Lady with a Monkey on the Pier

Port Aransas, 1949. Via Traces of Texas

So many questions. First, that outfit. Second, the monkey.

A Movie You Might Have Missed #15 — Friday Night Lights

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.

15. Friday Night Lights

Texas, football, Billy Bob Thornton ... 'nuff said.

Well, maybe that's not enough for most people so I will 'splain.

Thornton is the coach of the Odessa, Texas, football team during a season where they have a shot at the championship. The locals are football crazy, especially as their economy has seen better days and this is their one outlet and hope for their children's futures. The fast, gritty, "real", jump-cut documentary-type style helps give a true sense-of-place. We see the coach's struggles on many levels as well as those of the players ... and it is a pretty accurate look at how Texans feel about football.

A memory of holiness

Alai suddenly kissed Ender on the cheek and whispered in his ear. "Salaam." Then, red faced, he turned away and walked to his own bed at the back of the barracks. Ender guessed that the kiss and the word were somehow forbidden. A suppressed religion, perhaps. Or maybe the word had some private and powerful meaning for Alai alone. Whatever it meant to Alai, Ender knew that it was sacred; that he had uncovered himself for Ender, as once Ender's mother had done when he was very young, before they put the monitor in his neck, and she had put her hands on his head when she thought he was asleep, and prayed over him. Ender had never spoken of that to anyone, not even to Mother, but had kept it as a memory of holiness, of how his mother loved him when she thought that no one, not even he, could see or hear. That was what Alai had given him: a gift so sacred that even Ender could not be allowed to understand what it meant.

Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

I love the idea about why Ender's mother's love and Alai's gift of himself is so sacred.

Summer Evening Whinchat

Summer Evening Whinchat, Remo Savisaar

What are the devil's usual effects?

What are [the devil's] usual effects? ... He is often called diabolos in the Greek of the New Testament, a word derived from dia-balein, (to throw apart, to scatter). God is a great gathering force, for by his very nature he is love; but the devil’s work is to sunder, to set one against the other. Whenever communities, families, nations, churches are divided, we sniff out the diabolic. The other great New Testament name for the devil is ho Satanas, which means “the accuser.” Perform a little experiment: gauge how often in the course of the day you accuse another person of something or find yourself accused. It’s easy enough to notice how often dysfunctional families and societies finally collapse into an orgy of mutual blaming. That’s satanic work.

Bishop Robert Barron,

Word on Fire Bible, commentary on Mark 6:6-13

Decks Awash

Montague Dawson - Decks Awash
via Gandalf's Gallery

Thursday

Thursday by Walter Dendy Sadler (1880)

This makes me smile —and it is supposed to. It is from My Daily Art Display which has a good piece on Walter Dendy Sadler.

Many of Sadler’s humorous paintings featured monks and monastic life. In his 1880 painting, Thursday, which is also known as 'Tomorrow will be Friday', he depicts a group of Franciscan monks fishing. These friars were forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, as a reminder that Friday was the day when Christ was crucified.

The "no meat" Fridays are still in effect for Catholics these days, by the way, though it is often mistakenly thought that rule was dropped after Vatican II. Read more here.

The Rocket

Edward Middleton Manigault, The Rocket, 1909
via Arts Everyday Living

Gospel of Matthew: Gut-Wrenching Compassion

Matthew 9:36

Translations that say Jesus was "moved" or "felt compassion" aren't really conveying the depth of the original Greek.

The Resurrection of the Widow's Son at Nain, James Tissot
Brooklyn Museum

When Jesus saw the crowd of ordinary men and women, he was moved with compassion. The word which is used for moved with compassion (splagchnistheis) is the strongest word for pity in the Greek language. It is formed from the word splagchna, which means the bowels, and it describes the compassion which moves a man to the deepest depths of his being. In the gospels, apart from its use in some of the parables, it is used only of Jesus (Matthew 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mark 1:41; Luke 7:13). When we study these passages, we are able to see the things which moved Jesus most of all.

So that's our homework. Go look up those passages and see what moves Jesus to the depths of pity.

It is rich food for thought to me to consider that he was moved so much by people who were like sheep with no shepherd. That is equal to some of the other, possibly more understandable things that moved him so. I think of how it was when I was like one of those sheep and how happy I was to find that shepherd. How many of the people we know are the same? Searching, bewildered and dejected.

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.

Jesus Calming the Storm

Lu Hongnian, 20th century, Chinese, Jesus Calming The Storm
via J.R.'s Art Place

I really love depictions of scriptural events by people from different cultures, especially those focusing on Jesus. Fascinating to see how recognizable the event is and to see the differences in how we'd usually see it depicted. For example — those waves!

