Great Uncle Passes Away

I just found out my great uncle is dead. He was my grandmother’s younger brother. I wrote about him recently; it was July 2. I referred to him as “Bill” because I didn’t want any problems with some people I was criticizing. Some relatives had taken him in; something about caring for him in exchange for a house.

He got pneumonia and became emaciated, and my aunt found out about it and had him moved to a nice nursing home in her town. We were able to put him in better surroundings, and he got visits, and he had a roommate he liked. And we got him some creature comforts. But he didn’t last long. We should have been looking out for him; he has closer relatives whom you would expect to watch over him, but apparently they chose not to, and for one reason or another, we didn’t take up the slack very well. I can sit here and write about how I’m a thousand miles away and no one keeps me in the loop, but the final conclusion is that he had relations who could have helped him sooner, and he fell through the cracks.

The way Americans treat the aged is a disgrace, and I am sure we are judged for it. I’m glad I figured that out in time to be good to my father. I’m also glad I never had the opportunity to neglect a close relation of advancing years, because I might well have done it, had I had the chance. It’s so convenient to pack them off to warehouses and visit them once a year. I have done a lot of selfish things in my life; I can’t say that would have been beyond me.

It’s sad that we learn these lessons so far into life. Sometimes, by the time you learn, you’ve already done a great deal of damage, and it can’t be undone.

My mother did not live to enter old age. I was good to her, but not as good as I should have been, and not soon enough. I will always regret that I didn’t do better. But because of her, I will always be conscious of the need to do well by others who are older than I am.

If you’re in the same boat, or worse, I have something that might make you feel a little better. You can go to the website of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and donate money for the care of elderly Jews in the former USSR or Holocaust victims in Israel. You’ll never know who you helped, but at least you’ll know that you are doing what ought to be done. Some of these folks have no relatives, and I suppose some have relatives who just don’t care. Maybe there is someone you didn’t treat right when you had the chance. The IFCJ can help you show that you’ve changed.

By the way, the Manly Grub Forum has a board where people post the names of charities they like. Most of them are new to me. If you ever feel the need to give, the board might be of some use to you. You can find it here.

I talked to my aunt on the phone tonight. Apparently, people in the town where my mother and many of my relatives are buried look down on you if you don’t keep flowers on the graves of your loved ones. I guess I’m awful, but I have never cared much about putting flowers on graves. I always think of the dead as spirits who are far from the grave, so I don’t feel like it’s meaningful to put flowers on tombstones. Maybe that’s a character flaw.

She told me about an old mountain tradition called “Decoration Day.” People up in the hills used to make flowers from crepe paper and dip them in paraffin to protect them from the rain. Then on Decoration Day, they’d put them on the tombstones of people they knew. I had never heard of it. People up there must think my father and sister and I are barbarians, for failing to look after my mother’s grave.

My aunt told me that someone had placed American flags on the graves of my grandfather and her husband, my uncle. Probably for the Fourth.

A long time ago. someone in the family put a dogwood tree on one of the graves. My other aunt’s, I think. On the next visit, there was no tree on the grave. But there was one just like it on another grave, up the hill.

So tonight I told my aunt things were looking up. They used to steal our landscaping, and now they were making contributions to it. You have to wonder what kind of person puts a stolen tree on a grave.

Take a look at those charities. Might bring you some comfort.

She is a Mean Old Thing

I did a short Mancow spot this morning, and I was thrilled to get it. I will make Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man – The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook famous if it kills me.

Right now, I’m taking a break. I always need to wind down after a radio bit. Somehow, I ended up Googling typhus and typhoid. Evidently, the British used to confine carriers in mental asylums, and some were not released until about sixteen years ago. You would think these miserable people would have been freed once antibiotics were available, but not all of them were. And some went crazy from confinement, assuring they would never be released.

We are so spoiled now. So lucky. For millennia, the world’s population increased slowly, and then in recent centuries, it took off. Why? Because life is so easy now, compared to the old days. Technology has given us so much protection.

I once read a book on the black plague. I had always assumed the plague was a one-time thing, but boy, was I wrong. Once plague epidemics began in Europe, they came back over and over. You probably know that the disease was carried by fleas, but it was also possible to contract it by being near a person who coughed or sneezed. Then you died in misery, and you stood a good chance of infecting your loved ones in the process.

