Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation

Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation 
James K. A. Smith (Baker Academic)

Paperback: 238 pages

Publisher: Baker Academic (August 1, 2009)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0801035775

ISBN-13: 978-0801035777

Here's the blurb:

Malls, stadiums, and universities are actually liturgical structures that influence and shape our thoughts and affections. Humans--as Augustine noted--are "desiring agents," full of longings and passions; in brief, we are what we love. James K. A. Smith focuses on the themes of liturgy and desire in Desiring the Kingdom, the first book in what will be a three-volume set on the theology of culture. He redirects our yearnings to focus on the greatest good: God. Ultimately, Smith seeks to re-vision education through the process and practice of worship. Students of philosophy, theology, worldview, and culture will welcome Desiring the Kingdom, as will those involved in ministry and other interested readers.

From the Back Cover

A Philosophical Theology of CulturePhilosopher James K. A. Smith reshapes the very project of Christian education in Desiring the Kingdom. The first of three volumes that will ultimately provide a comprehensive theology of culture, Desiring the Kingdom focuses education around the themes of liturgy, formation, and desire. Smith's ultimate purpose is to re-vision Christian education as a formative process that redirects our desire toward God's kingdom and its vision of flourishing. In the same way, he re-visions Christian worship as a pedagogical practice that trains our love.
"James Smith shows in clear, simple, and passionate prose what worship has to do with formation and what both have to do with education. He argues that the God-directed, embodied love that worship gives us is central to all three areas and that those concerned as Christians with teaching and learning need to pay attention, first and last, to the ordering of love. This is an important book and one whose audience should be much broader than the merely scholarly."--Paul J. Griffiths, Duke Divinity School
"In lucid and lively prose, Jamie Smith reaches back past Calvin to Augustine, crafting a new and insightful Reformed vision for higher education that focuses on the fundamental desires of the human heart rather than on worldviews. Smith deftly describes the 'liturgies' of contemporary life that are played out in churches--but also in shopping malls, sports arenas, and the ad industry--and then re-imagines the Christian university as a place where students learn to properly love the world and not just think about it."--Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, Messiah College; authors of Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation
"This is a wise, provocative, and inspiring book. It prophetically blurs the boundaries between theory and practice, between theology and other disciplines, between descriptive analysis and constructive imagination. Anyone involved in Christian education should read this book to glimpse a holistic vision of learning and formation. Anyone involved in the worship life of Christian communities should read this book to discover again all that is at stake in the choices we make about our practices."--John D. Witvliet, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship; Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary

Bad Indians, a poem by Ryan Red Corn

Heritage Mass Choir Live - Halleluhah, Praise the Lord on High

Postcolonial Reconfigurations: An Alternative Way of Reading the Bible and Doing Theology

Postcolonial Reconfigurations:: An Alternative Way of Reading the Bible and Doing Theology (Paperback)

~ R. S. Sugirtharajah

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Chalice Press (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827229968
• ISBN-13: 978-0827229969

The Blurb:

Collected essays exploring how to do theology (part one) and read the Bible (part two) when viewed through the eyes of oppressed peoples who have suffered - and continue to suffer - from western colonialism.

About the Author

R. S. Sugirtharajah is Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics, University of Birmingham. His most recent publications include: Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (2002), and The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters (2001).

White Cat by Holly Black

Holly Black is the bestselling author of the Spiderwick series. Her first book, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, was an ALA Top Ten Book for Teens, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and has been translated into twelve languages. Her second teen novel, Valiant, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Locus Magazine Recommended Read, and a recipient of the Andre Norton Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her third teen novel, Ironside, the sequel to Tithe, was a New York Times bestseller. Her new novel, White Cat, is coming Summer 2010. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. Visit Holly at www.blackholly.com.

Margaret K. McElderry, May 2010

Hardcover, 320 pages

ISBN-10: 1416963960

ISBN-13: 9781416963967

Ages: 14 and up

Grades: 9 and up

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love -- or death -- and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

Weekend Movie-Viewing -- The Familyless-ness Edition

Saw two movies this weekend I really really really loved and one which will probably grow on me. Films that were sad throughout but which ended with joy, healing, communication, and triumph.

The first was 3-Iron. A movie in which we hear no dialog from the main characters and yet there's perfect communication going.

When the story begins, the main male character (who is nameless throughout) is seen entering a house, eating, hanging out, showering. Turns out it's not his house. He lives anchored to any family, any town, any person and survives by breaking into houses and living in them while their inhabitants are out of town. He has a very slick way of determining who is/is not at home.  He picks wealthier houses and one day he enters a house where a battered woman (equally nameless, I think) lives. He goes about doing his usual stuff, not realizing she's watching him, intrigued and somewhat numb from her life.

