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February 5, 2006
Nanny McPhee
What a very pleasant surprise--a surprise with the likes of Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, and Angela Lansbury.
The story is adapted from a series of book by Christianna Brand. (I hadn't any idea. Ms. Brand is known to me for a number of fine mysteries including Death in High Heels and Green for Danger.) Very Mary Poppins-like, Nanny McPhee joins the beleaguered Brown family, gets it properly organized in typical Edwardian fashion and then is off again.
What is so very delightful is the way the story incorporates some of the very oldest cinematic cliches in a way that refreshes them and makes them funny once again.
Samuel loved the film as did both Samuel's mother and father. Highly recommended for those who wish to take children to see a film in which family is extolled, supported, and celebrated.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Night Walker
An entry in the Hard-Case Crime series by Donald Hamilton, Night Walker suffers a bit in the plotting department, the noir department, and the writing department. It is adequate and light fluff, but hardly a heavy hitter, not even coming up to the standards of the Day Keene entry Home is the Sailor.
The story centers around a Navy Reserve Officer after WWII being called up to service again. Not keen about the idea he spends the travel money on a drunk and ends up hitchhiking his way to the hospital via a driver who picks him up and clubs him over the head. Add to that a reluctant murderer wife, some espionage, and a girl-fried who won't let go and you have a fairly typical noir mix. However, the atmosphere doesn't really have the menace necessary for a successful noir--nor is it steamy enough to move successfully into the hardboiled realm.
Hamilton is better known as the creator of Matt Helm, a detective/spy played with variable success in a series of films starring Dean Martin (heck, it was the Zeitgeist, you have Bond, Flynn, Helm, on television The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Saint, and The Avengers.
Anyway, if you haven't anything else to fill an idle hour-and-a-half, this can be entertaining enough. But I'd probably suggest you try the Day Keene or, so far at least, the Stephen King entry in the series The Colorado Kid.
Next up after The Colorado Kid--Paul Levine's The Deep Blue Alibi (more Florida Mystery), Michael Innes Sheiks and Adders and From London Far (lent me by a friend) and about two dozen Perry Mason. Found a stash that includes the first ten and I have about fourteen of my own. Yes, when the heat is on at work, the brain goes on vacation away.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spiritual Anger
At the beginning of Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross details a number of "spiritual sins" that can get in the way of progress toward intimacy with the Lord. The seven capital sins have their corresponding faults and sins in the spiritual world.
I had wondered about what spiritual anger might be. I happened to read the significant passages again yesterday and then today, I had an example served to me on a platter.
In our local area we have a tremendous opportunity for a retreat. It will last three days and the cost for staying over is less than two-hundred dollars. I have spoken to a number of people who live in a better part of town than I do, who spend a good deal of money to go on fairly extravagant vacations and who go on pilgrimages when the locations are right. Some of these people told me that the retreat is too expensive. A person I was speaking to was very upset over this wondering how they could spend the money on frivolity and pass up such a great opportunity.
That, in a nutshell, is the genesis of spiritual anger. I won't say that this person had it, but when we let that thought dwell on us and we begin to get truly angry about how people's priorities are all messed up, we have entered the realm of spiritual anger.
I thought about this and wondered how much of the conflict between different groups of Catholics was tainted with this sin. How often do I get angry at some petty transgression of the rubrics? Angry enough for it to throw me off-course during the mass? Turns out that it isn't very often, but once is too much. Spiritual anger takes concern over a very important matter and turns it into an opportunity to judge and exercise my own righteousness against others. It is entirely destructive because I can begin to convince myself that my anger is righteous because it is in a righteous cause and that those who are the subject of my anger are truly unregenerate sinners who wish to tear apart the fabric of the Church. That may be true, but I do not have the right to sit in the judgment seat--my anger in this matter separates me from God just as surely as my anger in more secular matters. When anger leads to judgment against a person, it separates us from the love of God.
