Check this out. It’s wonderful and it hits the nail on the head about some of the bad reasoning and plain old bombastics some people shout from the pulpit (or “front” or whatever you call it).
Yes. Bombastics!
http://www.nakedpastor.com/archives/4117
Where’s the wireless mike?
…expose and skewer a%^hattery in the Church and do it in a loving but prophetic way. I mean, Jesus was a Sabra an Israeli Jew who had it all correct. He is my Lord and I serve him.
If you have ever been to Israel and watched folks relate to each other…I’ll maybe get to my impressions on this at another time. But I’ll leave you with this. Jesus didn’t make tea cozies and He is no milk toast. He knew what was what and it took a cross to prove it. To make the point stick, He resurrected and one of these days He’s coming back and believe me it’s going to be a bad day for a lot of people.
So Church, quit the navel-staring and self-stimulating behavior and get on with the business of our King. Yes, we serve a king not a president.
Thanks be to God.
St. John Chrysostum
I want to be a gaucho;
Not a governor.
I think my wife and I are hospitable people. This doesn’t mean we are perfect at hospitality or all of the protocols, courtesies and procedures. No one is going to feature us in any of the hospitality mags but I think we do fine.
Here’s a scenario. On a cold weekday afternoon four people show up at my front door; two males, two females. They are husbands/wives. They came to visit someone else who was staying at our house. When I answered the doorbell and open the door in walks this gaggle I will refer to as, The Four. The first two through the door were the girls. They made little eye contact with me and neither of them said a word to me even though I said a quick hello. They simply filed up the stairs to the living room. Next are the two guys (they were such gentleman letting their wives in ahead of them). The first one had the presence and politeness to stop and ask if he should take off his shoes – momentary eye contact. I said he could leave them on his feet, no problem. He moved on up the stairs and then the last guy filed right in and doesn’t say a word to me and goes straight upstairs. I closed the door. I went back upstairs to my home office to continue working, a little annoyed. Why?
I knew only half of The Four. The two guys I had never met. The two girls on the other hand I knew on and off over the course of about nine years while we lived in a certain Great Lakes state where some people have foreheads shaped and as big as car bumpers. The person who invited them to my house on this weekday knew them much better than I. I am not sure what warranted the silent treatment from three of The Four. Granted, I hadn’t seen one of the two girls for over three years and had never met the two guys. The other girl has visited us and our guest on two other occasions and we chatted amicably on those two occasions. She’s normally sociable. But on this visit she reminded of a scared dog. The one girl I hadn’t seen for over three years reminded me of a certain character Tilda Swinton played in a certain Disney movie from 2005 (a dealer of Turkish Delight and temptress of adventurous little boys). For the two guys, I choose not to share my thoughts.
I have my hunches as to why I was treated the way I was. I have to admit, however, I was flummoxed about how to treat them (The Four). What do you do when you smell fear and a high “I Don’t Like You” quotient coming from your visitors? What is the hospitable thing or things to do? Why do I think at least one of them (Ms. Swinton’s act-alike) would just love to see me and my wife hit by a train or under a bus? It may have something to do with who they came to visit and their own recollections of past events in that certain Great Lakes state. I am reasonably sure the two girls related highly exaggerated stories to their husbands about my wife and I. Without stretching too far, I would also venture to guess the two girls may have been helped in their own retellings and recollections by the person they came to visit.
Oh, well. This won’t be the first or last time I have interaction with people who really don’t or seem not to like me. I am glad my eternity doesn’t rest on this or what anybody thinks of me. The Lord only knows that I have treated people in similar ways as The Four did me that cold weekday afternoon. How do you treat folks like this who come to your house especially if they are the guests of a guest? It’s just a little disturbing because I think I missed something but I’m not sure what it was. Any ideas?
I want to know why the murder of a very outspoken abortionist got so much press and coverage from the White House and why this got nary a mention. Something is really wrong around here.
http://littlerock.fbi.gov/pressrel/2009/lr060209.htm
We are offered the stories of several Racine highschool students (mostly girls) as we follow them to the prom. The documentary captures what I thought was a lot of silliness, faux romance and bragging. One girl talked up her penchant for smoking weed and how her parents didn’t really mind. She was definitely letting the viewers know she intended to get high. Big deal! What does that bring to the story? Why did the directors bother?
The movies was just average. As with many documentatries, the film makers tend to throw everything into the pot and make a stew. The film was a stew. I came away from it not quite getting the point the directors were trying to make. It was a jumble with only a few entertaining and engaging moments; as during the end credits. This is where the directors interspersed information on what happened to some of the kids in the film. If you have to wait to the end credits to be engaged by a film, you have to wonder why you watched it at all.
