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If you’re at all interested in the topic of life before and after life, don’t let the opportunity pass you by to see Remembering Heaven while it’s in movie theaters. (I don’t know the extent of its distribution, but I know that it’s playing at several locations here in Utah Valley.). The film’s run may be over before you realize.
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Interpreter Radio Show — April 10, 2022
In the first hour of this episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, which has now been archived and made available to you on demand and at no charge, Terry Hutchinson and John Gee and Kevin Christensen discuss Holy Week. They also discuss rabbinical innuendos and Joseph of Egypt. The second portion of the show is devoted to a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #21 (Deuteronomy 6–8; 15; 18; 29–30; 34). You can listen to or download the 10 April 2022 installment of the Interpreter Radio Show at the link provided above. The regular weekly Interpreter Radio Show can be heard each and every Sunday evening from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. Or, alternatively, you can listen live on the Internet, from wherever you may be, at ktalkmedia.com.
Jonn Claybaugh generously continues with his series of short notes on readings for the Come, Follow Me curriculum.
The panelists for the Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 21, “Beware Lest Thou Forget the Lord,” on Deuteronomy 6–8; 15; 18; 29–30; 34, were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen. This roundtable was extracted from the 10 April 2022 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. The complete program can be heard — at no charge! — at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-April-10-2022/. The live Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings — every week — from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. Alternatively, you can listen to the program live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
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You might enjoy this article, by Maggie Phillips, in the Jewish periodical Tablet:
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I like this essay very much, and I agree with it completely:
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On the flight from Tel Aviv to New York City the other day, one of the films that I watched was American Underdog, a 2021 effort that tells the unlikely story of the former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner. And I must say that, although I already knew pretty much how the story was going to turn out, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. And seeing it put me in the mood, once again, to watch the 1984 Robert Redford film The Natural. (Between jet lag and a terrible cold that I picked up on the second-to-last day in Jerusalem, I’m functioning at about 20% of capacity right now, so I’ve watched several movies.) Those familiar with American Underdog and The Natural will readily understand why the two films are connected in my mind. And, of course, watching that last at-bat in The Natural immediately took me back to one of my favorite memories of my father. Those familiar with The Natural and with this story will immediately understand the connection:
On 15 October 1988, my family and I were down in southern California visiting my parents for some reason. (I can’t recall why; it was during the school year. I think that I was giving a paper at some sort of academic conference.) The World Series had just begun, but (again, for reasons that I can’t quite recall) I hadn’t been watching it. It was a Saturday night, and I had been out. I vaguely remember that I may have given a Church fireside that evening, somewhere.) My father, however, had been watching the game on television on television in their upstairs rec room.
The injured Kirk Gibson, hurting in not just one but both legs, was called upon to pinch hit. The Dodgers were trailing 4–3. The tying run was at first base, but there were two outs and it was the bottom of the ninth inning. The Oakland Athletics were the overwhelming favorites to take the Series.
Classic.
I walked into the room to watch the end of the game and to endure the probable Dodger defeat with my Dad. After all, baseball had been an important part of our lives. We were seated along the first base line at Dodger Stadium in 1962, for example, when the great Sandy Koufax pitched his first no-hitter
I remember commenting that night that, if this were a movie, the aging, injured slugger would hit a home run, and the Dodgers would win the game as he hobbled around the bases to a standing ovation and a deafening roar. (Remember that The Natural had come out in 1984. It was still fairly fresh in my mind.)
But the count on Gibson quickly moved to 0-2. And his swings looked weak, awkward. The runner stole second base. Gibson kept fouling things off. The count went to 3-2. He was still there. He was still alive. And then . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U157X0jy5iw
It was a truly great moment. And I shared it with my Dad.
(How I miss him, still.)
About eight years after we watched Kirk Gibson round the bases on the memorable night, my father suffered a devastating and wholly unexpected stroke while undergoing what we had expected to be minor and fairly routine surgery. Suddenly, a very vigorous, active, and bright man was blind — and acutely aware that his intellectual abilities had been blunted. Dad couldn’t really do much during those seven sad, long years of incapacity. But he listened faithfully to Vin Scully’s radio broadcasts of Dodger games.
When I first entered his house after Dad’s death in 2003, I saw the schedule of games that his caretaker had affixed to the refrigerator and I saw the chair in which, day after day, night after night, he sat to listen to the Dodgers. It was too much for me. I asked my boys to, please, take that schedule off the fridge and move the chair from the room, to put it outside. Right away. I couldn’t look at them.
As Redford’s Roy Hobbs ran the bases to Randy Newman’s powerful score, I teared up. Not for Roy Hobbs. For Dad.
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