You know that Kimbooktu has a focus on bookshelves and home libraries. Here she links to some cool designs in shelving, some more practical than others. I love this Ellipse Bookcase. It has a hobbit feel. This Ceiling Book Storage is impressive too.
The Incarnation of Evil
By way of Kimbooktu, I have learned the William J. Clinton Presidential Library has a representation of Cthulhu overlook the visitors. Scroll down a bit to see a couple photos of it. It’s labeled a “Chihuly Sculpture,” but [not so] seriously, doesn’t that remind you of the biggest force of evil in this universe this side of Darth Vader?
Country Quiz
The question should be, “How many country names can you spell correctly under pressure?” I burned seconds trying to spell “Mozambique” and “Colombia” and many I would not have tried.
Two Thoughts
I’ve been thinking of my sister lately. I think she’s a fan of NPR’s “What, What . . . Don’t Tell Me!” It’s hilarious. I have it on now, one of the repeats they have during the weekend. Have you heard it?
Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea makes this comment on something my sister told me she is enjoying too: “Don’t get me started on having Michael York . . . ruining The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe from the Chronicles of Narnia boxed set I got — although I have to say the bad experience was nicely balanced by the heaven of listening to Jeremy Northam reading The Silver Chair – oh yummy yummy, I could just eat him up!”
Recommended Reading on Modern History
I’m listening to the current edition of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, and the host, Ken Myers, recommends Fred Turner’s book From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.
Kingdom Blends Works to Help Third World
Pastor David Banks of Chattanooga challenged his congregation to set a goal for this year to do something out of their comfort zone which would influence someone’s life. Taking the challenge himself, he started Kingdom Blends coffee, which sells in the Folk Heart store in Northgate Mall and by phone. Part of the sale price goes to Kiva for third world family loans.
Parabola
James Lileks at www.buzz.mn says they’re having a try-out for the game show, Jeopardy at the Mall of America tonight.
Ah well. If God had intended me to go to the try-out, He wouldn’t have scheduled a Viking Age Society meeting for tonight.
My subject, in lieu of phrasing my answer in the form of a question, is the parables of Jesus.
Most Christians think they know all about the parables. It’s my opinion that most of what we think we know is… not exactly mistaken. But inadequate.
I grew up (and I don’t think I’m alone) with the idea that the parables were essentially allegory. You go to them with the idea of figuring out what this or that symbolizes, and then you have the meaning.
But have you noticed that that approach doesn’t actually work very well when you go to the text?
It works fine for some of the parables. The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3-9) is a classic of this form. In fact, the disciples ask Jesus what it means, and He gives an allegorical interpretation. The seed stands for something, and the various kinds of ground on which it falls stand for various kinds of people.
And yet… what does that interpretation tell us? That some people accept the gospel, and some people don’t. Hardly news to anybody who’s ever tried to share his faith.
So it seems to me that Jesus’ interpretation wasn’t meant to be exhaustive. I think He meant us to meditate on the story and read the deeper implications—the fact that people who want to spread the gospel have to be prepared to see most of their work appear to be wasted, holding onto faith that the portion that falls on the “good soil” will bring a return that makes up for the disappointment of the others. In other words, courage and persistence and optimism are the point, as any good salesman could tell you.
Some parables seem to be plain narrative, with no symbolism involved. Take the parable of the Rich Man with the storehouses (Luke 12:16-21). I look in vain here for any symbolism or allegory. The rich man represents a rich man. He’s accumulated so much grain (which symbolizes grain) that he’s making plans to tear down his old storehouses (which I interpret for you to mean storehouses) and build new ones to hold it all. He doesn’t know that he’s about to die, and then all his wealth will do him no good. This isn’t allegory. It’s a cautionary tale. Jesus says, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (verse 21). We miss the point of this story, I think, when we look for symbolism when we ought to be taking it literally.
And then there are the “difficult parables.” There’s the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8). How are we to take a story where Jesus asks us to think of God as being like an unjust judge? (No wonder the Sanhedrin considered Him a blasphemer!). Or the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-13). Here Jesus seems to be holding up an embezzler as an example for His disciples. What’s with that?
This is again a problem of looking for allegory where something else is intended. These two stories aren’t allegories. They’re… I don’t know what to call them. There’s probably a literary term. They’re stories intended to shock, to twist paradigms, to deliver a narrative kick to our pants. Jesus is simply telling fantastic, shocking (and somewhat comic) stories to get our attention. He doesn’t want us to take the Unjust Judge or the Unjust Steward as reliable symbols or role models. He just wants us to look at the things we do from a different perspective. These stories are like the two-by-four with which the farmer in the old joke smacks his mule, just “to get its attention.”
My point in all this is to say that the parables, considered merely as a group of stories, are highly remarkable, and far more textured and complex than we usually think.
It seems to me that even someone who didn’t believe the Christian religion would have to stop a moment in puzzlement if he encountered these stories for the first time, and was informed that they came from an obscure, First Century Jewish peasant. I think he’d say, “This must have been some peasant.”