Spiritual anger is a real danger. It seems more real in the world today because there are so many abuses. But being aware of its possibility renders it less of danger. When we are angry about a real abuse, we need simply steer away from judgment. We address the abuse, pray for the one committing the abuse, and leave the matter in God's hands otherwise, neither condoning nor condemning--rather commending to God's infinite mercy those who trespass against us.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 6, 2006
The Colorado Kid Stephen King
It looks like a noir. It's titled like a noir. But it sure ain't a noir, and in a sense that's what makes it so marvelous.
You all may be acquainted with the grand and glorious paperback/pulp tradition of the 1950s and 60s in which you have a lurid, or at least a suggestive cover on a piece of content that has nothing whatsoever suggestive about it. Evidentiary support The Colorado Kid--cover, a seductive picture of a young woman in black holding a microphone. The promise--"she'll get secrets out of a dead man." The actuality--nothing of the sort.
The story is the tale of two old-geezer newspaper reporters on an island off the coast of Maine (Moose-Lookit Island) who are relating to a young intern the story of a truly mysterious happening on the island--a never-solved mystery.
In that sense, the story is only just barely a mystery and it certainly doesn't qualify in any sense for a hard-boiled or noir mystery. However, that is the icing on the cake--the vast majority of hard-boiled or noir don't really qualify. Hard Case Crimes hit a home run with this little ruse. In addition they accomplished quite a little coup in getting a piece by Stephen King to bolster sales. It would seem to me that this one title alone would be likely to support the line for a year or more.
The story itself is well done. When Stephen King sets aside certain personal fetishes he can write like no one else. This story resembles in kind only "The Body," only without any hint of anything gross. In a sense, it is among the most mature, adult writing Mr. King has done. The story is captivating and carries you right along even though you sense that you might not be getting what you paid for. By the time you're done you're either happy or furious--(in fact, I was happy because the author broadcast the end long enough in advance for you to leave off if you hadn't any interest.)
A very fine entry in the series, and a very fine story all on its own. Highly recommended.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 8, 2006
Reasons for Not Reading the Bible
In an interesting series of posts at Disputations, Tom discusses the importance of reading the Bible. In the comments there are a variety of reasons given for not doing so. Among the most curious to me was that reading the Bible was hard.
Tom seemed to understand immediately what was meant by this. To me it was nearly a foreign language. Reading the Bible has never been difficult for me. But I also think I know the reason why.
Pardon me if I spend a few moments sharing too much information about my family. My Grandpa Riddle (I can't really speak to Grandma's case so well) never graduated High School. I think he got an eighth grade education before he had to start working to help support the family. (I remember how proud he was when he got his GED at the age of 80, as though somehow a life of building houses and churches was not enough.) I don't know about the educational level of my grandparents on my Mother's side of the family, but I suspect they graduated high school.
The translations of the Bible available to my grandparents were limited in number and even more limited by tradition. Limited, in fact, to one--the KJV. Now, people who complain about the difficulty of reading the Bible should try the KJV or other close approximations of foreign languages. The USCCB has done its level best to produce the most cacophonous, least coherent and lovely translation ever to assault the eyes and eardrums of humanity, but there are translations out there even more tone-deaf and less euphonious. The point is, my 8th grade educated grandfather and my high-school educated grandparents not only had these bibles, but they read them--every day of their lives.
I had occasion to go and stay with my grandmother to help her around the house and get her to appointments while my grandfather was in the hospital recovering from surgery. During times in the hospital waiting room, when she wasn't lifting the spirits of other visitors, she was rapt in her Bible.
One time my Grandpa S was saying something about the Blessed Virgin (this upon learning that I had wholeheartedly joined the Catholic Church) and my grandmother quoted chapter and verse.
Grandpa, "There's nothing so great about Mary."
Grandma, "Now, Oscar (her pet name for him, you know it says right there in the Good Book itself, 'Hail thou that art highly favored, Blessed art thou among women. . .'Cain't see any way around that making her special. The good book says so."
For any occasion their first recourse was the rich treasury of scripture that they had read, memorized, internalized, and to some degree lived. Both of my grandfathers could give long, and I pleased to say that subsequent research revealed, largely correct talks about the historical background of the books of the Bible, and understood clearly what is often unclear to me in Paul's letters. I remember an old Riddle (pardon the pun) that Grandpa Riddle posed me--"Who was the oldest man who ever lived that died before his father did?"
