In Werner Herzog’s film Huie’s Sermon, the affirmation that God is in control is contradicted by images of a trashed out slum. A reflection on the meaning of divine control accounts for the success of the sermon in its hearers.
Last evening I attended a concert with the purpose of learning more about music, art, and life. And I was supremely rewarded.
The Last Jedi takes the viewer from emotions of conflict to the thought of the triumph of higher wisdom and spirituality. Philosophy is conceptual, an art of thinking, harmonizing higher and lower values. But the art of living is practice, action, doing. In the art of living beauty pervades the process, and divine love motivates the course of action.
Like a chauffeur who drives a dignitary around here and there, so that the dignitary may function and manifest, our first duty and privilege is to facilitate the entry of the beautiful, indwelling spirit into action.
Too busy to read the book? Here are one-page summaries of the three parts and the seven chapters, which enable you to participate with pleasure and progress.
Ungainly flapping. Only in mercy so thick could I take flight. Heavy heron wings, moving slowly—why would any flock of birds follow? Yet I fly to you unconcerned. By you, with you, and in you, I dive into the water, having glimpsed a fish and heard: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
Laughter? Reasons? Causes? Occasions? A child securely strapped to the back of his mother on a wonderful hike; the awareness of being with you–whom I love!–at the beginning of each podcast episode; the complete security that follows total commitment to the will of God; good news; a good joke; the call to rejoice.
Problems are more likely to be overwhelming when multiple kinds of problem are tangled together: uncertainty, disappointment, apparent defeat, the sheer difficulty of what is to be done, the immensity of the task, and the inexplicable in a situation. How do you learn the matching positive attitudes?
Vacations! During World War I around Christmas time, 1914, a series of unofficial cease-fires occurred, and German, British, and French troops sang Christmas hymns and fraternized together. Next, consider lyrics from “Singing in the Rain”: “I’m singin’ in the rain . . . What a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again. I’m laughing at clouds, So dark … Read more