After a while, she makes herself known and they silently form a marriage of sorts. (Over two days, I think.) He's a perfect house-husband, cleaning and tidying and tending to her in a gentle caring way. And she is a perfect kind of wife for him. When her husband returns to abuse her even more, they run away together and continue their lives of moving through houses.

Now, we know the woman's immediate history somewhat. She's a model and her volatile husband thinks that his life of wealth, status, influence, and position is payment enough for abusing her. Yep, he pretty much thinks he owns her. The woman's probably learned silence by having her soul intruded on. Being a model and being looked at as art by some, by something to masturbate on by others. (Heck, you never know!) But never being seen as herself and tired of explaining herself. She also has been silenced. The male hero, on the other hand, doesn't own anything. Nor is he interested in wealth, position, rootedness or influence. Anyways, why is hero this way? Lord knows. He seems sane enough. He's homeless but clean and obviously was someone's good son.

Okay, maybe not obviously...just my opinion. And everything about this guy is conjecture. Why isn't he anchored to anything? Why doesn't he choose to connect to the world at large? Why does he want to be part of the family --taking photos of himself standing beside the pictures of the houses' owners-- and yet not be part of a family? Why does he not want to influence anything except for the good and in secret? He has all this energy -- a need to golf-- but restrains the energy by restraining the golf ball. (Kinda wish I understood golf so I could get why it's 3-iron and not 7-iron. Is there such a thing as a 7-iron?) Perhaps he has some guilt about his existence or his influence on people...and maybe that's why he's avoiding life. What is he running away from? Why doesn't he want to be seen or known or connect? Yet, he does not steal and repairs the stuff in peoples' houses. But even in this night-elven way of secretly doing good. Either he repairs the stuff in folks' homes as repayment for the night stay or he has a need to do no harm and to influence for good. Gotta say thought that he is not entirely without influence on the lives of others. Because when he allows himself --once that we see-- to do something unrestrained, it leads to harm. And in the first few scenes, we see that his influence for good can also lead to harm he knows nothing about. Basically, one's influence is seen and felt  -- and does harm-- even if one tries to only do good. Life's weird that way.

Love this movie, loved this movie. Loved the silence.  And why? Because to live in life all we need are food and shelter. To live life happily we also need someone to love us and understand us. But in the modern world it's hard for to be entirely untethered from the rest of humanity. Government and society, etc. Hard to be a hermit. Someone's money has to provide for food and shelter. And yes, the film ends happily!!!! Ta-da! Some stuff you have to accommodate. Love it.

Other film was My Eleventh Mother.

Wonderful, perfect, joyful manipulation! I cried four times through My 11th mother. I cried and cried and cried at the end. How perfectly that filmmaker pulled my poor little heart through the ringer. Must get some more tissues. What a great movie.


Basically, it's a kid surviving amid poverty and flaky parental life film. Not sure why Korea just excels in these films about kids with crappy life but wow! Yeah, I know... I'm gushing. Jae-su is a little kid, maybe ten or so, who lives with his gambler dad. Gambler dad believes a house needs a woman and is always bringing women home to be Jae-su's mom. (These women inevitably leave.) Jae-su's real mom has long since departed. When Gambler dad brings the eleventh Mom into their lowly house, the viewer can see that Jae-su expects the usual. 


But they become emotionally connected. I"n time, too. Because Jae-su needs a mom (or a memory of a mom) in order to make him live a happy adult life. And eleventh mom needs to love and to be loved before she -- yeah, it's a Korean film so you know what's coming...no spoiler here-- dies. 


I'm a wuss. Any movie about poverty, any movie about suffering kids...and well, it's pretty much a given that I'll like it. So.....I looved this movie.




The third film is Calla. It doesn't exactly fit into the familyless-ness theme but I watched it so... I'll include it. It's a travel-back-in-time to get matters right thriller romance. Well, actually it's a romance with pretensions of thrillerhood. 

Guy (played by way, way, way hot Song Seung-Heon) sees a beautiful woman on a bus and is kinda attracted to her. They kinda pass each other here and there and then he starts getting flowers, a calla lily, on his desk each morning. The girl works in a flower shop. Now, as I've said more times than I care to remember, folks in love in Korea seem to be inordinately shy. (Not like yours truly who is more of a recluse and extremely wounded inept social type with rejection issues...no this is shyness of that peculiarly Korean character.  The kind of shyness on which thrillers like this turn.)


Upshot? The girl he's been trying to get the nerve up to declare his love to...is murdered. He's devastated. But I must add that there is hope. After all, a tear, a wish, and a locket can work time-travel magic if you wish hard enough. And so he finds himself tossed back in time with the one purpose any true lover can have: he must save his unknown beloved. 