Admittedly, they had a very literal understanding of the Bible which was not open to discussion or probing. But understand, they did. More importantly, they read, and they didn't just parrot back the words.
What I want to reemphasize is that this was the KJV, Jacobean English, nearly a foreign language to us today. It was not "too hard" for them to do. They found no problem at all in reading it daily.
My purpose is not to make anyone feel bad about saying, "It's hard to read the Bible." There are so many ways that is true. But if it is a priority, what is hard becomes easy, "My yoke is easy, my burden light."
My point in recording this is to remind me, when I'm busy making excuses for why I don't get around to it as often as I would like that it isn't particularly difficult as a task, only as an obligation. The trick is to ask for the grace to turn an obligation into an invitation and to accept as frequently as possible that invitation.
My grandparents wouldn't have thought of facing the day without "being in the word." In a similar way, I would do well to make it the number one priority, rather than number six, seven, ten, fourteen, or dead last. My grandparents leaned upon it as a staff of life and I can still recall my Grandpa saying, "man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD." Perhaps I would do well to have a little less bread and a bit more WORD.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:14 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
I Probably Shouldn't Like It as Much as I Do
Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this all my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on--from "Jesus Take the Wheel" Carrie Underwood
Jesus, take the wheel! Boy, if only I could bring myself to say it and mean it.
This is one of those songs that probably means a good deal more to those of us with a history of "Jesus speak," a form of communication common among evangelicals and fundamentalists, but nearly unknown outside of Catholic Charismatic circuits. Understand, it is simply a cultural things, like grits at breakfast, or rice, sugar, and butter, or turnip greens with fatback. Not better, not worse, simply a different way of saying the same thing. Utterly alien to most Catholics and "mainline" Protestants. But it feels like home to me.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
A Shared Conversation
Shared betwixt myself and another Opera aficionado--
"Jump, Tosca! Jump! Please put us out of your misery."
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 9, 2006
The Sickness Which Is Unto Death
Reading around blogdom, I have come to realize that society is infused with a sickness which is unto death. I'm not unique in this observation: as a people and as individuals, we are distracting ourselves to death.
Not so long ago a work day was fourteen hours plus, then one came home and tended to things on the homefront that needed tending. We had bigger families and more help, but hours were long and recreation limited. Most people worked at least six days a week. (In fact, the Church obligation to attend Mass was set as a kind of charitable acknowledgment of the fact that Lords would have worked their serfs to death if attendance were not mandatory. The penalty was set for those who did not attend AND for those who obstructed another's attendance.)
Now most of us work eight hour days. We come home and probably grumblingly do some housework and then sit down in front of the television. According to one source, football and Harry Potter can be seen as definitive elements of community binding. I read this list from Christian Science Monitor with a kind of heartsickness. Of all of the events listed in the roster only one approached anything like a true community event (Fourth of July Celebrations). Most of the rest were endless distractions and amusements. Where were baptisms? Weddings? Eucharist? Confirmation? Prayer? Service? Where were the true things that help you know who you can really call upon in a time of great trial? I didn't see them on the list. No doubt Harry Potter fans are very generous, but I suspect that if my house burned down, I would turn rather to the members of my Church and my circle of friends for help, comfort, and solace. Are football games and The DaVinci Code and CNN the sum of what binds us together as society and community? If so, what a very sad statement on our culture.
Some have claimed that reading the Bible is too hard. I know that part of what they mean (for me at least, and perhaps for many others) is that it gets in the ways of other more amusing distractions. I can't read my twenty-two mysteries a month, or watch my eighty-nine movies, or indulge in my six must-see series, or play my softball, bowling, or curling matches. Coming up will be an endless cycle of Olympic broadcasts, the results of which I will glean from postings on the Blogs. And Blogs themselves--an amusement that can have a serious side, but really an amusement.
How can we identify when these things are a problem? I think it's fairly simple--do you craft a schedule around them? Does everything stop when the show comes on? Do you get irritated if someone interferes with quality reading time with a request for homework help or housework help? Do you resent giving up the time you would otherwise devote to the activity? Are you churlish, boorish, mean-spirited, or otherwise petty when someone suggests that your time might be better spent? Do you resent, just a little, any interference with your planned recreation?