And we worry about gas-price spikes.

Typhoid bore similarities to the plague. Some believe the “plague” Thucydides wrote about was typhoid, and some believe it was typhus. You can spread typhoid by failing to wash your hands after you use the toilet, which means about 75% of American men are potential carriers. Typhus is no fun, either, and it’s spread by lice. Before the modern age, there was no way to fight lice, and even in the 20th century, lice managed to infect many, many people.

People used to die from the flu, by the millions. And the bird flu scare reminded us that it can happen again. Now that I think about it, millions of people have died from malaria, which is preventable, because we haven’t used DDT responsibly. It’s funny; the hippies call the earth–an inanimate object–“Gaia,” and they claim it’s our mother, and that it wants to take care of us. The truth is that the earth has been working hard to kill us since the dawn of time, and it succeeds in numbers that would make Hitler and Stalin and Mao weep with admiration. Does your mother want you dead? Mine never did. I’d like to hear Gaia’s loving explanation for Katrina or the Dust Bowl or locusts or cretinism. And how about radon? The earth doesn’t love us, and it doesn’t take care of us. The earth is our enemy, and we continue to exist because we made it our slave. We survive because we fight the earth every day.

It’s funny; we see ourselves as precious and important, but in the past, we were downright ephemeral. Life was unbelievably perilous.

These days, if you avoid heart attacks, car wrecks, and cancer, you can pretty much expect to reach 80. At least, that has been true for the generations which reached that age in recent decades. It may not be true of the current generation; there may be a problem ahead of us which will change the picture.

We feel entitled to grow old. How strange that would have seemed to a person living in the nineteenth century.

I have to wonder if our illusion of invulnerability contributes to our immorality. If you’re 35 and you’ve never been to a funeral, maybe it’s only natural that you would ignore God and do whatever you want. Adversity changes people’s attitudes. They say that during the plague epidemics, people would throw their jewelry and money over monastery walls, to bribe God. And the monks threw it back, fearing it carried disease.

One of life’s great challenges is to maintain faith, gratitude, and obedience, in times when life is easy. There is a perpetual cycle. Faith and obedience beget prosperity, prosperity begets pride, pride begets sin, and sin begets misfortune. Which begets faith and obedience.

I wish I hadn’t started Googling! Sometimes a break can take more out of you than work.

I Have Been Too Hard on Myself

I got a few comments yesterday that were so favorable, they were somewhat embarrassing. Of course, I am grateful. I’m not complaining.

One of the dangers of addressing an audience is that people may begin to think too highly of you. So you can start out with good intentions and end up moonwalking on top of an SUV outside a courthouse, because you have become convinced you can do no wrong. I sincerely espouse solid Christian morals and principles of good character, but that doesn’t mean I do a good job of living up to them.

Since I started trying to write for a living, I have become concerned that I would eventually become something of a public figure, and that people might treat me with more regard than I am due. It’s a funny thing; if you have even a little fame, people you don’t even know will start trying to give you things and do things for you, and some will treat you as though you are more than human. I can’t help being concerned about that. I think glory is like wealth. A certain amount is okay, but if you get too much, you face the risk that it will corrupt you. I have always wished I could write books that were famous, without becoming famous, personally. I know that’s not realistic; it’s a hard trick to pull off. Especially when you have to do interviews in order to get where you want to be.

Some people desire fame. I think it’s one of the worst things that can happen to you. If I could sign a contract right now that assured that I would make a good living from writing, but that only my friends and family and professional contacts would know who I was, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

I sometimes think one of the reasons lower beings are supposed to glorify God is that the alternative is to accept the glory for themselves and become poisoned by it. There are some things you are supposed to hand over to God. Vengeance, for example. A portion of your time. A portion of your income. I believe we’re supposed to be like oxen that tread out corn. We’re allowed to take a reasonable amount of what we produce–we’re not muzzled–but we’re not supposed to keep everything.

If things go well, I will try not to allow my head to be turned.

In other news, Baldilocks has bought a domain for the site she intends to put up to get PR for her efforts to fund the Kenyan school Barack Obama abandoned. But she needs a web designer. Someone give her a hand.