I'll say that if it weren't for the hotness of the lead character, I would've lost all patience with this flick. It ends well and has a neat twist so sitting through the suspension of disbelief was worth it. Ah, suspension of disbelief, what a lovely lovely lovely thing you are! Good for we religious types when the road gets rocky -- the power to consciously put doubt and fear aside-- and great for we movie-lover types who suddenly have to deal with a very quiet non-macho guy suddenly getting all Rambo on some drug dealer's butt. 


The funny thing is I was supposed to be fasting and praying this weekend. For the health, money, creativity, rejection, and untetheredness issues. I fasted but didn't pray. (Except at nighttime) Just was totally into movies. And yet, God was with me in these films. Kinda like when one repeats the lines of a favorite poem. The act of meditating on the poem is very like prayer. So there I was in the middle of Calla --fawning over extremely hot lead actor-- and up comes a godwink. I'd been working on a section in Life as an Onion when I had one character say: "It's all a matter of timing." And there in the comments section of the Calla site on AZNV is someone saying, "It's all a matter of timing." I smiled. Felt very loved. God with us even in our silly secularities. So... all the movies I watched turned out to be there to heal my soul.


All in all, a wonderful weekend of film-viewing.

My cinematic Brother James  who wrote a review on 3-Iron on amazon clued me into this site. http://aznv.tv/?p=home
Free Asian movies. You have to register and download winamp the first time and then you're good to go.

Christianity in China

Weekend Movie-Viewing -- the unusual influences in teenagers' lives edition

Okay, so teenage life is hard enough. Either run-of-the-mill and lacks impetus or meaning, or some intrusion outside the norm happens. Whether it's falling in love with an older woman or battling a demon because of love, it is love that gives life meaning. And what is a teenager to do with these unexpected events except to go with it? If he is looking for passion and meaning, he'll go for it. If he isn't looking for passion, that hardly matters, a gentler kind of passion will find him.

Don't Laugh at My romance



Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge

Rev Fr Ejike Mbaka - Chideraa

Flow Through Me, Holy Spirit (Navajo Lyrics)

Dark Parable: waking and waking and waking

I dreamed I was sleeping and there were East Indian demons trying to get at me. I struggled to get out of the dream and thought I woke up. But I woke inside another dream. Tried to get out of that one and realized there were layers of dreams and had to get out and be truly awake. Then the Lord showed me His light shining through and that where His light was the dreaming would stop. I realized that if I thought and spoke God's word about light that God's light would push the false dreaming that the east indian gods had put on me.

I realized that I should pray that God's light would pierce the darkness and to speak verses about God's light so my brain and my family's brain wouldn't be affected by the demons and so we could dream the dreams God wanted to give us.

I didn't know if it was something in my house that had opened the house to east indian gods. This is the third dream I've had about east indians and Christianity.

I woke up and fell asleep and dreamed again. This time I was cooking in an oven and messed up the oven so that it could only give me two channels. It wasn't my oven so I told the man I'd pay for the damage. There was also something about a school trip/experiment. When I woke up, I said to my husband, "How is like an oven like a TV set with channels?"

Then I realized the dream was talking about what we digest. God's been really hammering away at me about not returning to watching TV because a lie of some kind will soon be on TV -- whether church channels or the world-- and it would fool even the very elect.

We have to keep in the light so we don't fall asleep and think we're awake. Am also wondering if there's anything in the house I should get rid of.

Possible interpretation:
To me East Indians and Hinduism represents syncretism. There is something good about wholeness and holistic stuff... and yet I don't know...maybe that's what God is talking about ...that we have to be so careful about that wrong kind of syncretism. Interesting how the gospel of Thomas and the Indian type of Christianity has that weird gnostic thing. And the weird kundalini anointings that have been popping up in churches. Very Todd Bentleyesque. Whatever it is, I'm being very careful. I used to think that I have such discernment I wouldn't be deceived. But Jesus said, "if it were possible the deception would fool even the very elect." Not sure if I'm elect or not, although I'm sure I'm going to heaven (at this point in my life, anyway) and I DO NOT wish to risk being deceived. You can't really prepare yourself not to be deceived. We have to pray that God's light and word awaken us. So many times we think we're awake. We say, "okay, I'm saved now." Then we learn a little more and say, "okay, I'm saved now." Then we (learn) wake a little more and say, "okay, I'm not as asleep as I once was." But more and more I'm seeing the depths of my own darkness and the church's darkness and how easily one can think one is awake when one is really asleep. So am definitely being very careful and discerning in what the TV -- secular or christian-- sends my way. Watching what gets put into my oven.