I know that I can answer a big yes to many of these questions about both reading and blogging. If I am not ready to abandon the amusement at once to attend to important things in life, then the amusement has too much control over me. If my amusement prevents me from having a full prayer life or from reading scripture every day, then it is a sickness unto death--because the amusement has moved squarely between me and the God I must adore, worship, and glorify in all that I do.
This whole post started with the thought that "Bible reading is too hard." I said in a previous post that it has never been hard for me. And it hasn't. But I haven't done nearly enough of it. I began to ask myself why--and it occurred to me that my distractions and my amusements have become the entangling weeds of Jesus' parable. They are good things in themselves that have grown into me and become twisted by my own twisted spirit, my own reluctance to do what is good and right.
So now, for the evening, I'm leaving the blog. I go to do my Bible reading, to spend time with the wife and my beautiful son, and to ask God to give me the strength to do likewise every day of my life. Only grace can save us from our distractions once they have grown too strong and too encompassing.
(Sorry, if this is a downer, but I was commenting to someone the other day that I felt weary. I realize the source of that weariness is the utter sapping strength of my amusements and distractions. I am not doing what is right and good, only what can be good in moderation--and because moderation is lacking in many areas, the very goodness of it is questionable now. I know--typical Carmelite detachment talk--but where would you all be if it didn't come up every now and then?)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:02 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
The Urgency of the Gospel Message
The Gospel according to Mark is breathless, relentless, starting at a run and never letting up. Not for Mark the leisurely winding beginnings of Matthew and Luke, nor the theological ruminations of John. No, instead at breakneck pace we get--
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight—"
4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
An entire sentence of introduction before a prophecy, before a prophet. And this is followed by the introduction of St. John the Baptist, the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the forty days fast and temptation, the Arrest of St. John the Baptist, the choosing of Simon and Andrew and James and John, teaching in the synagogue, the exorcism of the first victim of demons, the healing of Peter's mother, the healing of an entire city, the first retreat, the beginning of the preaching mission, and the first healing of a leper. And THAT'S chapter 1!
Doesn't this suggest something about the urgency of the Gospel message. This charged Gospel is all about getting us moving. It is short, to the point, punchy, like life itself. In an opinion poll it would probably rank fairly low in popularity among the four gospels because it is so direct, pithy, to the point. Its directness demands a response, an immediate response. The reader is sucked into the narrative, into the immediacy of the life of Christ. You can't take a breath without breathing in an action of Jesus. It's a whirlwind, a roller coaster ride, an invitation to adventure, and a passionate romance all in one. The Gospel according to Mark is the swiftest and sleekest way into the heart of the story of Jesus. A half hour, perhaps an hour, and you've grasped the essentials of a story you can meditate upon for a life, for an eternity.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 10, 2006
An Evening with Donizetti
Tonight we will be able to indulge an impulse long denied and we will be attending the Opera. It's a local company with a mixed bag of singers, but it's a frothy piece of Operatic fluff called L'Elisir D'Amore.
Tonight we will be taking Samuel, so please pray for us. I don't know how he'll take to it, if at all and that may present some small problems. I don't actually anticipate it, but better to pray about it than worry about it.
If things go well, he'll be attending at least one other--The Marriage of Figaro. The jury is still out on Tosca, which despite some lovely music may be too long and too adult to have any interest for him whatsoever. But at 7 I'd be surprised if he stays awake for the evening.
Nevertheless, there is no chance to enjoy culture if we don't at least give him the opportunity, and Opera, particularly local companies is an art-form that may soon pass away entirely, and that would be a terrible blow to the richness of our culture.
So, I'll report on that and on a recent book read, possibly as early as tomorrow.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Another Prayer Request
Samuel will be performing in a "judging" competition on Sunday. He'll be playing a couple of pieces on piano.
