How long would you have to stir a large bowl of vegetable soup to get a string of noodles which spell out, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”?
Feel free to add your question in the comments.
Must-hear web radio
My interview this morning with Stacy Harp of Active Christian Media can be downloaded here.
Have You Seen “District 9” Trailer?
What do you think about a new sci-fi movie called “District 9”? You can watch the trailer in several places, one of which being this blog from one of the movie aliens. You have to click a button to translate his posts into English. It looks as if the story focuses on the politics of modern day illegal aliens or undocumented workers. In fact, a YouTube video I saw in which someone shouts, “Do your part. Marry a non-human,” makes explicit the illegal aliens angle. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story or that there isn’t plenty of truth in it. Hopefully, it won’t boil down to a plea for everyone to just get along.
You can see some back-story for the movie on this official site. I have some thoughts on American’s immigration problem too. Perhaps I should write on them here. Conservatives need to raise their voice on this, b/c the opposition isn’t going to lead us anywhere healthy. Look at the rotten sewage the House passed in the name of environmental progress. Help us.
50 Writing Resources
Hone your writing skills with one or more of these websites. I’ve used Ask Oxford in the past, and I’ve needed help with my headlines for a long time. Do you use any of these resources? Do you dislike any of them?
Weekend report, sesquicentennial edition
Today and tomorrow, I’m doing something I’ve done many times over the years, but there never used to be a name for it –“Stay-cation.” Tomorrow morning I’m supposed to be interviewed by Stacy Harp over at Active Christian Media, so I figured that, since I’d certainly take that morning off rather than do it on the job, I might as well take Monday too and make it a long weekend.
Yesterday was the 150th anniversary celebration of my home congregation, Hauge Lutheran in Kenyon, Minnesota. This was a special edition of the annual service held at the Old Stone Church, our original building out in the country. This is how it looked.
Continue reading Weekend report, sesquicentennial edition
The face of St. Paul
The Vatican has made public the oldest known portrait of the Apostle Paul. It’s Fourth Century, so it’s not exactly contemporary, but it does conform to the traditional description.
Vatican archaeologists have uncovered what they say is the oldest known portrait of St Paul. The portrait, which was found two weeks ago but has been made public only after restoration, shows St Paul with a high domed forehead, deep-set eyes and a long pointed beard, confirming the image familiar from later depictions.
As I understand it, we do have (unlike in the case of Christ) a physical description of Paul which is very probably authentic. Not a photogenic fellow. Short, bow-legged, bald, with a prominent nose and thick lips.
Update: It must be St. Paul week in Rome. They have also announced authenticating bones found under the Vatican as being Paul’s.
Tip for both stories: Archaeology in Europe.
The Proper Use of Pain
Frederick Buechner on “The Stewardship of Pain.”
Pain can become a treasure if we treasure it to the point where it can become compassion and healing, not just for ourselves, but also for other people. If you want to see that sort of thing in operation, the treasuring of pain, the using of pain to the healing of yourself and others, someday attend an open meeting of AA or any of the related groups. That is exactly what those people are doing, sharing their hurts, their experiences and their joys.
And remember the cross. It seems to me that the cross of Christ in a way speaks somewhat like this same word, saying that out of that greatest pain endured in love and faithfulness, comes the greatest beauty and our greatest hope.
“An Ode to Men and Fathers”
David Marcoe at Modern Conservative has a few words for feminists, about men:
Women are not men. Men are not women. Each half supports the other, having interdependent strengths that balance the whole. If you think you could replace them, keep dreaming, because you can’t be men, just as we can’t be women. No matter how hard you rage and storm, no matter how badly you wish it, you can’t change that, nor should you, for attempts to do so have created man-children without virtue, who use women as objects, and women who’ve become ugly caricatures of men and allow themselves to be used and cheapened; the sexes alienated from one another in discord and hostility. In this attempt to deprive this world of a harmonious variety of form, it reduces everything to a tyrannical homogeneity and stamps upon the beauty and adventure of romance that has quickened us since the dawn of the human race.
The Children of Hurin, by J. R. R. Tolkien
(Yes, I finally got around to reading this book.)
The trouble with Tolkien’s Middle Earth writing, apart from The Lord of the Rings, is the acute lack of hobbits. It’s hard to carry off the high heroic tone for a modern audience without offering non-heroic, funny intermediaries with whom the modern reader can identify. The moment I came up with the character of Father Aillil for my Erling books, I understood that the books could work. Modern readers find purely heroic characters and situations kind of clunky. I say it to our shame, but there are few old-style heroes among us (I’m talking about a whole cultural ethic here, not people who do heroic things), and we experience culture shock when we encounter such characters.
I’m not saying The Children of Húrin fails for this reason. I read it with great enjoyment. But you should be prepared for a rather different experience than what you get from Tolkien’s masterwork. If you’ve read The Silmarillion, you know what I mean, and indeed you will have read this story already, in a different form.
The Children of Húrin has been compared to an Icelandic saga. That’s true, if you’re thinking of the high heroic sagas, like the Volsunga Saga, sagas about heroes of old who were larger than life in every way—braver, crueler, more passionate than you and I.
Húrin is not the hero of this book, but his story frames it. At the beginning we learn how he earns the enmity of Glaurung, the evil dragon, who curses him and his family, then forces him to sit watching on a mountain as the curse works itself out. At the end he reappears for a brief epilogue.
The central character is his son Túrin, who (as the Vikings would have put it) has every good quality except for luck. Mighty and brave in battle, devoted to his family and friends, he nevertheless takes every wrong turn. He makes disastrous choices, trusts the wrong people, is offended by his best friends and offends those who should be his allies. In the end the dragon’s curse works itself out in his personal relationships, in a manner worthy of Greek tragedy (something Tolkien imposes on the saga form here, like the recent movie, “Beowulf”). Pity and terror are here in full measure.
I enjoyed it a lot, but it wasn’t lighthearted reading.
Recommended for serious-minded readers. I think it would be all right even for younger teens, if they’re mature.
You’ve Got a Great Band
So, what’s it like to be a guitarist? Dan Skidmore says:
Without a doubt, the single biggest misconception people have about being a professional guitarist is that it is all about your technique on guitar . . . Unless you are Yngwie Malmsteen, being a professional guitarist is primarily about relating to and working well with other musicians. I bet even Mr. Malmsteen has had to say he’s sorry a couple times.
For example, one band I worked for was auditioning bass players. Following the auditions, we talked not only about each bassist’s skills, but also about what we termed his “potential jerk factor.” (We actually used a different word for “jerk.”) We would be spending a lot of time with anyone we hired. Is he pleasant to be around? Is he likely to show up for things on time? Will he do his share of all the work that goes into a gig? These considerations are at least as important as the musicianship. Any working musician will take a solid player with a good attitude over a virtuoso who is a pain.