-C

S. E. Cupp warns that we are LOSING OUR RELIGION

LOSING OUR RELIGION
S. E. Cupp

Hardcover: 288 pages

Publisher: Threshold Editions (April 27, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1439173168

ISBN-13: 978-1439173169

Here's the blurb:
"The press has become a tool of oppression—politicized, self–aware, self–motivated, and power–hungry. . . . In short, these people can no longer be trusted." —From S. E. Cupp’s Losing Our Religion


It’s time to wake up and smell the bias. The go-to commentator for such programs as Fox News’s Hannity and CNN’s Larry King Live and Reliable Sources, S. E. Cupp is just that—a reliable source for the latest news, trends, and forecasts in young, bright, conservative America. Savvy and outspoken when shattering left-leaning assumptions as she did in Why You’re Wrong About the Right, Cupp now takes on the most pressing threat to the values and beliefs held and practiced by the majority of Americans: the marginalizing of Christianity by the flagrantly biased liberal media.

From her galvanizing introduction, you know where S. E. Cupp stands: She’s an atheist. A non-believer. Which makes her the perfect impartial reporter from the trenches of a culture war dividing America and eroding the Judeo-Christian values on which this country was founded. Starting at the top, she exposes the unwitting courtship of President Obama and the liberal press, which consistently misreports or downplays Obama’s clear discomfort with, or blatant disregard for, religious America—from covering up religious imagery in the backdrop of his Georgetown University speech to his absence from events surrounding the National Day of Prayer, to identifying America in his inaugural address as, among other things, "a nation of non-believers." She likens the calculated attacks of the liberal media to a class war, a revolution with a singular purpose: to overthrow God and silence Christian America for good. And she sends out an urgent call for all Americans to push back the leftist propaganda blitz striking on the Internet, radio, television, in films, publishing, and print journalism—or invite the tyrannies of a "mainstream" media set on mocking our beliefs, controlling our decisions, and extinguishing our freedoms.

Now, discover the truth behind the war against Christmas—and how political correctness keeps the faithful under wraps . . . the one-sided analyses of Prop 8 and the gay marriage debate . . . the media pot-shots at Sarah Palin’s personal faith . . . the politicization of entertainment mainstays such as American Idol and the Miss USA Pageant . . . and much more. Also included are her penetrating interviews with Dinesh D’Souza, Martha Zoller, James T. Harris, Newt Gingrich, Kevin Madden, and Kevin Williamson of National Review, delivering must-read analyses of the latest stunning lowlights from the liberal media.

About the Author
S.E. CUPP is a regular guest commentator on MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, and Fox News Channel programs including Hannity, Larry King Live, The Joy Behar Show, Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld, Geraldo and Reliable Sources. A nationally published political columnist and culture critic, she is currently an online columnist for the New York Daily News and senior writer at The Daily Caller. She coauthored Why You're Wrong About the Right with Brett Joshpe. Visit www.redsecupp.com

Discovering more about Onion

My post on false notes appears at blogging in black today. If you read that...you'll see what's going on.

Here's the post:

While working on my YA, I almost added a personality trait to a secondary character which would’ve taken the novel down a different route and – in the composition of the novel-- added a false note.

False notes happen when a certain event, character trait, or scene in a novel simply jangles with the rest of the novel. A writer can often get over with false notes and still write a viable novel but it will not be the novel her soul set out to write.

But in my experience, false notes happen when the writer has lost track of what her story was originally about, or simply never understood the theme of her story in the first place.

The first thing one must remember in writing is that the author very often doesn’t know what the narrator is writing about. Plain and simply, this means we really don’t know what a story is about. Those who set out to write a formulaic story, or a preachy Christian story, or worked from an outline at the beginning of a story, are aware of what they are writing. But if one has simply sat down at a computer and allowed the first draft of a story to spill out, one doesn’t know what one’s soul is talking about. It’s been said that a writer discovers a story in the first draft. But often it takes three or four drafts – plus a long conversation with an astute writing friend—to finally see what has been before us all the time.


Many writers can get away with false notes, because
a) their readers have been trained to think of certain stories in a certain way
b) their readers just don’t read that deeply
c) the writer has written the false note so compellingly that the original intent of the novel gets lost.
d) The writer herself does not want to acknowledge her own inner conflicts that have brought about the story.
e) The writer is a deep thinker but is too fearful, lazy, or tired to actually write the story the muse has given her.

So if a reader or writer has been trained to believe that love stories happen in a particular way, anything the author’s subconscious muse might be saying to the contrary will not be seen by either the reader or the writer. The writer will create the false note and the reader will accept it as the story’s truth.

The false notes feels off-key to a true lover of stories. It jangles. We have all been to movies where we find ourselves saying to our movie-going buddy, “What the heck just happened?” And either the movie-going buddy agrees with us or totally disagrees. I remember watching a film made by a feminist woman filmmaker. It was a history of her family and in the voice-over, the narratore kept saying how ignorant and unenlightened her father was but dang! Every scene with the mother was cold and loveless. The filmmaker didn’t seem to realize that despite all her mockery of the male figure, she was showing us his sweetness. At the end, when the credits rolled there was a total disconnect. Even the youngest kid would’ve told her that the ending just didn’t jive. Probably the only person who could’ve watched the film and not seen the false note would be another feminist.

