I’ve added a new page called “What I’m reading” (see the link to your right, under “Menu” and above “Categories”). I’ll use it to make a few notes and comments on books that I read. It won’t replace any longer reviews, comments, or quotations that I will continue to make in posts. It’s just for other people who like tips on good books (or on books to avoid).
Last night we watched Spanglish. We had seen it before many years ago, but it was worth a second look. The first half of the movie is hilarious - it’s rare for a movie to inspire so many high-quality laughs. And now that I live in a world where I often understand very little (or even nothing) around me, the plight of Flor Moreno in the film was even more poignant (and funny) to me.
But this movie is more than funny - it is rich with ideas for reflection and discussion. The relationships between the mothers and their daughters, for example. And that leads me to my highlight of the movie: when Evelyn Wright (Cloris Leachman) tackles her daughter Deborah Clasky (Téa Leoni). Deborah has told her husband that she had an affair, and her husband had left the house in the company of their housekeeper (Flor). When he comes home, Deborah is ready to attack him with talk, desperate to ask him everything and tell him all the details of her illicit relationship in order to have it out, clear the air, purge her soul, or whatever. So her mother (wisely) tackles her and holds her down and gives her the perfect advice.
Do you know that right now … you are your own worst enemy? That you can’t trust one thought in your brain? Then trust me … and only allow yourself to say one thing to him - one thing: “I am so glad you’re back.”
Something to chew on from Lesslie Newbigin:
I believe that the Christian view of God’s purposes for the human family is different from both [capitalism and socialism]… and arises from a distinct belief about what human nature is. From its first page to its last, the Bible is informed by a vision of human nature for which neither freedom nor equality is fundamental; what is fundamental is relatedness. Man – male and female – is made for God in such a way that being in the image of God involves being bound together in this most profound of all mutual relationships. God binds himself in a covenant relationship with men and women to which he remains faithful at whatever cost and however unfaithful his covenant partner is. And people and nations are called to live in binding covenant relationships of brotherhood. Human beings reach their true end in such relatedness, in bonds of mutual love and obedience that reflect the mutual relatedness in love that is the being of the Triune God himself. Neither freedom nor equality are words that can take us to the heart of the matter.”
[Foolishness to the Greeks, 118-119]
Our new colleague Anya turns out to have received more than her quota of talent. We discovered early on that she could play the piano like an angel, and we recently found out that she draws and paints with equal skill. This weekend, while the boys were away camping, she created the portrait of Kristian below. [She has promised one of Ethan - I will post it when it's ready.]
And here is the artist herself, with the drawing on canvas:
I had not heard of the film The Secret Life of Words until Paula received it for her birthday last week. We watched it over the weekend with some friends, and it gave us something to talk about. Once again, as in other movies I’ve been watching the past few months (The Station Agent, Lars and the Real Girl, American Splendor), the main character “just wants to be left alone.” And once again, the one who wants to be left alone is doggedly pursued by another character. And once again the beauty and interest of the film is watching a relationship develop where there was no hope for a relationship.
These two characters are scarred physically - one by burning, the other by mutilation - and these scars represent their wounded souls. One is wounded because she is truly a victim, the other because of his own folly and transgression. The film patiently develops their realization that they not only need each other, but they have something to offer each other. But that process is slow because it takes time for trust to take root.
In the second chapter of Foolishness to the Greeks, Newbigin paints a marvelous profile of modern culture. His analysis is compelling, and makes me curious to read further to see how he thinks the gospel needs to confront the modern world (and to see whether what he says will remain relevant in a post-modern world). Here’s a brief taste of his profile of our culture - a snippet that appealed to me because of its insight into bureaucracy:
Many observers have noted that bureaucratization plays a central role in modern societies. The division of labor and the consequent pluralization and complexification of society require the development of techniques for large-scale control. Bureaucracy applies the mechanical model to this task. It provides machinery in which there is a high degree of division of labor, of specialization, of predictability, and of anonymity. It is of the essence of bureaucracy that it sets out to achieve a kind of justice by treating each individual as an anonymous and replaceable unit. The introduction into bureaucratic procedures of the personal relationships that govern the private life of the home is - in bureaucratic terms - corruption and nepotism. Bureaucracy applies the principles of reason as understood at the Enlightenment to human life in the public sphere: the analysis of every situation into the smallest possible components and the recombination of these elements in terms of logical relationships which, ideally, can be expressed in mathematical terms and handled by a computer. In its ultimate development, bureaucracy is the rule of nobody and is therefore experienced as tyranny.
This morning I started reading Lesslie Newbigin’s Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, and he quickly got my attention. I was thinking of blogging through it, but it’s heady stuff and I’m not sure I’m up to saying anything intelligible about it. I would just end up quoting the whole thing to you. Perhaps this quotation will suffice for now, and I’ll see if I can conjure up some of my own reflections later. This one hit me right in my sitz im leben (trying to learn Slovak):
He must first of all struggle to master the language. To begin with, he will think of the words he hears simply as the equivalent of the words he uses in his own tongue and are listed in his dictionary as equivalents. But if he really immerses himself in the talk, the songs and folk tales, and the literature of the people, he will discover that there are no exact equivalents. All the words in any language derive their meaning, their resonance in the minds of those who use them, from a whole world of experience and a whole way of grasping that experience. So there are no exact translations.
Yesterday Paula was surprised for her birthday - in more ways than one. Our friend Miriam (who is a first-rate cook) secretly invited the boys to come over for the day. They left the house around 9:30 in the morning, and Paula didn’t know where they were going. With Mir and Anya they shopped for dinner, then went to her flat to prepare for the evening. They cooked cream of broccoli soup and made a nice dinner salad with a yummy vinaigrette. Any cooked some delicate and tender fried chicken breasts, while Kristian made mashed potatoes. There were gravy and green beans. After dinner we savored a wonderful apple pie that Kristian made. And we drank sangria through the evening (Mir and the boys are preparing it in the picture below). The table was set beautifully, and we had name cards hand-drawn by Anya (who is a talented artist). The boys dressed up, with Ethan wearing a bow-tie!
Mir, Anya, and the boys gave their whole day to Paula, and delighted her with their love. And one of my theories is that often we really do love each other, but lack the skills to show it. When Mir suggested this idea to the boys, they jumped on it - they love their mother, but really don’t know how to show it. Mir gave them an opening, and they took it.
And we have to thank Mir, or course, for teaching the boys not only how to cook, but how to show their love.
This morning Paula made a light Slovak breakfast for us, and it was delicious. She made the spread from soft chees, green onion, and a hard-cooked egg. We had tomatoes fresh from our Slovak teacher’s garden, read and green peppers, ham, salami, and bread and pecivo - including a makovy kolac. Mnam!
