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‘The Last King’

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I figure I’d better share this film trailer with you, though I’m a little torn. I shall explain below.

The story of the Birkebeiners and the little king is a classic set piece of Norwegian history. The Birkebeiners were a political party/fighting group, mostly based in northern Norway. Baby King Haakon Haakonsson (his actual patrimony is somewhat in doubt, but that was more the rule than the exception in Norway during the dynastic wars) was spirited over the mountains by two faithful retainers on skis, to save his life from the forces of the Bagler party. In time he survived to be king and end the civil wars.

The Birkebeiners (birchlegs) got their name from a legend that they were so poor at the beginning that they had to wrap birch bark around their legs for warmth in the winter. The Bagler party, which had its strength in the south, was more aristocratic and was allied with the church. “Bagler” comes from the word for a bishop’s crosier.

I personally have long had Bagler sympathies, as one of their leaders was a nobleman who lived at a place where some of my ancestors came from. Thus I like to think he was an ancestor.

On the other hand, Haakon Haakonsson built the big stone church at Avaldsnes, where my great-grandfather was baptized. So I guess I can suspend my partisanship for a couple hours and see this movie.

Coming June 17. It won’t be in a lot of theaters, but it will be available on Netflix.

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Instant Translating Earpiece

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Man meets French woman, invents earpiece to talk to her.

Andrew Ochoa has invented a pair of ear inserts that can be shared between two people with the aid of a smart phone app. Once the earpieces are in place, you can speak in English, she can speak in French, and you will hear the translation in your ear.

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May 17

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Constitution Day parade in Hamar, Norway. Photo credit: Torstein Frogner. Our celebration tomorrow will doubtless look exactly like this.

I will not be posting tomorrow, as I’ll be participating in my Sons of Norway lodge’s Syttende Mai (May 17) celebration. We’ll host a meal of Norwegian open-faced sandwiches and I’ll give a lecture on the history of the holiday.

What confuses people about Syttende Mai is that it’s Norway Constitution Day, not its independence day. It seems illogical to put the constitutional cart before the independence horse, but that’s what happened in the land of the midnight sun. The constitution was drafted as part of an abortive independence effort in 1814, and over the following 90 years or so, the Norwegians stubbornly celebrated the day just to aggravate their Swedish overlords. By the time independence came in 1905, Constitution Day was deeply ingrained in the national psyche. All other holidays, even Independence Day, take a back seat.

Have a good one!

Blogs, Socials, Uncategorized

Taking counsel of my fears

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The following may be the result of depression, and therefore irrational. I’ll check back when I’m feeling more cheerful, to see how it holds up. But I’ve come to a kind of peace with the 2016 election cycle. It’s the kind of peace described by Tacitus, who said of the Romans in Britain, “they make a desert, and call it peace.”

I’ve decided that (barring changes in the strategic situation which are entirely possible) I’m going to vote for Trump this year. Not out of principle, not out of patriotism, but out of despair.

Signs of the Times

I read three articles online this morning, which all together helped me to clear my mind. They were these: Continue reading Taking counsel of my fears →

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Wasting Away

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My family has been spending many hours in the hospital lately, because my dad was admitted for what they thought was lymphoma at the time. Now it appears to be a different and more severe form of cancer. He’s had some other complications over the last two weeks, but they all seem fairly minor compared to the main threat. I’ve teetered back and forth on the likelihood of his overcoming it. Right now, I’m hopeful we will make it to the end of this blind alley and back into the sunlight without getting mugged.

He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;

he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;

. . .

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:4 –5, 22–24 ESV)

I wholeheartedly endorse my Lord’s steadfast love and unceasing mercy, but I feel the wasting away more closely than ever.

Update: My dad passed away in the afternoon of May 14. Half of my family was there when his heart began to beat irregularly. My sister called me to say I should come to the hospital, which was the second such call this week, the first for breathing irregularities on Thursday. Ten minutes later, she called again to say he’s gone. Thank you for your prayers. He left an admirable legacy as a servant to his church, family, and community.