False notes tend to happy in films that are meant to have happy endings or which are meant to be polemic. So often I’ve raised my eyebrows at the end of a thirties heist film when the bad guy dies and the voiceover says that bad people are thugs and not heroes! Yet, the entire film was about how brave and cocky these gangsters were.

So when do false notes creep in? A false note will creep in around the third draft when the author begins to think that certain traits should be added to certain characters. In my case, my character had two rivals for her affection. Both were good boys with interesting traits, but I wanted her with my main male character who was being quite unpleasant. I therefore had to find a way to make the other guy unpleasant. I figured I’d make him a racist. But this “evil sin dropped into a book in the middle of nowhere” just didn’t jive with my beta reader who had astutely seen what my narrator was talking about. In short, it didn’t matter how bad or how unpleasant my main male character was, my main female character was gonna love him no matter what. It was going to be a painful road for her, the readers would want to give her a good shake or throw the book down – but they were not going to be given the loophole of a false note. Essentially, the narrator of the story was writing a composition about devastating, sacrificial love for a possibly not-to-good person and I the author had not seen that my story was basically an unhappy tragic love story with a somewhat perverse ending.

The best way to avoid false notes is to ask a good beta reader what the story is saying to them. Tell them to be brave and to tell you what they dislike or like about the main characters. Tell them not to think about marketability. All you need to know is what the narrator is telling you in this story. Is the narrator happy about the situation, bitter, hurt? After you’ve been told the gist of your story, then you the author will discover and know what the narrator and true composer already knows.

Anyways, the more and more I work on Onion the more I discover about it. First I realized it's A) about her addiction to him as well as his addiction to drugs. Sure she's his sober companion but her love and attitude toward him isn't particularly sober or sane. B) It's about sexual orientation and what makes us fall in love with certain people and C) it's about the worship of external beauty that occurs in the main character's life because her harsh upbringing combined with her growing up watching way too much TV infused her with a Cinderella complex.

I've made Ben a real person because I hate stories where the gorgeous guy turns out to be a jerk. I wanted Denise to have her Cinderella dream but I also wanted to examine it.

So on the one hand it's a very Christian book because it explores the world, the flesh, and the devil --- how the media makes us worship beauty. But on the other hand, it's not exactly Christian because I really want to go deeply into this...and I don't think the Christian publishing world would want me to write about this -- especially when I talk about sexual shame. So.....

Dark Parable: Birds that peck out the eye

I dreamed I was walking on a path around early dusk. In the dream I remembered
it from another dream and I remembered the warning that went with it. There was
a gate from the field I was on which led to another field. I knew that very
cruel birds watched that gate and whenever people stopped to open the gate to go
from one field to the other the birds would take that small momentary
opportunity while people waited to take out the eyes of the person.

There was a way around to the other field. But I had gone there before in
another dream and had managed to escape the birds so I figured I'd go this way
again. Besides there was a shadowy figure looming just beyond the gate, pretty
much beside it, and I thought it was my friend. So I figured: "why go the long
way round? Take a chance."

I saw a flock of these creepy birds -- black-- hovering but only one came down
when he saw me approach the gate. He perched on a rock and waited.

I was wearing a scarf/shawl and it was bundled on my head kind of messily, kinda
hanging over my eyes and bunched up at the back. So I figured that would protect
me. I also put my left hand over my cheek near my left eye so the eye would be
covered.

I saw that the latch to the gate was closed and that I had to fiddle with it. So
I tried to open it with my eyes closed and with my hand over my eyes. The bird
started pulling at my scarf near my eye to yank it off. I could also feel him
yanking away at the scarf near my neck. I kept fiddling with the latch...and I
thought the gate was opened. I'm not sure, though. I remembering wondering why
my friend wasn't helping me now that I was past the gate. Then I started
wondering if it was my friend at all. Because the person was so shrouded and
covered in dark clothing.

INTERPRETATION:

I realized that the way I was covering my eyes in the dream...to open the latch to the unknown shadowed friend and yet to protect the eyes... is exactly how I read some emails from internet friends. Friends beyond the eye-gate (the monitor). You never know when you're going to get a nasty email from some touchy new cyber-friend. I think God was telling me to be careful. One can't spend one's time befriending folks and then being afraid of their oversensitive letters.

We Who Live at the End of Time -- So what if we aren't raptured?

I'm getting more and more convinced that the end times are here...and that we won't be raptured. Okay, so if I'm wrong...no skin off my back. I'll be happily in the clouds. But if I'm right...uhm...I suspect the first Christian folks who will fall into the apostasy will be the un-raptured American Christians who believed in the prosperity gospel. Wouldn't they be majorly confused and royally pissed to find themselves still here on earth suffering prosperity? I doubt Christians who are used to suffering will be freaked out. They're used to suffering. But American Christians shy away from it.

