I Am Not Hamlet

Early on in Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer compares the Great Lakes people’s story or Skywoman with the Bible’s account of Eve. She does this to compare how indigenous people viewed the world versus Western ones who had been Christianized. She thinks Eve’s story is unfair. But Kimmerer compares fruit to vegetables as Eve is a created mortal, whereas Skywoman is at least some kind of demigoddess. The comparison is unfair as well because she only focuses on a part of the Biblical story. The Bible has been regarded as a story in four acts: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration/Glorification. Eve is centerstage only for the Creation and Fall, she doesn’t live to see redemption, though she receives the promise of it. The icon of the Resurrection depicts a risen Jesus pulling Adam and Eve from their tombs as he smashes the gates of Hell and death. This Kimmerer doesn’t mention at all. It should be noted that Kimmerer is Potowatomi. The rest of the book is good. ...

"Therefore whoever is not illuminated by such great splendors in created things is blind. Anyone who is not awakened by such great outcries is deaf. Anyone who is not led from such great effects to give praise to God is mute. Anyone who does not turn to the First Principle as a result of such signs is a fool.Therefore open your eyes, alert your spiritual ears, unlock your lips and apply your heart, so that in all the creatures you may see, hear, praise, love and adore, magnify and honor God, lest the entire world rise up against you." -- St. Bonaventure,  Itinerarium mentis in Deum  

"Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place." --Pope Francis, Laudato Si      Wonder and awe abound in the natural world for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.      Perhaps we are caught short by a vibrant purple emanating from the petals of a wild lupine. We might stare wide-eyed at the lazy circles of a turkey vulture soaring on thermal air currents. Even the most agoraphobic city-dweller can find something beautiful about a landscape even if it's simply the warm and varied red, yellow, and orange of a sunset glowing on a building.      "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" asserts the Psalmist. If that verse is true, why don't we live like it? Why are we flabbergasted trying to come up with the names of the many plants and animals we pass by everyday?      All people respond to beauty in some way or another--...

And so this is Lent and what have you done? No Happy Easter, not yet, the war has just begun. Aside from some fasting/abstinence I'm reading Dante's Inferno , considered by many to be the greatest poem of the West, greater even than Homer's duo. I'm three cantos in and loving it. I came across this today from Canto Two (Anthony Esolen translation): "What is it, then? Why stand here, why delay?      Why let such cowardice come take your heart?      Why are you not afire and bold and free, Seeing that three such ladies blessed in Heaven       care for your healing from their court above,       and what I tell you holds forth so much good?" The character Dante is hesitating before he begins his journey out of the dark wood with the Pagan poet Virgil. Virgil is urging him on, testifying that the Virgin, Beatrice (a woman that the real Dante fell in love with when very young) and St. Lucy are praying for Dante....

I wrote this review for the Englewood Review of Books back in December, but it was only published a few weeks ago.   Not God's Type is the story of an atheist's journey to theism, then to Evangelical Christianity and finally to Catholicism.  It wasn't bad. Follow this link to the review.

For whatever reason, I find Orthodox authors resonate with me much more than Roman Catholic authors--I'm a Roman convert from Evangelical Protestantism.  Perhaps it's their reliance on stories of saints past, like the following.  Nonna Verna Harrison recounts this story of a young monk (from the desert, probably Egypt) asking an older, wiser one for guidance: A brother asked a hermit, "Tell me something good that I may do it and live by it."  The hermit said, "God alone knows what is good.  But I have heard that one of the hermits asked the great Nesteros, who was a friend of Anthony, [Anthony the Great, foremost monk of the Egyptian desert--SFM] 'What good work shall I do?' and he replied, 'Surely all works please God equally?  Scripture says, Abraham was hospitable and God was with him; Elijah loved quiet and God was with him; David was humble and God was with him.' So whatever you find you are drawn to in following God's will, do it and ...

Christ is risen from the dead!  Trampling down death by death!  And to those in the tombs He has given new life! P.S. The Easter Bunny is delicious!

Until Sunday morning, that is.

It's my last Maundy Thursday (at least from this vantage point in time) as a Protestant.  Thank you, Evangelicalism for my upbringing.  Now it's time for something more.... Have a blessed Triduum, friends, no matter where you find yourselves.

Even though my name is misspelled in the byline I'm loading this link to my review to what was/is a life-changing book for me.  Support Flourish, too!   Update 6-8-11: The byline fiasco is over.  All is right with the world.

Rome?  Constantinople?  Auugh!  Then there's this via media...

Today was Creation Sunday at our humble church in sunny, suburban Livonia. What is that? Simply, a day of worship focusing our gratitude for God's great gift of creation that enables us to breathe, drink, eat, and do many other things that corporeal beings do so well. It is a day of deliberation to think about sharing these gifts and stewarding them for generations to come. This is no reaction to the times--this is the Gospel--part of it, anyway, that far too many evangelicals have ignored. Anyway, BK liked my invocational prayer I composed so I post it here (my blog which links to FaceBook) for your kindly critiques. I'm still not happy with it, but I'm just so frickin' picky when I write. Can you find where I stole from Ray Bradbury and Gerard Manley Hopkins? Father, Maker of the Universe, What can we offer that compares with the extravagant gifts of air, soil, and water You so graciously bestowed upon your creatures? What picture can we paint that rivals your s...

That title is perhaps overstating things a bit--perhaps ignorance should be substituted for greed. In reviewing the family finances, we found, unfortunately, that we only give about 3.5 percent of our income to charity. Rounding down, (and guessing at the same time)unscientifically to after tax dollars the percentage only increases to 3.9%. So, we resolved to finagle numbers to move that up to 5% this year, if not more. That is still less than a "tithe" and frankly disappointing, but it is best not to make gigantic moves. The idea is to get to the magic 10 (or even 9) percent within the next few years. Providentially (perhaps) today, I picked up the November/December issue of Books and Culture and read "A Lot of Lattes" by Ron Sider, his review of Passing the Plate , a sociological study of why American Christians aren't all that generous. He says there would be an extra $46 billion a year available for "kingdom work" if "committed Chr...

Here's a piece I wrote around four years ago or so. Feel free to eviscerate its assumptions. (Anyone know why I can't indent?) Theatre: Art Against the Gnostics Film is a multi-billion dollar, international business, and art form. Theatre is international too, but doesn’t pull in anywhere near the amount that Hollywood does each year. Technologies keep developing to enhance the movie-going experience too, e.g. CGI, digital video, and now, DVD and HDTV for the home. Yet for all the great things film can do and show us it is still lacking in one thing: the human body. Film can take us to foreign lands, alien worlds, and other times, but it cannot deliver the human body in all four dimensions. Film flattens. Film compresses. Film is not live bodies in front of us. This is the glory that belongs to theatre (and dance by the way) the human body in time and space right before us. Some theatre even goes so far as to involve our bodies with th...

I found this quote on the web today-- Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio challenges Christians to consider the following thought experiment: “What would happen if theologically conservative Christians were noted for their commitment to improving arts education in public schools more than for their opposition to the teaching of evolution? Is it possible that a commitment to a well-trained imagination is a necessary asset in properly apprehending the kind of thing Creation is?” Why that's down-right un-Jesusy isn't it? Look, I have trouble with the story of macro-evolution too, especially the materialism it engenders, but I'd say we have a larger crisis of a poverty of the imagination, both in the larger culture and in the Church. What does it mean to have a baptized imagination anyway? Why do so many (myself included) find themselves in battles that have little meaning (I don't mean to imply that the battle for creation metanarratives is trivial, it isn't) and can't fi...