Must Have Had a Fair Wind

I am mystified. I ordered a box set of Horatio Hornblower DVDs on Friday at 11 p.m., and they arrived today! How is that possible?

Unfortunately I’m already sucking them up way too fast. I could not keep myself from watching the first two today.

I think that if you have any potential inside you for the development of character, you will find it impossible not to be moved by Horatio Hornblower. What wonderful lessons you can learn from his adventures. Don’t whine. Don’t make life hard on those in authority over you. Don’t forget that you have to serve your subordinates more than they serve you. Admit responsibility for your errors. Look for ways to solve problems and improve things, beyond what your duty requires you to do. None of this stuff will get you far in an average workplace; politicking is the way to get ahead. If you want advancement, learn to control others. If you want self-respect, competence, resourcefulness, and satisfaction, learn to control yourself.

How much we are cheated of, when our parents let us raise ourselves. How slim the likelihood that we will find the strength and the inclination to teach ourselves the lessons overlooked by our parents during our formative years. Oddly, the best way to make up for your parents’ mistakes is to refuse to blame them, and to treat the mistakes as though they were your own.

Maybe that’s the true magic from which God wanted us to benefit when He told us to honor our parents. When you choose to stop blaming them, and you put yourself out to compensate for their shortcomings, and you try to help them lead as they should lead, you will find that you become what you wish they had been, and you are likely to improve them, too, by example.

I know Hornblower is a fictional character, but it’s not unrealistic to emulate his virtues. They’re not superhuman.

I enjoy these DVDs for the same reason Christianity is exciting to me. Christianity offers self-improvement. The New Testament doesn’t just say you get eternal life. It says that while you live, provided you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, God will build you up from the inside and make you a better person. More disciplined. More courageous. Kinder. More patient.

I only have 8 more DVDs. I know I’m going to burn them up by Friday.

If you have kids, you couldn’t ask for better entertainment to share with them. You could pause the DVDs here and there and explain why Hornblower makes the hard choices he makes. Sure beats Grand Theft Auto and R-rated movies.

Life is beautiful, if you know what kind of beauty to look for and where to look for it. I think that’s one of the lessons of maturity. We think we enjoy our venal pleasures while we’re young, but they always come with a high price, and we don’t even know what enjoyment is until we’re old and we have suffered and learned. Maybe God gives us old age and infirmity to keep us from growing to love life so much we refuse to die. The older you get, the more you are able to see what there is in life to love.

Thoughts like these increase my sadness that we are becoming a nation of degenerates and barbarians. I’m just glad I’m managing to pick up a few clues while I’m still young enough to make use of them.

Prayer Request

I just read the news story about Bob Novak’s brain tumor. Unbelievable. This makes two famous people and one blogger I know, who have been diagnosed recently with brain tumors. Ted Kennedy, Bob Novak, and Linda SOG.

I invited everyone to say a prayer that Senator Kennedy would be healed, and I did the same for Linda. I hope you will take a moment to repeat those prayers, and to add a new one for Mr. Novak.

Bible & Charity Sites Make Christian Living Easier

I feel like I’m having a productive day.

I have been slogging through the New Testament, using The Jewish New Testament Commentary as a guide. And it has been SLOW. Today I decided to pick up the pace a bit. I’m going to keep re-reading the Bible for the rest of my life, and it’s not like there are spoilers in it, so there is no reason I can’t read the New Testament without commentary once in a while, with the intention of reading the commentary later.

I have been using Bible Gateway instead of a book. I used to use Bibleresources.org, but I can’t find the New International Version there. I think they used to have it. Not sure. All the translation names sound alike.

I started out with 1 Peter, and I read to the end of the Bible. I’m very glad I got to read Peter, John, and Jude. Sometimes when you read Paul’s writing, it’s like reading Chinese. Some of it makes sense. Some of it, you have to hope to understand later. Peter, John, and Jude are much simpler. Peter’s books are wonderful. Full of encouragement and useful warnings anyone can understand. And they’re short.

Christianity is a balancing act. You want to worry the right amount about the right things. It’s easy to start thinking you’re a good Christian just because you avoid fornication and theft and drugs and so on. Because you refrain from doing things that are obviously wrong. But the books I read today reminded me to keep sight of other things that are extremely important and often de-emphasized. Things like self-righteousness, unwarranted anger, divisiveness, gossip, and pride. These things have sneaked up on me often in my life, and they can give rise to a particularly unattractive and unproductive brand of Christianity.

