novels, comets, movies
Ivan Karamazov issues the following challenge to his devout brother Alyosha, before sharing with him the now-famous parable about the Grand Inquisitor, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov": Tell me straight out, I call on you—answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy … Continue reading The Grand Inquisitor and Rebellion
I've recently finished "The Brothers Karamazov", a book that's tough-to-chew, frustrating, blasphemous, hilarious, delirious and puzzling: in short, a great book. I want to start with just a few *brief* remarks about the Grand Inquisitor story, the parable that Ivan Karazamov composes and shares with his brother Alyosha. The parable is so well-known that I … Continue reading The Grand Inquisitor and Exodus
I chose "Contact", the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film based on Carl Sagan's novel of the same, for a recent family movie night. It was new to the kids. I read the book a few years ago, soon after quarantine began. I had been wanting to show the kids this movie ever since we saw "The … Continue reading Contact movie night
Jesus -- Freed us from death by dying (and conquering death): Rom 5.18, Heb 2.14-17, 1 Cor 15.21 Freed us from daily sacrifices by becoming a sacrifice: Heb 7.27 Freed us from the Law's curse, by becoming a curse: Gal 3.13 Freed us from the Law, by being born subject to the Law: Gal 4.4-5 … Continue reading After reading Hebrews
My son Jacob recently chose "The Prince of Egypt" when it was his turn in our revolving "family movie night". He intends to run through all the Dreamworks animated pictures -- a project that should take us about four years, at our current pace -- and "Prince of Egypt", released in 1998, was Dreamworks' second. … Continue reading Prince of Egypt Movie Night
My son has been reading a lot of Greek mythology so I pulled up this 1981 flick for our family movie night. The kids' favorite character was Bubo, the mechanical owl. My son was disappointed with the depiction of Poseidon, and he said this movie made him hate Zeus. He was also ready with small … Continue reading Clash of the Titans Movie Night
These reflections of mine will not be new, but they are new for me. I recently showed my kids one my favorite movies, "Contact", based on Carl Sagan's novel of the same name, about a potential first contact on Earth with extraterrestrial life. We had a great discussion about it, and since then I've been … Continue reading Consider Again that Dot
During my convalescence this past winter I watched a lot of movies. I've gotten busy making YouTube playlists of my favorite music and movies. I started one playlist privately just to collect some of my favorite concluding scenes from movies, and I threw in a few scenes from old movies that marked the Intermission break. … Continue reading Favorite movie endings
My ten most memorable reads of 2022, fiction and nonfiction, out of my 42 first-time reads: 1. The Book of Job -- Robert Alter's translation “Oh, let that night be barren, let it have no song of joy.Let the day-cursers hex it, those ready to rouse Leviathan.Let its twilight stars go dark.Let it hope for … Continue reading Favorite reads of 2022
Huck Finn's dilemma: send his friend Jim back to slavery as he has been taught he must do, or go against his church's teaching by helping Jim to escape, and then go to eternal hell as punishment I've started reading David Bentley Hart's "That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation." It is … Continue reading That All Shall Be Saved