Mike D’Virgilio talks about the first season of “Spartacus” and what the world would be like if Christianity had never existed. As we’ve touched on many times on this blog, one thing that would been different is the idea of forgiveness. Forgive others as Christ has forgiven you? Crazy. I wonder if Islam, which spun off of Muhammad’s exposure to Christianity, would have come about either. Even Buddhism and parts of Hinduism have changed in response to the teachings of Christ Jesus. The Way, the Truth, and the Life has really turned people upside down over the years.
In America, the "U" is pronounced short
Poster for the “The Birds,” a film starring Tippi Hedren, a native of New Ulm, Minnesota.
Before you ask, yes, I did go to New Ulm on Saturday for the reenactors’ event. It wasn’t our period, being mostly fur trade wares on sale in a local hall, but we were going to meet a guy who had some stuff to sell us that he wanted to get off his hands. We did that deal, and now my friend is pretty sure we got skinned. But skinning is what fur trapping is all about, after all.
I’ve come to think of New Ulm as a kind of mythical place, like Brigadoon, which you can only visit by accident. Although it’s a not least among the tribes of Minnesota, no one has ever built a direct route to it from the Twin Cities. It’s tucked away in a valley out of sight, so that you’re never sure you’re getting there until you’re right on top of the place.
It was even tougher than usual to get there on Saturday, because for a good stretch of the route we experienced white-out conditions. It wasn’t actually snowing, but it had snowed the night before, and now we had a strong wind that blew that new snow off the fields and across the highway, in a reasonable facsimile of a blizzard. We were actually stopped by emergency trucks and told to go back, which wasn’t the greatest idea as the highway behind us had also been effectively instruments-only for twenty miles or so. We turned onto a parallel gravel road, and a nice old couple who passed us told us that if we followed that road and “turned at Five,” it would take us directly into New Ulm. They, needless to say, were actually Underground Folk (see my novels) trying to lead us astray and put our souls in peril. Fortunately they weren’t very good at it, because the road we ended up on, though not the one they promised, did get us where we were going.
We had lunch in a local Rathskeller, where we waited about an hour for a couple hamburgers. (Anti-Norwegian prejudice lives on.) The most interesting conversation I had was with a gunsmith in a beaded top hat who insisted on telling me all about his work (which was wonderful), though I warned him at the outset I wasn’t in the market for his fine wares. Did you know that the best way to make a brass rifle barrel is to dig a very deep, thin hole in the ground, and pour the brass in straight down?
OK, you knew that. But I didn’t.
The remains of another week
Thoughts at the end of the weekbeginning:
A guy as poor as I am shouldn’t have taxes this complicated.
OK, if I understand correctly, it’s always wrong to identify a terrorist group as a part of a larger group, because that might unfairly stigmatize the larger group and make them feel bad. Does that mean all inquiries into white racist groups are out of order from now on, because most white people aren’t violent?
By way of Joe Carter’s weekly 33 Things post at First Thoughts: 21 Scathingly witty insults by famous people. C.S. Lewis is included, though I think the insult actually refers to a fictional character in The Screwtape Letters. Also I’m quite confident that the picture of Groucho Marx is not actually Groucho, but a later Groucho impersonator.
I’d like to say something profound about Japan, but I haven’t got anything. Prayers are in order, of course. Did you know that when we dropped the Bomb on Nagasaki, we wiped out the center of Christianity in Japan?
I have a Sons of Norway meeting tonight, and one of my fellow Vikings wants me to go with him to a historical reenactment event in New Ulm tomorrow (as visitors, not participants). You know you’re truly Avoidant when your inclination is to stay home and do your taxes, rather than go out and rub shoulders with people who have similar interests.
Have a good weekend!
Luther: “Who would doubt God’s ability to do that?”
Yesterday, I saw that Zondervan had dropped Rob Bell’s book proposal back when it was in process. The implication given for the relationship break was the book or author did not fit with Zondervan’s mission to “glorify Jesus Christ and promote biblical principles.” That book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
I mention it here in part because reviewers are taking Bell to task for misapplying the words of Martin Luther. Our favorite Reformer wrote: “It would be quite a different question whether God can impart faith to some in the hour of death or after death so that these people could be saved through faith. Who would doubt God’s ability to do that?” I’m told Bell believes this is a good example of those who believe or are open to believing the Lord will save people after their death.
Two great bloggers, whose shoes I am not worthy to untie, point to Carl Trueman’s article criticizing Bell’s quotation. The posts citing this one come from Jared Wilson: “So Luther’s letter is a clear denial of the idea that God will save faithless people after they die, but Bell quotes one or two lines to argue that Luther believes the opposite. At best this is sloppy; at worst, it is deceptive. I believe the worst.” And Justin Taylor: “To be sure, Bell’s misuse of Luther is relatively minor compared with, say, his handing of Scripture (which is among the worst I have ever seen in a published book).”
If you haven’t read Tim Challies and Aaron Armstrong’s review of Bell’s book, Love Wins
All of that to say, of course, that Bell is the next Billy Graham, and you should join his church. I don’t see how anyone could argue with that conclusion.
Manliness
Roy Jacobsen of Writing, Clear and Simple sends along this link to a Weekly Standard review of Harvey C. Mansfield’s book Manliness by Christina Hoff Summers:
The monument, an 18-foot granite male figure with arms outstretched to the side, was erected by “the women of America” in 1931 to show their gratitude. The inscription reads: “To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic. . . . They gave their lives that women and children might be saved.”