Religion, Uncategorized

Fifty years

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I should know better than to put faith in signs and portents, but for some reason the year 1965 seems to have been getting in my face lately.

I find it odd, and amusing, and somewhat annoying, to know that for many of you, 1965 might as well be 1945 or 1865 – it was before your time. It was history.

But I was there. Fifty years ago this year. I was there when that song I posted last week – A Lover’s Concerto – was released (I don’t mean I was in Motown, but I was on the planet). Men wore suits with narrow lapels, and thin ties. Women still wore hats to church. All but the most moral and health-conscious people smoked. Teenaged boys wore their hair greased back in ducktails. Cars had chrome.

And then there was my confirmation. I was confirmed on June 20, 1965. I was reminded of this while attending the confirmation of a friend’s daughter this past weekend. It suddenly struck me – my own confirmation was fifty years ago this summer.

No one ever forgets their confirmation, I think, even if they become atheists or Muslims or join the Green Party. But mine was particularly memorable. And not in a good way. Continue reading Fifty years →

Music, Uncategorized

What we do with our dreams

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Sorry I didn’t post last night. I got into customer service purgatory with my antivirus provider. Oddly, I didn’t have to wait on hold at all; it was the actual work that took forever. Of course I had to yield personal control of my machine to some guy in India, which I wouldn’t gladly do even if he were in Minneapolis. But I’m pretty sure that if I’d tried to follow instructions to do it all myself, I’d have ended up just running to Micro Center and buying a new computer.

The Sensation

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about my post on The “Lover’s Concerto” music clip. I’m still watching it – not as many times a day, I guess, but it never fails to run a semi-physical thrill through me, along the shoulders and up my neck to the brain.

I’ve had such reactions to various things in my life – often to music (“The Theme from Exodus”, Roger Whittaker’s “The Last Farewell”). Sometimes to art, such as a painting of a Viking ship in a history book my folks bought us once. Sometimes to books, like a couple of passages in The Lord of the Rings. Sometimes to scenery – my favorite was, and remains, a day when the sky is a leaden blue-gray but the sun shines brightly through a gap onto the trees and grass, so that they glow against the iron background.

If I had to explain my life – the choices I’ve made, the successes and mistakes, I’d say that my lodestar has always been an impossible beauty. One that can never be attained in this world, but that can never be forgotten either, that drives unending effort for something that I know can’t be completed, but which for some reason does not make me despair.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this. Continue reading What we do with our dreams →

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My equestrian weekend

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I wanted to upload a picture, but I’m having connection problems tonight, and anyway I didn’t take any photos this weekend that were much better than pedestrian (and you can’t have pedestrian at a horse show). The perfect thing would have been to get someone to snap me with an Icelandic horse, wearing my Viking gear, but that obvious idea never occurred to me at the time.

Anyway, it was a good weekend. In fact, although there were difficult parts, I’d say it was the best time I’ve had in a couple years. The first fling of my freedom, you might say, if you were in alliterative mood.

I’d been to the Minnesota Horse Expo at the state fairgrounds once before, years back. At that point, we were able to get a parking spot in the lot even though we weren’t bright and early. This year, although the horse barns and Coliseum are at the west end of the park, I had to park back near the east entrance. It’s gotten to be a big deal. There was no handicapped parking section. It was a long trek from my parking spot for someone with a recent hip replacement, but I made it, and I wasn’t even terribly stiff the next day. Continue reading My equestrian weekend →

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Imitating God as a Gardener

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Garden
Pete Peterson shares some thoughts he learned from Norman Wirzba on a theology of eating. A gardener with many animals, Peterson asks, “If we are the Body of Christ, are we not also called to be gardeners and caretakers of the New Creation?”

He writes:

Each morning when I wake, I am the celebrant in a liturgy that leads me through the sacrament of Creation. I process through garden aisles. I pastor the beans, and the grape vines, and the apple trees, and, yes, even the chickens and ducks. They sing praises in crows and quacks. They make offerings of eggs, or fruit, or even simple beauty. They come forward to partake of the food I offer, and I leave them with a blessing.