Reading the books I read today, I can’t help feeling that at least some of Enoch should have been included in the canon. Jude refers to Enoch explicitly. John and the Revelation seem to presume the authenticity of Enoch. There are references to angels who forgot their places and who have been confined in torment. There are references to angels as stars. That’s all consistent with Enoch.

I am amazed that anyone claims to understand the Revelation. Maybe it’s best to boil it down to a warning. We’re going to have hard times, but when it’s over, God will rule first this world and then a new and better world, so don’t quit. If you understand that, do you really have to know who the Beast is, or what the Great Whore represents? I don’t think so.

When you start to move back toward God, everything takes time. My progress was well underway last year, but I wish I had been farther along. There are a lot of things in my books that I would change if I could. I guess I’ll get the chance to do that eventually. I don’t want to be like some other writers I could name, leading other people into foolishness just to make a dollar.

Reading the Bible online is wonderful. I get so tired of holding a heavy book open while I read, or craning my neck while the book lies flat on a table. When you use a computer, you can lean back in comfort and devote all of your attention to what you’re reading. Computers and electronic reading devices will never replace books, but for some purposes, they’re fantastic. And they’re economical. Sending someone a URL is a lot cheaper than buying him a Bible.

Incidentally, World Relief is having another “sale.” If you donate today to buy food for Africans, they’ll get matching funds to multiply the impact by three. Hard to pass that up. The ethanol scam is starving people overseas. A third of our corn is now going into a worthless boondoggle intended to buy Corn Belt votes, and in places that rely on surplus grain, it’s causing real problems. The money you give World Relief won’t just go for food. It also goes to pay for agricultural education and provide animals and so on.

Here’s a link.

I Prescribe Doughnuts

Happy Sabbath, or Sunday, or whatever it is to you.

A day or two ago, I read the book of Romans, and in it, Paul said we were not to get agitated over which day we chose to give to God. That’s good to know. I assume I understand him correctly:

In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. 6 Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him.

I got a great surprise when I turned on my computer today. A reader left a comment on my main site. Apparently, my book is HELPING his health. I never saw that coming. Glad to hear it, though. I blogged it here.

I think he’s onto something. If you want to gain weight, this book is tough to beat. The cheesecake, fries, biscuits, flan, and brownies may be the worst (or best) items. The steak, on the other hand, is probably healthy, if you don’t eat it with a big serving of carbs.

Query

Apart from Bibles and The Complete Jewish New Testament Commentary, I am pretty much out of Christian reading material. I feel like I have memorized The Hiding Place and Tramp for the Lord. I know I asked for recommendations before, but do me a favor. Save me the aggravation of searching my comments and give me some suggestions.

I decided to get the Horatio Hornblower Collector’s Edition DVD set. It has gotten very cheap. If you’re not familiar with Hornblower, you might want to consider buying the set or at least DLing the first episode from Itunes. Adapted from C.S. Forester’s novels, the A&E series tells the story of a British sailor, as he moves through the ranks from midshipman to admiral. I believe the story starts under George III. Somewhere in that general time frame, anyway. A friend of mine recommended the series when I was in law school. He said the series was great, because it was fine entertainment and it also imparted valuable lessons about duty and morals.

Just don’t pry into the morals of Mr. Forester himself. I wouldn’t worry too much about that, anyway. I mean, Moses was a murderer, and look at his legacy.

It’s surprising how hard it is for me to find books and videos that have a positive influence on me. There is always the Bible, but you can only spend so much time reading that. We often tell each other that entertainment and reading have large effects on the character and behavior of kids, but that adults are somehow immune. That’s not true. I think we just say that to rationalize listening to sleazy music and watching dirty movies. No matter how old you are, putting good things into your mind will improve you, and putting bad things into your mind will weaken you.

The Book of Proverbs is a great resource. If you want to realize what a moral failure you are and how little character you have, spend half an hour reading it. Probably the strongest tonic in the Bible.