Our soul's home

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

Abraham Heschel,

Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity

Making life easier, not making life harder

We should always try to relieve others from whatever seems to weigh them down, just as Christ would have done in our place. Sometimes this will mean our doing some small act of service. At times it will mean giving a word of encouragement or of hope. at others we will help someone to glance up at the Master so that he comes to see his situation in a more positive light; it may be a situation which had seemed to overwhelm him simply because up till then he had felt he must face it alone. We should think too of those aspects of our behaviour with which sometimes, without really meaning to, we make life a little harder for others ... our whims and fancies, our rash judgements, negative criticism, an lack of consideration for others, an unkind word ...

Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, vol. 4,
Ordinary Time: Weeks 13-23

Back Yard Happy Hour

Back Yard Happy Hour, Belinda Del Pesco

Missing Peace by N.K. Holt

The McKay family's idyllic life in Iowa is about to implode.

A mysterious rosary found by soldier John McKay in war-torn Iraq foreshadows an obscure prophecy. As the rosary’s mystique grows globally, his sister, Janey McKay, is threatened when a radical extremist group escalates the stakes by expanding their fight to the U.S. heartland.

But can terror destroy a faith that launches miracles?

This book is essentially an inspirational story wrapped in the tale of searching for a mysterious and miraculous rosary's origins. The main characters are a brother and sister from a solid, Catholic midwestern farming family, a Texas soldier without any family, and a priest struggling with thriving in a new assignment.

It is told in a basic, straight-forward style that I associate with Louis L'Amour westerns (which I like) or adventures from the early 1900s (which I love). You're not coming to this for high literary style. You're coming to it to follow the trail of the old beggar, his mysterious rosary, and the flash of green light that occasionally accompanies miracles. At least that's what held my interest. There is also a family saga of sorts and a love story, both of which I was much less interested in but which were good in their own ways. I enjoyed it and recommend it.

Full disclosure - this was a review copy.

The Gateway, Tangier

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Gateway, Tangier

Gospel of Matthew: Everyone Who Acknowledges Me

Matthew 10:26-33

Chapter 10 has Jesus' exhortation telling his followers not to be afraid. At the end of this section his comments suddenly change focus from God to himself ... and in that he reveals something more of himself to us.

Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255–1319), Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles

32 Jesus adds a final reason for his disciples' carrying out the mission he gives them with confidence instead of fear. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. Acknowledging Jesus before others broadly includes the disciples' public witness and more narrowly refers to their testimony before tribunals (10:17-18). Jesus speaks of his disciples acknowledging me: after his resurrection, the message his disciples will proclaim will center on Jesus more than on the coming of the kingdom (see Acts 2:36, for example). Jesus promises that those who acknowledge him to others he will acknowledge before his heavenly Father. Jesus will make his acknowledgment at the last judgment, when God will sort out good from evil. Jesus will claim as his own those who acknowledged that they belonged ot him. He adverts to his special standing with God, whom he speaks of as my heavenly Father. Jesus is not an ordinary defense witness but the beloved Son of the Father (3:17). Because Jesus will vouch for them at the last judgment, his disciples can proclaim him and his message without fear, despite whatever persecution they encounter.

For reflection: How have I acknowledged Jesus by my words? by my actions?

Quote is from Bringing the Gospel of Matthew to Life. This series first ran in 2008. I'm refreshing it as I go.

The Banjo Lesson

Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson

A Movie You Might Have Missed #14: How to Murder Your Wife

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.

14. How to Murder Your Wife

Tom and I both remembered this movie from our childhoods and it was even funnier than I remembered. Jack Lemmon is a cartoonist and the ultimate New York playboy who, in a drunken interlude at a bachelor's party, marries the girl who pops out of the cake. She disappears after he has fantasized about killing her in his comic strip and he soon finds himself on trial for murder.

The movie not only satirizes the proverbial "battle of the sexes" a la 1965 but the stereotypes of many other things as well. It is, literally, laugh out loud funny. A special pleasure is Terry Thomas as Lemmon's valet who is entirely too bloodthirsty for comfort at the idea of murdering Lemmon's wife.

It is seriously politically incorrect so you really have to keep the satire in mind, depending on your mindset and ability to remember the common context of the 1960s.

Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City

Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City, Henry Ossawa Tanner

Well Said: A Marked Stop Brings Right Perception

Taking into account where he was, the interest that had first brought him there when he had been free to keep away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later life which no walls nor bars could imprison, it was not remarkable that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact itself; but because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the dear little creature had influenced his better resolutions.

None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent uses of adversity.

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

I read this to Tom and he said, "That is just simply true." Yes. It is. Little Dorrit ... what a book.