Still Life with Irises and Blue Jar

Still Life with Irises and Blue Jar, Edmund Tarbell

Not Fairy Tales But Real Life!

Moses said to the people:
"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,
and keep his commandments and statutes
that are written in this book of the law,
when you return to the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul.

"For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say,
'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,
'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."

Dt 30:10-14

This was the first reading for Sunday. As I was listening, I was struck by the similarity to fairy tales where the hero is sent on a quest. Often it is to win the hand of a bride or to gain treasure, but there are usually three tasks that are in far away, unimaginable lands. When I heard, "Who will go up in the sky to get it for us" and "Who will cross the sea to get it for us" that fairy tale mythology popped into my head.

I was in awe. Indeed returning to God with our whole heart and soul is very close. Everyone can do it. We've all got built in translators so we know already what to do. God made it as easy as humanly possible to get close to him. It isn't a fairy tale, it isn't any of the tales of the gods that would have been familiar to the Hebrews from the Egyptians. It is real life and much simpler than that.

Now, whether or not it is easy to do is another matter. Tomorrow, I will have what Peter Kreeft says on that topic.

Sweet Tooth

 

Sweet Tooth, Remo Savisaar

What is different when we travel

Jess was always sociable when he traveled. He always used to say that sun, moon, and stars were the same everywhere and only the people were different and if you didn't get to know them you'd as well have stayed home and milked the cows.

Jessamyn West, The Friendly Persuasion

Selfie: Leonardo da Vinci

Self-portrait in red chalk - Leonardo da Vinci
via WikiPaintings

I was looking at all the beautiful art da Vinci created and then came upon this self-portrait which I found captivating.

He did a lot of sketches, many of which I also liked, but for some reason none of them captured my imagination the way this one did. I think it is the combination of the serious face, almost grim, with the softness of beard and drawing medium.

Selfie: Marc Chagall

Self-Portrait, Marc Chagall, 1914 (from Olga's Art Gallery)

Prayer for a Busy Day

What kind of an interior life can a mother of three children have who is doing all her own work on a farm with wood fires to tend and water to pump? Or the grandmother either?

[...]

How to lift the heart to God, our first beginning and last end, except to say with the soldier about to go into battle — "Lord, I'll have no time to think of Thee but do Thou think of me."

Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage

Within those ellipses (...) Day gave a summary of all her activities on the farm with her daughter. Oy veh!

You don't have to be a mother with little ones to occasionally look at the day ahead and foretell so much activity that just keeping on track is a chore, much less hoping for any spare time to feel the presence of God. I love that prayer for that very reason.

A Movie You Might Have Missed #68: Colossal

It's been 11 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.

All she could do was save the world.

Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City, and move back home. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to this phenomenon.

Impossible to describe without spoiling, this is one of my favorite movies this year. Halfway through it suddenly becomes something different than you signed on for in a way that is disturbing, revelatory, and — by the end — ultimately completely satisfying.

Scott Danielson and I discussed this on episode 169 of A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus by Andrew Klavan

Beauty descends from God into nature, but there it would perish and does except when a Man appreciates it with worship and thus as it were sends it back to God: so that through his consciousness what descended ascends again and the perfect circle is made." — C.S. Lewis, letter to Arthur Greaves

As I read this book it occurred to me that it described the process of Andrew Klavan discovering what Lewis describes above and then fleshing it out using examples from poetry and other written art. He never references the quote but it has long been one of my favorites. Along the way we get the lives of some of the poets and then Klavan's own deeper dive into the Gospels.

I picked this up from the library on the strength of the enthusiastic comments from The Literary Life podcast folks who were working their way through it. I agreed with them as I read the first half and don't think they'd gotten to Klavan's commentary on the Gospels yet which I occasionally found problematic. I myself sometimes found Klavan's Gospel interpretations to be uncomfortably far afield from my own understanding. I haven't gone to the trouble of learning Greek, as Klavan did, but I have read a wide number of commentaries from people who knew the Greek themselves. That is a fairly small quibble though.

This is a book that opens your eyes to the power of art, nature, and our own imaginations in finding and furthering our personal friendship with Christ. That's the part that spoke to me. I read it in two days and it definitely is a book I'll reread.

Selfie: Albrecht Durer

Self Portrait at Twenty-Eight, Albrecht Durer

It is the last of his three painted self-portraits. Art historians consider it the most personal, iconic and complex of his self-portraits.[1] The self-portrait is most remarkable because of its resemblance to many earlier representations of Christ. Art historians note the similarities with the conventions of religious painting, including its symmetry, dark tones and the manner in which the artist directly confronts the viewer and raises his hands to the middle of his chest as if in the act of blessing.

Read more at the Wikipedia page. I love Durer's paintings but never realized that he himself was so good looking. I think I might actually prefer this self-portrait from when he was twenty-six. The outfit is great, am I right?

Self Portrait at Twenty-Six, Albrecht Durer

Selfie and Noir: Chandler and Rembrandt

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self Portrait with Two Circles

They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plate. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam-o’-shanter which wasn’t any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, if somebody made a down payment. His face was aging, saggy, full of the disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and the eyes were as bright as drops of dew.

Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely

I don't know if this is the portrait Philip Marlowe was looking at because I discovered that Rembrandt did over a hundred self-portraits in his lifetime. But this expression is the one that came to mind when I read that paragraph. "Hard cheerfulness" is the perfect description.

