Perhaps I would have enjoyed Crazy Heart more if I had a taste for country music. But I didn’t watch the film for the music – I like Jeff Bridges, and I wanted to see what the big deal was about his performance. And I was impressed. I never doubted for a minute that he was a drunk, a loser, or a country singer. He was painfully convincing. And, as a bonus on the acting side, I thought Robert Duvall was downright perfect in his tiny role.
But overall the movie left me unmoved. I didn’t notice any particularly new insights into life, alcoholism, or love – though Duvall’s character demonstrated real friendship.
So, there you have it: not much of a recommendation, one way or the other….
When you are old, you are entitled to speak,
but come to the point and do not interrupt the music.
[Ecclesiasticus 32:3]
Shake a sieve, and the rubbish remains;
start an argument, and a man’s faults show up.
As the work of a potter is tested in the kiln,
so a man is tried in debate.
As a tree’s fruit reveals the skill of the grower,
so the expression of a man’s thoughts reveals his character.
Do not praise a man till you hear him in argument,
for that is the test.
[Ecclesiasticus 27:4-7]
This afternoon Paula and I hiked to the ruins of Ostry Kamen Castle. We approached it from the west, near the village of Bukova. The approach is up a steep incline – quite a little workout for a Sunday. After we made it past the steepest grade, we started walking on a switchback road, and immediately passed an older couple with their dog on their way down the mountain. (more…)
What a mess. Or, as my daughter would write if this were her blog: What. A. Mess.
It wasn’t my idea to watch Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. But Petra has been a good sport about some of my odd film choices, so I was game. And I didn’t really know much about the film before watching it. (I recommend that if you don’t know anything about it, you find out before you decide to watch it. It’s raw.) I suppose the only reason you wouldn’t classify this as a horror film is that it isn’t supernatural – in fact, it’s all too natural in its depiction of humanity that has devolved to the point that it is almost unrecognizable as human.
But shame on me if I see such inhumanity depicted, and turn my eyes away, and say something like, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—abusers, thieves, perverts—or even like these incestuous welfare addicts” [compare Luke 18:11]. “We all like sheep have gone astray” and need redemption as much as Precious, her mother, and her father. And the film tells its story of redemption – redemption through love, through a love that has to be unrelenting. As good as it is, though, there is a greater, more unrelenting love required for full redemption….
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Can you see the wings? In case your monitor is too heavy to turn sideways, here are the words of George Herbert’s “Easter Wings,” printed for readability: (more…)
Philosophers have measured mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.
Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man, so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments, bloody be.
Sin is that Press and Vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through every vein.
Who knows not Love, let him assay,
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.
—George Herbert
The Altar
A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with teares:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch’d the same
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.