I have to say, knowing absolutely nothing at all of the way children develop in the performance of music, Samuel seems to be roaring ahead. He seems to do splendidly. He certainly surprises me at every turn.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 11, 2006
L'Elisir D'Amore
It is pretentious to try to review Donizetti at this point, and largely ungrateful to try to review a given performance given how few are available to most people. So I won't try. But given that it was Samuel's first "Night at the Opera" and given that I'd asked for prayers that all go smoothly, I thought I'd report in.
First, it was a wonderful evening. It's been a very long time since I've been able to attend the Opera and I can't think when I've enjoyed something so much. I so appreciative of those who love the culture enough to keep trying despite dwindling attendance and skyrocketing costs.
L'elisir D'Amore is a frothy bit of comic opera--at one time a vehicle for the enormous success of Beverly Sills and Luciano Pavarotti. Donizetti is a composer who bridges the gap between the Mozartian Operas and Italian Grand Opera. "L'elisir" is about a woman with two suitors, one of whom is a simple country man, the other a soldier of fortune. A quack doctor comes into town to sell his snake-oil and he is asked by the country man for an Elixir like that that wooed Queen Isolde. Of course the peddler has a supply to hand and generously sells it to the suitor. Chaos ensues and wraps up in classic fashion.
Samuel appeared to have wonderful time for the first half of the Opera and seemed to fight off sleep for the second half, which has some of the truly stirring and wonderful music in the piece. All-in-all, it was a very promising operatic debut for Samuel. I look forward to The Marriage of Figaro. The jury is still out on whether or not he will join us for Tosca. But thank you all for your prayers. Given that the little guy is only seven, he showed heroic virtue and strength in even being able to sit mostly still for it. And, he showed remarkable taste in liking it and enjoying it to some extent.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Deep Blue Alibi--Paul Levine
In my constant search for mysteries that can hold a candle to the classics in either writing, plotting, or cleverness of story, I managed to pick this one up. Promising to be a combination of Hiaasen and Grisham, it looked like it would probably be a bust, but it was set in the Keys, so I had to give it a chance.
I was more or less pleasantly surprised. An Attorney team of Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord investigate unpleasant and illegal doings in the keys, each nearly getting him or herself killed several times.
So let's stop here for a moment. If you want a frothy, if somewhat salacious and more-foul-mouthed-than-I-care-for read--this book is for you. It has everything--shyster lawyers, ambulance chasers, explosions, death by spear-gun, death by vintage WWII torpedo glider explosion, etc. etc. However, I'm now going to complain (hopefully not at length) about a point I found distressing.
Paul Levine, the author, supposedly lives in Miami. If so, he has never ventured very far from his penthouse apartment on the beach. The main stuck-in-my-craw point centers around a scene in which Victoria encounters a deadly coral snake in the shower. Okay, to start with, coral snakes ARE deadly--they are not something for amateurs to fool around with, don't try this at home. Any way, Victoria sees this snake and then dispatches it, after python-like, it wraps around her arm and has to be loosened and snapped like a whip a couple of times to subdue it. After she does so, her mother comes in and declares she'll have a handbag made of the skin. Two other people both claim it for their projects--a pair of boots and a briefcase.
STOP--rewind! (1) A coral snake is about the size of a common garter snake. Its head is so small that it would have to chew through an adult human's skin to inject venom, and the little guy isn't hanging around to do that. Most bites occur in the webbing of fingers and toes, the only place the skin is thin enough for this to transpire. If you had half-a-brain as an assailant, you'd pick something with a little more zing--a pygmy rattler, for instance. (2) Being the size of a garter snake, you'd be hard-pressed to make the strap of a handbag from several skins, much less an entire handbag. (3)Later mom shows up with a pair of sandals covered in this snake's skin. How long does the author think it takes to prepare a skin for such use. Evidently, he's of the opinion that it should be no more than about three days--at least according to the chronology of the novel.
Okay, I went on far too long about that, but it was one major sticking point. I hate when research is so sloppy that these minor facts can't be put straight. However, be that as it may, it's a quick and mostly enjoyable romp through the keys. I wouldn't bother with it until you've gotten through your stock of Hiaasen, White, and Dorsey (and if you're inclined to nostalgia MacDonald). But if you like some courtroom stuff mixed with a wildish ride through the tropics, you might enjoy this book.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack