It’s 11:30 in the morning on the last day of June. If I were back in Austin (and I weren’t in my air-conditioned cubicle), I would be seeking refuge from the sweltering heat.
Here in Trnava I’m having to seek refuge as well. I was sitting on the porch studying my Slovak and I got so cold that I had to come inside and make a cup of coffee to warm me up!
Yet another thing to love about my new country….
Last night I watched Adaptation with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. It was yet another unusal movie, and it (interestingly) dealt with a theme that has been coming up again and again in movies I’ve watched recently. I did not choose any of these movies because of the theme, and in almost every case I had no idea before watching it that its theme would be loneliness.
In this film Nicolas cage plays a set of twins, one of which is a screen writer with writer’s block. He’s also blocked socially by his excessive concern about what others think of him. His fear paralyzes him and prevents him from approaching a woman whom he loves, and who clearly returns his affection. (more…)
Do not try to understand things that are too difficult for you,
or try to discover what is beyond your powers.
Concentrate on what has been assigned you,
you have no need to worry over mysteries.
Do not meddle with matters that are beyond you;
what you have been taught already exceeds the scope of the human mind.
Ecclesiasticus 3:21-23 (NJB)
My child, if you aspire to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for an ordeal.
Ecclesiasticus 2:1 (NJB)
A loyal friend is a powerful defence:
whoever finds one has indeed found a treasure.
A loyal friend is something beyond price,
there is no measuring his worth.
A loyal friend is the elixir of life,
and those who fear the Lord will find one.
Whoever fears the Lord makes true friends,
for as a person is, so is his friend too.
Ecclesiasticus 10:14-17 (NJB)
Once again at the recommendation of our insane daughter – not to mention our insane pastor in Austin – we watched a peculiar (and interesting) movie: There Will Be Blood. As I watched I couldn’t help but think about two other movies I’ve watched recently: Lars and the Real Girl and The Station Agent. In both of those movies the main character claimed that he just wanted “to be left alone.” They had had enough of people. Of course, they eventually get reintegrated into human community – in strange but wonderful ways. In this movie the main character hates people, but in a different way. At one point he says something to the effect that he just wants to make enough money so that he can get away from people. But he’s far more anti-social than the characters in Lars and Station Agent. (more…)
Our fellow Americans here in Trnava often join us in pity parties during which we lament (that is, we whine about) how difficult it is to learn Slovak. We sometimes debate what makes it so hard – all the declensions of the nouns and adjectives, the so-called “rules” that have more irregularities and exceptions than can fit in the textbook, or how the pre-, mid-, and post-fixes change the meanings of the verbs. Paula and I can add yet another handicap: we’re too old for this.
But today I figured out what really makes it hard to learn Slovak: it’s the over-the-top Slovak hospitality. Let me explain: (more…)
This is one of my favorite photos. I took it when we lived in the married-student housing at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. Nicholas and Karen were “detailing” an old car.
The concluding chapter is a brief lament over what I would call the failure of mankind to live up to its promise. I’ll let Saint-Exupéry have the final word in my series of posts:
To come to man’s estate it is not necessary to get oneself killed around Madrid, or to fly mail planes, or to struggle wearily in the snows out of respect for the dignity of life. The man who can see the miraculous in a poem, who can take pure joy from music, who can break his bread with comrades, opens his window to the same refreshing wind off the sea. He too learns a language of men.
But too many men are left unawakened.
“Where is man’s truth to be found?”
Because it is man and not flying that concerns me most, I shall close this book with the story of man’s gropings toward self-fulfilment as I witnessed them in the early months of the civil war in Spain. One year after crashing in the desert I made a tour of the Catalan front in order to learn what happens to man when the scaffolding of his traditions suddenly collapses. To Madrid I went for an answer to the question: how does it happen that men are sometimes willing to die?