Unless I’m badly deceived, most American parents let their kids down pretty badly when it comes to passing down wisdom and moral instruction. My mother was a good person, and she did what she could, and my dad had demons of his own, and I no longer blame anyone but myself for my faults. That being said, I still find myself learning lessons I should have known when I was seven. Books and movies and TV programs can do you a lot of good, fairly painlessly. If your parents didn’t teach you well, and you want to avoid the misery of years of trial and error, don’t despair. There are resources out there that can help you fill in the gaps. You just have to be willing to admit the need and have the presence of mind to take action.

I thought about this today when I turned on the tube to have something to occupy my eyes while I tried my blueberry cornbread. A movie called Coach Carter was on. True story. You can probably guess, from the word “coach,” what the story was. Ghetto school. Straitlaced coach shows up and forces his athletes to study and behave like men. It’s an ancient genre, but I thought it was well worth watching.

You can grow in height until you’re about twenty, and after that, you can only grow in width or in depth. Depth is better.

I keep hoping I still have enough time left to polish off the bulk of my rough edges. But I don’t know. In my family, no one has lived past 104.

God Endorses Barack Obama

There are some acts so presumptuous they can rightfully be considered depraved. I thought I had some inkling of the vastness of Barack Obama’s disgusting, bloated, edematous ego, but when I saw this photo, I realized I was wrong.

I used to think it was sad that Jews no longer knew the precise location of the Holy of Holies. But now I’m glad, because had Barack Obama been able to find it, he would have erected a throne there and posed for photos.

This is beyond belief. This is the most sacred site in Judaism, and this slimy, condescending 143-day messiah–this common political hack–sneaked in and plastered it with posters for a political campaign. The same shameless buffoon who said Jerusalem should not be divided, but later added that he felt control of the city should be shared. Which means…it would be DIVIDED. In direct opposition to the word of God. You know God, don’t you? The guy who OWNS THAT TEMPLE.

Obama carries a heathen idol with him wherever he goes. It’s the Hindu monkey-god, Hanuman. It’s small, and he carries it on his person. How much do you want to bet he took it with him when he placed his tainted, hypocritical note in the cracks of God’s temple?

Obama was heckled at the wall. An angry Jew yelled, “Jerusalem is not for sale.” And Obama had the gall to criticize him. He said he had expected a little more reverence. Of that, I have no doubt. Reverence for Jehovah? Maybe. Personally, I think he meant reverence for a different god: the false Obamessiah. He gets reverence from liberal journalists all day long; how dare a random Jew deny him his due? This is OBAMA we’re talking about. How dare some piddling rabbi or yeshiva bucher–some nothing who devotes his life to studying the Talmud and the Torah and pleasing God–try to tell him and his monkey idol how to act on the Temple Mount?

If I were Obama, I’d be afraid I’d be struck by lightning. But I guess since Obama is god, the lightning watches its step around him.

I’m not just angry in sympathy with the Jews. I’m angry as a Christian. The Temple Mount is sacred to me, too. Solomon the prophet-king built it. Cyrus rebuilt it. Generations of Jews made their sacrifices there. Jesus chased the money-changers out of it. Paul went there to pay his vows. And now, what is it? A sexy site for product placement.

No one who believes in God could feel comfortable with this. I saw the young men in yarmulkes behind the posters. Surely those were not observant Jews. Surely the Jews of Mea Shearim and the yeshivas are not smiling about this tonight.

It is as if Satan himself appointed and promoted this man, as an offense to God and everyone who worships him. I don’t take people seriously when they call Obama the Antichrist. But there is such a thing as a person who succeeds in this life because dark forces make a path for him. And when you see a junior Senator with 143 days of experience and a heathen idol in his pocket get away with putting posters up at the Western Wall, it really makes you wonder.

Personally, I want to vomit. I just hope he brings his sorry, conceited behind home without putting posters up at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Vatican.

Stooges

Aaron has answered my question about the men in the photo. They are not observant Jews. We are now in a period called the Three Weeks, which lead up to Tisha B’Av. During this time, observant Jews do not shave. And these men have no beards.

No wonder they did this in the dark.

Stoogette

The girl in the photo is wearing pants. According to Aaron, this shows she’s not observant, either.