So, I suspect their hearts will be failing from fear. Then, those who survived the shock, will probably fall for the Great Lie...because they'll want to believe.

Just thinking. Am sad, though, that --pre-trib or mid-trib or post-trib-- most Christians are utterly unaware of how terrifyingly late it is-- that the anti-christ is on the scene (whoever he might be), that we are literally in the last months of the last days, that we are ripe to be deceived.

Anyways, writing away and working on my novels. One of which --Constant Tower-- has no religion in it at all. Occupying til Christ comes. -C

The Real Face of Jesus

On Tuesday March 30, on History Channel, The Real Face of Jesus


The Real Face of Jesus on HISTORY 3/30
Uploaded by HistoryChannel. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

Onum juru n'ekele- Evang. Okwara Ezema- Igbo Gospel Music

Weekend Movie-Viewing -- Hansel and Gretel

Okay, so I saw this Korean interpretation of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale last weekend but I was utterly utterly out of it and couldn't think. So I'm doing the review now. I totally loved this movie. It is flawless, beautiful, tragic, with a happy ending. It hits no false notes. What else can I say? Well, a lot more.

When the story begins, Eun-Su is driving to meet his mother whom has a troubled relationship with. He's about to become a father but there's problem with that issue as well. Poor Eun-Su is a somewhat distanced son about to become a somewhat distanced father. He's just not that connected to family and he almost -- just almost-- doesn't quite know what to do with family.

So he's driving along and has an accident where he bumps his head. When he wakes he finds himself in a forest, utterly lost. A little girl with a lamp -- who carries lamps in modern day Korea? -- leads him to her beautiful gingerbread house where he meets her brother, sickly younger sister, and their two very nervous-looking parents. Everyone is gaily dressed. A lit Christmas tree shines brightly, and dinner is made up of colored and pastel cupcakes and all manner of confections.

The house is beautiful. Ah, the colors and the brightness! I can't remember a film where brightness been used to show both sweetness and horror at the same time. And yet, something is terribly wrong. This story is like Stephen King's Misery meets . . . well Hansel and Gretel. After Eun-Su gets better, he'd like to leave. After all, his girlfriend is having a baby. And he has to see his estranged mom. But he's already caught up in the story of these children. He's become the hero of their tale. And well. . . no one gets out alive. Ah, the love of a child for its parent! Ah, the dangerous love of a needy wounded child for a perfect parent!

The effect all this has on a viewer is to fear innocence, especially wounded innocence. Wounded love can go over the top in its neediness and in its desire to have sweetness and certainly, there's a fascistic sweetness to the children's world. Who can glut themselves everyday on sweets? But that's what a child wants, right? And DEFINITELY what a wounded child wants.

There world is lovely -- a child's version of all that is sweet and happy and good in the world. (A world created from a Christmas postcard and possibly from too many 1960's movies) But the world is also dangerous and the children accepts no challenges to the sweetness they so desperately desires. That a wounded child, a wounded human, could create such a stifling world based on the need to be happy....well, it rings dang true! And yet, one cannot dislike the children. One can, perhaps, dislike an evil dictator although one knows his wounded childhood. But not these children. Their hold is not on all the world. They simply have one corner of the world which they rule with a strong supernatural hand. And woe betide the mom and dad who turn out to be less than loving.

Now, was this all in his head --- a kind of psycho-drama created by the psyche of a wounded child so he could be healed enough to become a loving father? Was it a ghost story? Are the children dead? Was it a story of magic entering the life of a person to bring about healing for the kids and the father-to-be?


I really liked the kids. I thought there was some hint in the last scene that they had found some kind of happiness -- although in the "real world where Eun-su lives" people aren't always good to children. Although in Eun-Su's world children are suffering still without the benefit of magic... at least these three are free. I kinda got that idea. The memory of Eun-su in their life gives was a kind of healing thing for them. Perhaps they'll A) let the next stranger go free if he/she wishes to go or B) have some kind of growth toward understanding their own cruelty. They kept saying they were good children. And perhaps now they will perhaps kinda sorta believe they might also be doing evil as well. We can only help those we know...and unfortunately so much suffering is done behind doors so we don't really know.

I believe that life is complex for us humans. I believe in Perfect goodness and perfect evil -- but not among the human denizens of earth. Humanity must be judged on the gray scale

I'd like to believe that I've gone through life without harming anyone. I'm sure I haven't though...even though "I am a good person" as the kids would say. I have my guesses about moments when I've been cruel but I know I shall be unpleasantly surprised one day to discover I've hurt or wounded someone I didn't know. I like thinking I know these things. ;-)

Anyway, here's the link to the movie. And here is a description of the film, along with some other wonderfully sorrowful films about kids. The vid was made by my cinematic brother, James in the UK. We argue passionately about films but the love and respect is always there.

