book comes from Koontz's ability to remind us what it is like to interpret the world as a supernatural, magical place because of youth's sheer inexperience. The relationship between Jonah and his upstairs neighbor, Mr. Yoshioka was especially interesting to watch flowering. And if you like jazz, big band, and swing, there are enough references to send you to start up your own soundtrack while you read.

It's not what I think of as typical Dean Koontz fiction, but I greatly enjoyed it.

The First Newspaper

Title page of Carolus' Relation from 1609, the earliest newspaper

The News Isn't All the News

[My mother] turned on the TV but muted the sound. People were looting an electronics store, taking TVs and stereos.

"There's something you need to understand, Jonah. For every person who's stealing and setting fires and turning over police cars, there are three or four others in the same neighborhood who want no part of it, who're more afraid of lawbreakers than they are of the law."

"Doesn't look that way."

"Because the TV only shows you the ones who're doing it. The news isn't all the news, Jonah. Not by a long shot. It's just what reporters want to tell you about. Riots come and go, wars come and go, but under the tumult, day after day, century after century, millions of people are doing nice things for one another, making sacrifices, mostly small things, but it's all those little kindnesses that hold civilization together, all those people who live quiet lives and never make the news."

On the silent TV, as the face of the anchorman replaced the riots, I said, "I don't know about that."

"Well I do."

The anchorman was replaced by a wind-whipped rain-lashed town over which towered a giant funnel cloud that tore a house apart in an instant and sucked the ruins off the face of the Earth.

"When weather's big news," my mother said, "it's a hurricane, a tornado, a tidal wave. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, Mother Nature isn't destroying things, she's nurturing us, but that's not what gets ratings or sells papers."

Dean Koontz, The City

This book is set in the chaotic 1960s and does a good job of showing the uncertainty it brings to Americans' lives, especially if the narrator is a 9 year old black boy. The times we live in are no less chaotic and, if anything, more filled with the bad news people want to tell us about.

Right now it's the pandemic, which is akin to the weather mentioned in the quote above. A lot of the fear being experienced right now is being whipped up by the way it is being reported. I really miss the news professionals like Walter Cronkite. Dean Koontz's words remind us of the reality beneath the chatter of ceaseless news.

One Form of Heroism

After you have suffered great losses and known much pain, it is not cowardice to wish to live henceforth with a minimum of suffering. And one form of heroism, about which few if any films will be made, is having the courage to live without bitterness when bitterness is justified, having the strength to persevere even when perseverance seems unlikely to be rewarded, having the resolution to find profound meaning in life when it seems the most meaningless.

Dean Koontz, The City

Three Strawberries

Three Strawberries, Duane Keiser

Colossians 3:3 by George Herbert

Colossians 3:3
by George Herbert

My words and thoughts do both express this notion,
That Life hath with the sun a double motion.
The first Is straight, and our diurnal friend,
The other Hid, and doth obliquely bend.
One life is wrapped In flesh, & and tends to earth:
The other winds towards Him, whose happy birth
Taught me to live here so, That still one eye
Should aim and shoot at that which Is on high:
Quitting with daily labour all My pleasure,
To gain at harvest an eternal Treasure.

Via Thomas Banks

Great Dane with Sausages: "Caesar, those who are about to die salute you!"

Great Dane with Sausages: "Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant, " Wilhelm Trübner
via J.R.'s Art Place

A Movie You Might Have Missed #6: What's Eating Gilbert Grape

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

6. What's Eating Gilbert Grape

The movie that convinced me Leonardo DiCaprio could act.

Johnny Depp is a teenage boy who loves his 400 pound mother, his mentally retarded brother (DiCaprio), and his restless sister but the weight of their combined needs results in crushing responsibility. Stuck in the backwater of tiny Endora, he sees no way out of his situation. The answer to his problems is not what one would anticipate and is as understated as Depp's performance in many ways. Along the way, we are shown each person in greater depth and as we do the quirkiness becomes less important than the different aspects of humanity. Life affirming and it will stick with you.

The Sad Kitchen by John Paul King

Years after the murder of her son, Helen Sampson has opened an underground, nighttime soup kitchen where people seek refuge when they are kept awake by a guilty conscience. But when one of her customers, Vern, writes a children's book that goes viral, The Sad Kitchen begins to attract public suspicion which calls into question Helen's motives.

This is a simple, yet engaging story. I really enjoyed it and, yet, struggle with how to give more of a description than is on the cover itself.

On one level, it is a meditation on forgiveness and mercy. There are crimes which are considered unforgivable by society, yet the Christian must still practice forgiveness and mercy on the truly penitent.

On another level, it is a meditation on the relationship of art to the artist. Can we judge the art separately from the person who created it? I myself say "yes" and yet there is one person whose movies I refuse to view based on his personal life. I suspect we all have that blind spot somewhere.

On yet a third level, it is a meditation on the power of the good person to change lives - simply by living as a good person.

So The Sad Kitchen is simple but there is plenty to think about.

Cherry Tree in Full Bloom at Mountain Temple

Cherry Tree in Full Bloom at Mountain Temple, Calligraphy in the view

Click through to see many more beautiful photos of cherry trees in blossom.

New Reviews for Thus Sayeth the Lord!

This Book is for Everyone

"I'm not a church-going spiritual kind of person but I am a spiritual person. I wasn't sure what I would find in Thus Sayeth the Lord. If it was all churchy I was outta there. But I was so happily engaged with a description and take on the prophets that I could relate to...that made me stop and think. Reread...think more. How often does that happen in a book? It was such a birds-eye view on big situations and brought into the perspective of today. Pretty interesting how now looking at current events is pretty relatable to what was going on for the prophets to deal with in their day. So buy it and enjoy...you will LOL, I promise!" — Lisa Montgomery

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Well worth the small cost for the fresh take.

"This book provides a refreshing down to earth look at some of the most interesting individuals in the Bible. It humanizes them and allows us a glimpse into their mentality and faith. " — John Austin

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A Good Introduction

"The Old Testament prophets are often hard to get a grip on, as each is embedded in a particular situation in time that usually isn’t familiar to the reader. They can seem detached, unrelated to anything in our current experience. Davis does an excellent job of making the prophets human for us, putting them in context, and making them relevant. As such, it’s an excellent starting for deeper study, and engaging and entertaining in its own right." — William Duquette

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Hear the word of the Lord with different ears

"Julie has a special way of listening to anything she reads or watches. She can't seem to ignore what God may be saying in even the most mundane, everyday things and events around us. That is how she listens to God speaking through his designated prophets, the ones in the Bible that we sometimes skirt in our own reading out of confusion, or sometimes fear of what we might hear. The prophets Julie has heard in writing this book may do and say scary things, and she can still help us hear the mercy and comfort our God wants to give us for our own lives." — Patsy Edinburgh

Many thanks to those who took the time to review my book! Here's where you can get your copy!