I am a New Man

I want to apologize AGAIN for saying anything that seemed even slightly critical about the Pope. I have been Googling around, and I can see that I did not understand how protective his flock is. I saw an article online that said completely benign things about his home and lifestyle, and Catholics were posting furious comments. If that made them mad, it’s no wonder I caught hell. My remarks were somewhat negative. They were extremely mild, but I can see that that doesn’t matter.

I think you could get lynched for something like this, if you did it in front of the wrong crowd. I didn’t understand, because there is no Protestant equivalent. There is no one Protestants are that sensitive about. You can say things about Jesus that you can’t say about the Pope. So I would like to move on. Hooray for the Pope. What a fine person he is, in all respects. I cannot praise him highly enough, so I will not bother trying.

In other news, the Manly Grub forum died last night, but it’s working again. Kudos to Hostrocket, my new hosting company. They responded to my support ticket, fixed everything, and gave me a clear explanation of what went wrong, all in about three minutes. I have to thank Kenny for recommending them.

I hope the forum is easier to navigate than it used to be. I don’t understand why it suddenly went offline. Maybe the Catholic Defense League hacked it, or maybe it was just a run of the mill divine smiting.

Stoke up the Fire

I guess I am to Catholics as Michael Savage is to the parents of autistic kids.

I just heard what Savage said about autism. He says 99% of autistics are brats who have never been told to knock off the act. Ooooookay. After we get done spanking the autism out of them, we really need to go the other fakers, such as the blind and amputees.

I sympathize with the parents who are mad at Savage. I’ve had a lot of people tell me ADD doesn’t exist. Rush Limbaugh, the great neurologist, pushes that theory. I don’t know if it’s right to call ADD a disorder, since it’s so common, but it absolutely exists. As a person who has been known to put cereal in the freezer and ice cream in the pantry, I am aware that it is all too real.

I made some Catholics mad by observing that the Pope was criticizing materialism while living in an opulent palace and wearing handmade clothes and so forth. I can’t believe that upset people. I didn’t call him a fraud or accuse him of eating Protestant babies. And fundamentally, I was right. It’s kind of weird for a church leader to live in such earthly splendor. It doesn’t mean he’s a charlatan, but it doesn’t look good, either. CEOs of companies which are openly unreservedly dedicated to the accumulation of wealth can’t match the Vatican’s trappings. It seems odd for a clergyman to live there.

So far, I’ve been favorably impressed by this Pope. He seems to be a sincere guy with a low tolerance for BS. He appears to be a reformer, and churches need more of those. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was accusing him of being a fraud. I hope he’ll be more sensitive than the last Pope, who made the mistake of posing with his arm around Yasser Arafat. When I was in Jerusalem in the 80s, that photo was everywhere. Someone turned it into a poster, and every Arab in town had one. I have to wonder how the Jews felt about that. It had to make peace overtures a lot harder to take seriously. The US equivalent would be the current Pope posing with Osama bin Laden.

Popular churches tend to have problems dealing with wealth. The excesses of Protestant televangelists are horrifying. They’re not fit to lick the Pope’s pricey shoes. If these guys want to receive comfortable salaries and live in nice homes, that’s swell, and they are absolutely entitled to anything they can earn outside of their jobs, but taking money from old ladies on Social Security and buying private jets and air conditioned doghouses…come on. That’s a bit much. And those things actually happen.

I’ve been learning a lot about Judaism. I read Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s book, How Firm a Foundation, which explains the Jewish roots of Christianity. He says the Jews differ from Christians in that they don’t have a negative view of materialism. That’s pretty much how he puts it, and it sounds bad when you put it that way, but what I believe he meant was that Jews believe it’s good to earn money and build a financial base for yourself and your family, and that asceticism is generally not good. I think that’s the correct view. Most Christians probably misunderstand the Bible’s teachings about money. I think the New Testament’s message is that money shouldn’t control you, not that you should not have it. It would be a little odd for a Jewish Messiah to condemn all wealth, especially since the disciples were businessmen who had servants. Abraham was rich. Isaac was rich. Joseph was rich. David, Solomon…it’s a long list. The Bible says a good man accumulates wealth and passes it on to his children. You can’t really reconcile that with a view that we should all wear dirty sandals and live in the gutter.