Amerie

Langston Hughes -- Ku Klux Klan

Ang Can Stay Asian and Still Save the World

Check out Racebender

General Update

Younger son is going back to school today. After so many months of being outside of school. Will see.

Hubby is getting ready to go on a visit to California to see his father. His dad is 83. I told Luke to pray for his father...even though the family is so secular. Faith and boldness needed.
He's going to calif on saturday for 4 days...so i'm trying to sleep and really drink my water...cause sometimes i need sex to kinda sleep. I really don't want Luke to go, cause I'll have to take care of son. Sleepless woman in pain taking care of young non-verbal son -- for two days. Hard. But God is helpful.

The last email he got from his father was a few days ago and his father basically said "here are the names of the 7 dwarves." That was all. His dad wrote "doc" twice. His dad was a computer programmer from the old days with a very complicated math science program that helped many applications... used by the airline industry to figure out scheduling and time zone
So it's defionitely a case of "what a great mind is here overthrown!" Luke is handling it kinda okay but he's so quiet about stuff. And his mother is kinda weepy on the phone.

Sometimes it's a severe mercy to bring the proud to the ground. Better to be weak and to acknowledge it and die and not go to hell because one sees the need for God. But can someone in dementia really understand his need for God? I also think this is not what God wants as a norm. I think Christians are called to have a life above this. I also wonder about demonic elements in society which make us believe all this is normal.

ONION
Delacorte rejected it. Yeah, it's a bit on the religious side. So I kinda thought they might. But sent Onion to a Christian publisher now. Will see what happens. Before, I was trying not to think of the religious aspects of Onion cause I didn't want to stress out at being a religious writer. Now I'm thinking about what makes it not religious enough for Christian publishing. I'll just say that Christian publishing is majorly rigid...and my books tend to be quirky.

The CONSTANT TOWER
Psal is so loveable. I love him so much. As a main character, he is so clueless and so good-natured...when he isn't being whiny. Working on that as well. Working on the revisions...slowly. It's interesting working with a character who is clueless, though. Not wanting him to be stupid or insensitive. Hard row to hoe.

UNEMPLOYMENT ISSUES
Other than that, living in the throes of unemployment and illness has been interesting. So we're living on younger son's disability check, my pension, and hubby's unemployment check. It's been interesting to say the least. God provides, though.

OLDER SON
Older son was at Spring Break


-C

The Ark of the Lord in the temple of Dagon

Am doing Bible study now with my hubby and we're reading I Samuel chapter 5 where the ark of the lord is in the temple of a demon... and even in the demon's temple God shows Dagon who is the true Lord of the universe. It's a real blessing for me. And I'll be pondering it today and meditating.

1 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. 3 And when the people of Ashdod arose early in the morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and set it in its place again. 4 And when they arose early the next morning, there was Dagon, fallen on its face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. The head of Dagon and both the palms of its hands were broken off on the threshold; only Dagon’s torso was left of it. 5 Therefore neither the priests of Dagon nor any who come into Dagon’s house tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

I'm still getting off the high I always get on whenever I read Judges -- a great literary book which is totally fun because it shows the flaky stuff pseudo-spiritual and legalistic folks do when they do that which is right in their own eyes.

Then I went through Ruth. Loved it.

So here I am in I Samuel. This time round I felt a real love for Eli. He's a sweet soul. And also thought of Samuel ministering before the Lord in his cute little ephod that his mother made for him. There was a sweetness to that.

So anyway, am now at this passage and am really arrested by it. I really have to ponder it. A part of me is thinking of the temple as our bodies. Imagine our bodies being ruled by an evil strongman within. And then God is brought into this temple of our bodies. And the strongman is made to bow low in his own temple. I'm just pondering it...wow! Even in a place where the world or false religion rules, God within can destroy the system -- or the body, or the household-- destroys the power of the false god and makes the strongman bow in his own temple. I just am really blessed by that.

God with us, the hope of glory. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Thank you, Jesus.

-C

Dr. Alan Koslow's Weight Loss Diet

Well...gonna attempt to try this

With these rules you will have a 1200-1500 calorie diet without having to count calories. But it only works if you follow them. I'm down 74 pounds as of this morning, six months and two weeks into my program. Please let me know what you think.

Eat as much fresh or lightly cooked/steamed (no oil or fat) fruits, vegetables and legumes as you want. I eat five to eight pounds everyday.

Eliminate condiments (butter, ketchup, mayo, fat based) except vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and spices.
NO!! fried foods.

four ounces of meat or fish or two ounces cheese max twice a day.

Cut down to close to none on all traditional white things, i.e. bread, potatoes, rice (all colors) and pasta. Limit it to two to four ounces a day.