Why do you not speak in tongues?

As individual men who received the Holy Spirit in those days could speak in all kinds of tongues, so today the Church, united by the Holy Spirit, speaks in the language of every people.

Therefore if somebody should say to one of us, “You have received the Holy Spirit, why do you not speak in tongues?” his reply should be, “I do indeed speak in the tongues of all men, because I belong to the body of Christ, that is, the Church, and she speaks all languages. What else did the presence of the Holy Spirit indicate at Pentecost, except that God’s Church was to speak in the language of every people?

Sixth century African author, sermon excerpt

I love that this question was being asked as far back as the sixth century and it is still brought up today. What a good answer I have now thanks to that African author!

Selfie: At the Dressing Table

Zinaida Serebriakova (1884–1967)
At the Dressing-Table (the self-portrait).

I'd never heard of Zinaida Serebriakova until Charley Parker at Lines and Colors included her charming self portrait in his continuing series of old fashioned "selfies." I love this charming self portrait with her sweet yet knowing expression, the clutter of her dressing table, and the way the candlesticks blend into the picture "frame."

A Movie You Might Have Missed #67: The Founder

It's been 11 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.

He took someone else's idea
and America ate it up.

The Founder is the story of Ray Kroc, a salesman who turned two brothers’ innovative  restaurant, McDonald’s, into one of the biggest restaurant businesses in the world with a combination of ambition, persistence, and ruthlessness.

This normally isn't the sort of movie I feature as "a movie you might have missed." It's got a big star, a director who's done movies people know (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), and is about an American institution. And yet I'm continually surprised to find that so few people have heard of it.

We enjoyed it a lot both as a biopic and as a business movie. Make no mistake, it has a very definite point of view. If you check History vs Hollywood, as I like to do after watching any movie "based on a true story, you will see where the creators made story choices to enhance the points they were interested in discussing. The movie as a whole leaves you pondering innovation in its many forms and what it means "to invent" something.

Also, I defy anyone to watch this and not come away wanting a burger and fries. Maybe with a milkshake on the side.

Henry James and Chocolate Peppermint Cake

Henry James has remarked that there are two different types of intellectual pleasure‚ the pleasure of recognition and the pleasure of discovery. Of course he took five pages to say it, but that was the idea. Chocolate-peppermint cake embodies both pleasures: the surprise of finding that something lurks in the chocolate ambush and the pleasure of recognizing that it is actually a peppermint.

Louise Andrews Kent, Mrs. Appleyard's Kitchen

I love both Mrs. Appleyard's Year and Mrs. Appleyard's Kitchen so much. They have the homey quality that makes good comfort reading along with the clever humor that surprises you with its intelligence.

Worth a Thousand Words: Bernini Self-Portrait

Self Portrait as a Young Man, Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Unexpected Tales From A to Z by Robert Wenson

This charming and clever collection of tales is perfect for family snuggling. The stories all stand on their own and are just the right length for bedtime reading. Young readers will enjoy Robert Wenson's sweeping imagination, which takes them from old New Orleans (Esme and the Eloquent Eggplant) to the fictional kingdom of Perinnia (Reynard and the Robotic Robberies), to ancient Greece (Xenophon and the Xanthios Xiphios), to all around the whole world (Yolanda and the Yak Yoghurt). Along the way are daring escapes, dastardly villains, settings historical and fantastic, and an assortment of resourceful and brave young heroes and heroines. Sarah Neville's illustrations provide just the right flourish for each tale.

The above description is from Brendan Hodge's review which he is particularly suited to give since the stories in the book were written over the past few years for his children. Imagine being lucky enough to receive one of these stories in the mail!  This is like the sort of magical experience that sets up the beginning of an adventure in a children's book. What a treat that must have been for the Hodge children.

I found these light, funny stories very appealing and not just for children. They are just a few pages long, featuring quick-witted children who must overcome unlikely, whimsical predicaments, often with equally unlikely solutions. The titles give you a sense of the range but not of the author's comic imagination: Alexandra and the Argumentative Alligator, Hendrik and the Horrible Hollyhocks, Neville and the Negligent Neanderthal, and Yolanda and the Yak Yoghurt.

Anyone who has a sense of whimsy will enjoy these stories as much as I did. They were particularly good for my own bedtime reading as one or two were just the thing to prepare me for sleep with a smile on my face.

The Kindle price is inexpensive and it is well formatted with the charming illustrations well displayed. I also picked up a print version because when my grandson is old enough I know he'll enjoy these imaginative, charming stories as much as I do.

Brendan features one of the stories in his review and I urge you to sample it. It is simply delightful as, of course, are all the stories in the book. Then buy the book and read my favorite, Sarah and the Stranded Saturnians. This is going on my Best of 2022 list. Highly recommended.

Note: the author has been diagnosed with cancer. Please keep him in your prayers.

Selfie — painter James Tissot

Self Portrait, James Tissot

 I remember when it broke on me like a lightning bolt that we weren't the first people to think of selfies. Painters have been doing them for some time. I love this one of one of my favorites, James Tissot. He looks very jaunty.

On the Thames

On the Thames, James Tissot

This is what I call boating with style!

Cup of Honey

Cup of Honey, Konstantin Makovsky

 I know that when John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey, it was not delivered by an elegant lady like this. But the honey made it seem a good picture for today.