If they elect me Pope, I’ll probably tell people to be responsible and earn money and manage it well, but not to be greedy, status-driven idiots who waste their money on yachts with gold-plated faucets in the bathrooms. I can’t think of any Christian church that teaches a good balanced way of dealing with money. Maybe there’s one out there somewhere.

Anyway, I would appreciate it if the people I annoyed would refrain from burning me at the stake.

Day-Lewis’s Milkshake Brings the Critics to the Yard

I recently paid $6 to sit through a 158-minute movie, just to find out what “I drink your milkshake” means. Now that I know, I am not impressed.

There Will be Blood was very odd. The story was a big nothing. It goes like this: insecure, materialistic guy becomes an oilman and has a miserable life. But the acting and directing were so good, I nearly forgot I was watching a movie with the depth of a microscope slide.

I am starting to be a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. This is one of the great scenery-chewers of all time. Bill the Butcher was a fine bit of over-acting, and with Daniel Plainfield, Day-Lewis has established his credentials beyond question. Here’s what I want. Let’s put him in a flick with a bunch of other over-actors. Let’s see. Al Pacino. Maybe Joe Pesci. Robert Blake. Jim Carrey. I’d add Robin Williams, the king of all over-actors, but he’s so annoying, I wouldn’t be able to sit through the film. They’d have to use two screens, side-by-side, to have room for all the unnecessary emoting.

Am I the only one who thought that after Life is Beautiful, we didn’t really need the Robin Williams remake, Jakob the Liar? Williams has a reputation for stealing jokes. Stealing a whole movie, however, puts him in a whole new class of plagiarist.

One thing about There Will be Blood impressed me. Of course, I’m referring to the lumber. The wood they used to build the “Mary” oil derrick was thick slabs of what appeared to be mature hardwood. No Home Depot pine or spruce two-by-fours. Reminded me of the white oak boards my grandfather used to build his last tobacco barn. They had to drill holes in that stuff before they could put nails in it. The movie studio must have paid a screaming fortune for that beautiful wood.

I guess the movie was supposed to be art. It used to be that art had to have intrinsic substance. These days, you say absolutely nothing and let the audience project substance onto it.

Art doesn’t give me a big thrill any more, except for music. I was thinking about this last night. When I was young, I read a lot of literature, but I eventually cut way back. My bookshelves now contain books that have nothing to do with art. Biographies. “How to” books. A little history.

I think I cut back on art stuff because as a Christian, I didn’t feel a strong kinship with the godless people who wrote arty books. People who write great literature generally don’t have relationships with God. Most literature reflects a completely godless and pessimistic mindset. When God enters the picture, He’s almost always a big disappointment. A pathetic myth or an apathetic absentee landlord. That’s fantasy; reading it is like reading libelous nonsense about a person I know well.

Great writers are generally blind to the reality of God. Maybe that’s why they move us. They have a black, cold, empty space inside them, where God is supposed to be. And that helps them to write effectively about misery and injustice and futility. They’re like caged songbirds, which sing best after you blind them. Many great writers are blind to the most uplifting truths in the universe, so their song is especially dark and troubling.

There Will be Blood was predictable in its take on Christianity. Really trite. There was a young man in the movie who started a ministry which included faith-healing, and of course, he was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. And the screenwriter’s bicoastal Hollywood tunnel vision was obvious in his depiction of a healing. To someone who has never been to church, it would probably seem believable. A bogus preacher, engaging in hysterics to throw imaginary demons out of gullible people. But to anyone with even a scant acquaintance with Christianity, none of it rang true. None of the real-world cliches, so familiar to Christians, were there. If you want to see a liar behind a pulpit, acting the way false prophets always do, all you have to do is turn on TBN and wait. I guess this guy failed to do that; his movie preacher was the cinematic homologue of a straw man. The screenwriter couldn’t even come up with a good proof-text.

I think this movie won critical acclaim for several reasons. 1. The direction was wonderful. 2. The acting was engrossing. 3. The topic was interesting. 4. It was critical of Christianity. Hackneyed criticism of Christianity always passes for brilliance in Hollywood. I don’t care what the critics say. This movie had no plot, and it left me with nothing to think about. Therefore, on the whole, it was bad.