The Reason for God
The website for Tim Keller’s book, The Reason for God, is fantastic, loaded with audio downloads and a study guide. This looks like a great book for the modern church. First Things has a lengthy interview with Keller, which appears to be linked from many blogs. Keller says:
I think the new-atheism thing was an impetus [to writing the book], and it was also an opportunity, because I believe that this book, say, three or four years ago, the average secular person in a Barnes & Noble wouldn’t necessarily—why would you pick up a book that’s designed to say orthodox Christianity’s true? But now, as part of the cultural conversation, the book’s title immediately positions it as an answer.
…
Penguin probably was willing—which doesn’t even have a religion division—the reason Penguin was interested in it was because of the cultural conversation and the new atheists. I don’t think they would have picked it up otherwise, frankly. But they’ve been really supportive, wonderful.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal
That is, another animal that has been hit by Jared Wilson. Didn’t know that, did you? Well, there are other amazing facts I’ll bet you didn’t know, generated by The Mechanical Contrivium. The inimitable Mr. Wilson points out this spectacular device, and since I want to be like him when I grow up, I plugged in my vital data and discovered these amazing things!
1. Phil Wade was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom his name comes.
2. You share your birthday with Phil Wade!
3. The only Englishman to become Phil Wade was Nicholas Breakspear, who was Phil Wade from 1154 to 1159.
4. Phil Wadeomancy is the art of telling the future with Phil Wade.
5. Four-fifths of the surface of Phil Wade is covered in water.
6. Antarctica is the only continent without Phil Wade.
7. 99 percent of the pumpkins sold in the US end up as Phil Wade.
8. Bees visit over three million flowers to make a single kilogram of Phil Wade.
9. Phil Wade is actually a mammal, not a fish!
10. Ninety-six percent of all candles sold are purchased by Phil Wade.
I’ve often thought there were many bees in my yard.
Pointless movie bleg
Tonight, for no useful purpose whatever, I’m going to tell you about a movie I saw almost half a century ago—once. It’s lingered in my mind ever since, and I have no idea what it was called or who acted in it. Maybe you can help.
I must have seen it before 1960, when I was ten years old, because I’m sure I saw it at my grandparents’ old (big) house, rather than their later (smaller) house. I had the idea at the time that it was quite an old film, perhaps an early “talky,” but I could be mistaken. It was a long time ago, and I’m keenly aware how faulty my memories can be. The summary of the plot I’m about to give you is probably wrong in several places. But this is how I remember it.
The movie opens a few years before the Civil War, somewhere in the American Midwest. Very likely Illinois, for reasons that come up later. The hero of the story is first seen as a boy, living on a farm with his loving mother and his legalistic, sadistic preacher father (a character Hollywood would find it convenient to clone and recycle countless times in the years to come). The boy dreams of becoming a doctor, and gets his hands on a collection of medical journals. He keeps them hidden from his father, though, because his father considers them things of the devil. (I’m not sure why. I don’t know of any Christian church that considered medicine evil in those days. Perhaps the old man just disapproved of all printed matter that wasn’t the Bible.)
The father discovers the journals (in the barn, I think), and gives the boy a vicious whipping (in the barn, I’m certain). The violence of the whipping so panics the family’s horse (a white one to which the boy is deeply attached) that it injures itself in its stall. Because of this it gets a noticeable scar on its flank.
Eventually the boy runs away from home (with or without the horse, I’m not sure, though boy and horse part company at some point) and goes to medical school. When the Civil War begins, he becomes a surgeon in the Union Army.
After a particular battle, a general is brought in to the hospital with a horribly injured arm. Informed that the arm will have to be amputated, he begs them to try to save it. He promises a great reward to any doctor who can save his arm.
Our hero notices the general’s white horse, and sees the old familiar scar. It’s his old family horse. So he goes to the general and asks if he can have the horse if he saves the arm. The general agrees, so he goes to work with all his skill, and somehow works a miracle. The arm is saved and he gets the horse.
Later he (along with the horse, I have no doubt) performs an act of conspicuous gallantry, and he wins the Congressional Medal of Honor. He’s sent to Washington, DC to be decorated by President Lincoln, and the president makes time (because the young man is from Illinois, if I remember correctly) to talk with him a while. When Lincoln learns that the young man has not been home since he ran away, he chastises him for neglecting his mother. In his capacity as Commander in Chief, he gives the young man leave and orders him to go home.
After that I can’t remember anything.
Anybody know this movie?
Update: OK, a little more Yahooing turned the film up. It’s called “Of Human Hearts,” and was made in 1938. It starred Walter Huston as the preacher father, and James Stewart as the son, once he’d grown up. Beulah Bondi played Stewart’s mother, the first of several times she did that.
From the synopsis, the film appears to have been a little more sympathetic to the father’s situation than my memory recalls, but all in all my reminiscences don’t seem to be too far off track.
You can stop hunting now.
Update to Update: Thanks to reader Paul Stieg, who e-mailed me with the correct answer at about precisely the time I found it myself. He says that, alas, it’s not yet available on DVD.