Today, almost no one remembers those men. Women no longer bring flowers to the statue on April 15 to honor their chivalry. The idea of male gallantry makes many women nervous, suggesting (as it does) that women require special protection. It implies the sexes are objectively different. It tells us that some things are best left to men. Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name.
Looks intriguing.
The Danger, by Dick Francis
I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the last Dick Francis novel I reviewed, The Edge, so in justice I want to report on reading his 1984 novel, The Danger
The hero of The Danger is Andrew Douglas, an agent for a low-profile English enterprise called Liberty Market. Liberty Market is in the business of assisting the families of kidnap victims. They use their agents’ paramilitary skills to rescue the victims if possible; otherwise they do everything they can to make the ransom process as secure as possible.
At the beginning of this story, that process has broken down for Andrew. He is supervising, in collaboration with the police, the ransoming of an Italian heiress who is also a celebrity jockey, Alessia Cenci. Some of the police try to arrest the kidnappers prematurely, leading to a hostage situation and imminent danger to Alessia. Andrew, however, is able to negotiate the tensions down, and Alessia is finally released.
Because of his hard-won understanding of her post-traumatic stress, Alessia bonds with Andrew as she goes through the recovery process. When she goes to stay with a friend in England, she and Andrew are able to see more of each other, and she ends up helping him when he’s called on to rescue the toddler son of the owner of a champion race horse. Andrew suspects that a very intelligent, ruthless criminal is targeting members of the racing community for kidnapping, and that suspicion is validated when the chairman of the British Jockey Club is kidnapped in Washington, DC.
Andrew is the kind of hero you expect from a Dick Francis novel—brave, competent, decent and self-reliant. What sets this book apart, in my view, is the work the author clearly did on understanding the psychology of kidnap victims, and the stages of recovery. The section where Andrew helps to draw the horse owner’s rescued little boy out of his prison of fear is genuinely moving.
Highly recommended. Cautions for some adult language and mild adult situations.
Lo, the Beggar Cometh
Six hamburgers, fries and cokes—Doug toddles to his car, fast food bags stuffed between his arms. Setting a drink tray on top of his minivan, he catches a beggar’s empty stare across the parking lot. He fumbles for his keys. The beggar shudders to his feet. Finally inside, Doug locks the doors, drops the keys, and starts the minivan.
“Stay calm,” he mutters. “Don’t know why he’s waving. Can’t see him.”
He drives away, watching the sad beggar in the side mirror. The red light comes up quick, and with his jerky stop, coke sloshes his windshield from above.
(100 Word Short Short or Flash Fiction)
Harbingers of spring, with strawberries
Photo credit: Wouter Hagens
What was my day like?
Well, it snowed a couple inches last night, so I drove to work using my newly restored four wheel drive, always a pleasure. But the day itself was so warm that the snow is pretty much gone from the driveway this evening. There’s some shreds out there I could shovel out (couldn’t blow it; it’s just slush), but why bother when it’ll be around forty tomorrow?
This is a perfect winter day, by my lights.
My brother in Iowa quotes a member of his church who says, “Once it gets to snow in March, I figure what the Lord giveth He’ll also taketh away.”
That’s not a reliable rule in Minnesota, but it’s working just now.
We had a blood drive at work, and I enriched the national stocks by one pint of rich Norwegian blood. The technicians seemed a little friendlier than usual today. I took that as a sign of bad economic times; the Red Cross is able to recruit a better motivated crop of workers, people who used to have better jobs and haven’t forgotten their people skills. The lady who stuck me was quite friendly, but not, alas, adept with the needle. She even apologized for it. I pretended to feel nothing, needless to say, because that’s the Code of the Walkers.
Bought some strawberries on the way home, and idly checked their calorie value. Wow! I think strawberries are the only thing in the world I really like that are extremely low in calories. Except for popcorn, but I only like that with butter, so it doesn’t count.
The Essence of Lent
Last night, my children were thinking about what they would give up for the next few weeks, and I tried to guide them. First, they were not instruct each other on what to give up. Second, Lent isn’t essentially about giving up stuff.
If we deny ourselves during the weeks leading up to Easter, we do so in order to promote our devotion to our heavenly Father. If we give up using Facebook, drinking colas, eating desserts, watching movies or reading novels, we want to do it so that we put ourselves in a place where we remember our Lord more than we did before. Perhaps when Easter comes, we will have taken an axe to one of our idols because we rejected something during Lent and will have a quieter spirit, a more submissive heart, for our daily routine. We will have tried to let go of trivial supports and leaned more on the Lord.
But maybe giving something up isn’t what we should do over the next few weeks. I mean, maybe it isn’t all we should do, because our intent is to wean ourselves off of worldly things and love Christ Jesus more, see God the Father working around us more, and know the Holy Spirit within us more than we did before. So maybe we should plan to study the Bible or memorize parts of it or learn to pray using the Psalms. Maybe we should find someone willing to meet us weekly for a discipleship study or a few people to help us serve our church and community.
“To suppose that whatever God requireth of us, that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.” – John Owen (quoted by the Spirit-filled Puritan)
That’s the point of denying ourselves during Lent. We want to forget our own power (or the illusion of it) and rely on Christ Jesus, our Savior and King.
Love Relief
Relief Journal, a Christian fiction quarterly, is raising funds for this year. They say, “If every person that visited our website last month gave us $1, we would have more than enough money to meet our campaign goal.” They are at 13% now.