“The 400 Blows” (1959) is Francois Truffaut’s first feature length film. It is very touching and sensitive and is loosely auto-biographical of Truffaut’s life as a young boy. The boy is Antoine Doinel [JEAN-PIERRE LEAUD] and he is shown as a rather average but resorceful person growing up in Paris. The unfortunate thing about him is he is, by all appearances, heading for a criminal life. He is type cast as a trouble-maker by his school teacher and he lives up to some of it. By and large, he seems to be misunderstood by many people in his life including his mother [CLAIRE MAURIE] and step-father [ALBERT REMY]. Both of them are either pre-occupied or physically and emotionally distant while they fight financial poverty.
There are some touching and funny scenes. One is when Antoine builds an altar to Balzac into which he puts a lighted candle. I thought when I saw it, is there going to be a fire?
Well there was and after some commotion as his parent put out the fire, they extend forgiveness to Antoine and take him to see a movie. One the way home they talk and laugh about the movie. The other scene is funny and is shot from above street level. It shows a physical education teacher leading the boys on a jog through Paris. As they proceed through the streets, two ro three at a time peel off, until the teacher is leading only a couple of boys. (I would have loved to have evaded my PE teachers).
The film is simply…filmed. There aren’t a lot trappings. Everything seems to lead up to the final shot as he is running away from a detention home. Antoine finds himself on an oceanside beach, stuck between land and sea, present and future. He gets to the ocean and turns and looks right into the camera.
I liked this film because of its simplicity and honesty. Some of us know nothing about Truffaut and might remember seeing him in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. He died way too young at the age of 52 of brain cancer in 1984. An English-language film Truffaut directed and one you may also want to see is “Fahrenheit 451″ (1966). Hmmm…book burning and tolerance. We may just be heading in that direction.
Normal Guy 50-Words-Or-Less Plot: A story of a midwife in London who innocently stumbles into the Russian mob while trying to find an orphaned child’s extended family.
A midwife, Anna Khitrova [NAOMI WATTS], at a London hospital helps deliver a newborn. The teenage mother dies during childbirth leaving behind a diary. Anna starts trying to find the child’s family using the diary. However, the diary is written in Russian and Anna doesn’t read Russian. She enlists the help of her uncle Stepan [JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI] to translate the diary but he thinks Anna “robbed” the dead person by taking her diary and is reluctant to help. Anna’s mother, Helen [SINÉAD CUSACK], with whom Anna lives and who understands her daughter’s quest, convinces Stepan to translate.
Anna’s quest leads her to Semyon [ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL], a London restaurant owner and Russian mob boss. He is interested in translating the diary, especially when he learns from Anna that it belonged to someone he may have known. Semyon is also dealing with his son Kirill [VINCENT CASSEL], whose activities led another mobster, Azim [MINA E. MINA], to have someone killed. The victim’s family is out for revenge and Semyon is worried. But he hopes his driver, Nikolai Luzhin [VIGGO MORTENSEN], can deal with the matter.
Nikolai meets and is interested in Anna and her quest. Anna gets more uneasy as she falls deeper into the dark realm of Russian mobsters. However, she goes on with a pursuit that potentially puts her life in danger as the mystery unravels.
Director David Cronenberg is a good storyteller. With shades of “A History of Violence” Cronenberg takes us from the American mob in America to the Russian mod in London. He does a good job examining the human psyche looking both at the criminal and non-criminal elements.
The movie was a sometimes violent and graphic but compelling experience. The relationship between Mortensen and Watts gives the film its human touch. This leads to a twist toward the end of the film which I didn’t quite grasp. I liked Watts as the resolute in-too-deep midwife. Her mission was noble and this made her very appealing. Mortensen’s character was no less compelling because his was multi-layered playing to a dark and a light side.
Be warned: the film opens with a throat-slashing. It contains more shocking scenes of brutal violence with one in particular where a nude Mortensen fights off two fully clothed men, armed with knives, in a bathhouse. There is also one scene of graphic sexuality which occurs earlier in the film.
I liked the film. This is a story about identity and a person’s story; witness the diary, the orphan and the tattoos (story on human skin). The whole cast delivers very good, strong performances.
This movie is not for the squeamish so avoid it if you have trouble viewing the scenes I described. But the story itself is a keeper and it got me to thinking. Some of us write our stories on our skin or in diaries. Wouldn’t it be better if our stories were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life?
Themes: life, death, rescue, abandonment, rape, murder, human trafficking, redemption, seeking parental approval, prostitution, addiction
I am a mountain.
Snow-covered, grey and present,
But I am not seen.