I thought I saw the new Batman movie on the PPV choice list, but I guess I was wrong, because it’s not there today. I would have preferred to watch that. Call it Brokebat Mountain if you want; it probably has more substance than the film I watched.

Same Basic Idea

Peg, AKA Mr. Mollo’s Mom, says her budgie Shelley is not doing well. It may be hard to believe, but those little eight-dollar birds that weigh an ounce are actually very smart, and people become attached to them.

So put Shelley on your prayer list. Look, do it. How long can it take to heal a bird that size?

Also, her friend’s pug has leukemia and is receiving chemo.

Further assignments will be released as it becomes necessary.

Make a Note

Via Sondra K.: it turns out Linda SOG’s non-malignant brain tumor has come back. Put her on prayer blast for me, okay?

Again!

First off, a personal message. A reader sent me an email about his great-grandfather, a Jew who came to believe Jesus was the Messiah. This gentleman came from a family of rabbis, and he studied with the intention of becoming a rabbi, but his belief in Jesus put an end to all that. And as a result, he endured a lot of persecution from his family. His sister went so far as to pay to have him killed. I found the story remarkable, but I was not able to say so, because all my efforts to reply to the email failed. Some technical problem. I wanted this reader to know I did not ignore his email.

I was startled by the degree of antipathy this man’s belief evoked. If the story is true, his family must have been enraged to such a degree that they violated their own beliefs in order to punish him. There is no way a rabbinical court would back that kind of response. Even I know that.

Second, I see there is another sensational news item, purporting to prove Christianity is a hoax. We see these things from time to time. In the end, they generally serve only to prove the dishonesty or ignorance of the perpetrators. Remember James Cameron, making the ridiculous claim that he had found Jesus’s bones? That theory stood up for what? Two days? And what about The Da Vinci Code? Remember how it turned out to be full of outright fabrications? I never did understand that mess. If I recall correctly, the author admitted it was a work of fiction, yet sincerely hoped it would advance his bizarre pagan beliefs, which were reflected in the book.

Now we’re told that the concept of a suffering Messiah existed before Jesus, and that evidence has been found, in the form of an ancient stone with a story written on it. Congratulations, opponents of Christianity. You have confirmed what Christians have said for millennia. The concept of a suffering Messiah is very old, and we see it in the Psalms and the prophets. That the notion should appear in an old work of fiction means absolutely nothing.

It’s surprising how little non-Christians know about the faith. Even scholarly religious Jews can be disappointing; some of the people encouraged by the discovery of this stone are Jews. It makes sense, however. Christians believe the Old Testament is divinely inspired, so we feel comfortable studying Jewish texts and asking questions of religious Jews. On the other hand, Jews consider Christianity a dangerous form of idolatry, worse than Islam. So you can’t expect them to inquire into it as deeply.

Apart from that, they have an interest in disproving the validity of Christianity, so it would be unrealistic to expect them to be free from bias, regardless of how good their intentions are. You wouldn’t expect the Pope to say kind things about Mormonism, would you?

A year from now, this story will be dead, like all the others. Christianity will remain alive.

Non-Christians don’t realize that faith isn’t based purely on the Bible or on social pressure. It’s also based on personal revelation, including, in many cases, supernatural experiences. A Christian’s faith is like a building with many bases. Chip away at one, and it still stands on the others.

This object was found in the region of the Dead Sea, and opponents of Christianity are citing that as evidence that it pre-existed Jesus, as did the Dead Sea Scrolls. Funny thing…you can’t carbon-date a stone the way you can a scroll. When you date writing found on a stone, you have to guess. Wonder why the story doesn’t mention that. This thing could have been carved twenty years ago by a scholar with a warped sense of humor. Christianity has many millions of enemies, and archaeology and paleontology have a long history of hoaxes. Remember Piltdown Man?

In fact, the story says they don’t really know where the stone was found. The Dead Sea claim is just a guess.

Yeah, okay.

Even James Cameron did better than that.

Third, it’s the Christian Sabbath, and once again, I am learning what keeping the Sabbath is like. This week, I’m learning how it feels to need the Sabbath. Lately, I’ve felt caught up in worldly concerns. I have felt as though I were being pulled away from religion, and it has been frustrating. I needed a day to devote to renewal, and now it’s here. Wish me luck.