Mysterium Tremendum Death is a mystery We cannot understand Even as transition For every woman and man Did life stop Or where did it go Must we follow Or can we say no? Why so seeming final A coda that has to end Or is it just our viewpoint That will not let us in Into the wonder Into the gate Into the Presence Before it’s too late Perhaps just a glimpse of glory Perhaps... Read more
O.K. so War and Peace is longer— at 1352 pages, but I’ve never ever read a detective story that ran 945 pages. And I did not see this coming. I read the first three volumes in this series, and missed out 4 through 6, and none of them were near this long. But I had asked for this for Christmas, and my wife got it for me…. so I needed to read this until my eyeballs fell out, or almost... Read more
I’ve watched Trevor Noah a fair bit on TV and on You Tube. He is indeed a funny guy, but while his life story has some hilarious moments in it, it was far more often tragic– full of racism, poverty, brutality, and the saving grace was a mother who was a very devout, church every Sunday Christian. More on that in a bit. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father, and a black South African mother, and was born... Read more
It is rare these days to have a movie that focuses on the intellect, and significant intellectual debate, about the existence of God, the human psyche and related matters. This movie lasts only 2 hours 2 minutes, and frankly we could have used more. Apart from flashbacks to Vienna, and to Lewis’s struggles in WWI, the movie is almost entirely set in London where the Freuds had moved to avoid the Nazis, and in fact set in Freud’s study. The... Read more
Here is the companion volume to Encounters with Jesus which I think you will enjoy and is a perfect little Valentine’s gift. Here’s the description on Amazon…. “As a New Testament character of note, the Apostle Paul is second only to Jesus. In this companion volume to Encounters with Jesus, Ben and Ann Witherington draw on the biblical text and deep knowledge of historical context to bring alive the reactions of several contemporaries to the famous apostle and his words... Read more
Wendell Berry— Kentucky poet laureate, author, teacher of English literature “The interesting question here is…whether a book that so directly offers itself to our belief or disbelief can be taught as ‘literature’. It clearly cannot be so taught except by ignoring ‘whatever else it may be’ which is a very substantial part of it. The question then is whether it can be adequately or usefully taught as something less that it is. The fact is that the writers of the... Read more
“Sting’s gift for prose and reverence for language, nearly the equal of his musical gifts, shine on every page. Even when Broken Music addresses the quixotic life of an aspiring rock & roller, it reads like literature from a more rarified time when adults didn’t condescend to the vulgarities of pop culture.” —Rolling Stone “Having been a songwriter most of my life, condensing my ideas and emotions into short rhyming couplets and setting them to music, I had never really considered writing... Read more
I’m enjoying reading Sting’s memoir which covers the years from his birth in 1951 (he’s 2 months older than me) to when the Police really got going as a band with Roxanne. I’ll do a review in a day or two. Turns out Stewart Copeland the drummer had a dad who was a CIA agent. The following story is either hilarious or tragic depending on how important you think the Qumran scrolls are: “After the Dead Sea Scrolls were found... Read more
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