At a restaurant replace starch with second vegie or double vegies and either plan on splitting dinner with someone else or have wait staff split it in kitchen before bringing it to you and pack the second half to go.

Eat fruit for dessert or at most take a single (moderate) fork full of someone else's dessert.

The extra rule is: Tell EVERYONE you are dieting to lose weight. This creates a social contract with all.

Do Lord

Yay! My Bible Study on RawSistaz ebook readathon

This morning I read the news that my Bible study Seeds of Bible Study: How not to read the Bible will be on the ebook readathon being done by rawsistaz YAY!

I like that little book. I have yet to update the version now up on amazon but the ebook is pretty much updated.

Anyway, I'm super-happy. Why, you may ask? Because my heart is in that little book. My literature-loving heart, my editorial heart (not that the book is really that perfectly edited), and my Bible-loving heart.

I wrote it because I've seen so many people mishandle the word of God...or mishandle words PERIOD. There are a lot of assumptions about stuff in the Bible that is based on people not taking words seriously. Or they don't know how to understand words. Or they don't know how to question their church's traditional understanding of a verse. Or they didn't even know they were reading the Bible wrongly and were mis-interpreting and mis-reading.

So, yeah, it's my little foray in the battle against glibness. And my little battle to make folks learn to read carefully and to know what they're saying about the Bible -- or about anything-- before they repeat it.

Back in the day when I used to teach, I'd warn the kids over and over to practice critical reading....and to be very careful what they repeat -- even if they were repeating something someone very important and famous said. I'm hoping my kids will grow up to be very careful with words. Because, dang!, many Christians, many Christian writers, many secular writers, many intelligent people....just don't examine words that's handed down to them. These are the last days...and even if it makes me look like a pill I'm not going to let some unexamined comment go down without challenging it. Even if the greatest writer or minister supposedly said it.

So yeah, the book is up at the ebook readathon. You can also download it from this site (see column to the left) or from Lulu.com -C

WTF Moment in Bible Study: Samson...oh yeah, and Delilah

Okay, so now we're in Judges which I totally love. If there was a Bible book that was written by a woman, it's definitely Judges! Ah, the women of Judges. But anyway, there we are at Samson.

When his story begins, the Phillistines and the Israelites are living in relative peace. True, the Israelites are not rulers in their land and are under tribute but hey, they've gotten accustomed to it. MUCH too ACCUSTOMED and at PEACE with the situation. God decides to make trouble.

And how does he do it? He sends an angel to a barren woman and tells her he'll give her a child. She is to have a special diet and to keep herself pure from unclean foods. She does -- and what does she get for this special mercy? What kind of perfect child does God give to her? A vindictive, strong kid with a very nasty temper!!!! Yes, my kind of deliverer.

But still, there isn't trouble. Both the Phillistines and the Israelites aren't apt to fight over anything. So what does God do? He makes Samson fall in love with a Phillistine woman? Yes, yes, I know... ministers like saying that Samson's lust carried him away. Puhleze! The Bible states that "this thing was from the Lord." I suspect people like saying it's Samason's fault because they remember that Moses had commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with the Phillistines, so ministers think that God wouldn't willfully cause Samson to sin like that. But really? Hey, Samson was totally fine when he lied through his teeth to Delilah. (Anyway, we haven't gotten to Delilah yet.)

So, yeah, God sets up poor Samson to fall in love with a woman from the enemy's camp. So God could start trouble with his vindictive nasty-tempered deliverer! I love it!

So Samson gets into a snit because the Lords of the phillistines threatened and nagged his wife to give him an answer to a riddle. And what does he do? He goes down to Eskalon and murders 30 innocent people who had nothing to do with his fight with the other Phillistines. But even then, the Phillistines don't get too upset about it. They let it go. Yes, they LET IT GO. But God has made this particular deliverer majorly testy -- a troublemaker of the highest order. And Samson keeps causing trouble...ruining the Phillistine crops. The Phillistines -- extremely patient people-- ask the men of Judah (Israelites) to help them capture Samson. The men of Judah think Samson is being unreasonable. But he allows them to bound him and then he kills the Phillistines who have finally lost their temper.

The Phillistines let this go as well. Amazingly! They don't kill a ton of Israelites. But they are losing patience with Samson.

Then Samson meets Delilah. No, she isn't a harlot. He meets her after he visited a harlot. And we don't know what Delilah is. The Bible doesn't say. Many Christians think she's a Phillistine. This is probably because of that xenophobic evil strange woman thing so many Christians have. A bit of racism or whatever. Anyway, ministers want to believe she's a Phillistine. But for all we know she could've been a sweet little Israelite farmer's daughter.

Samson loves her. We don't know if she loves him. But why not assume she does? After all, nowhere in the Bible does it say that Esther was in love with the king (or that she liked being one of a zillion women in the king's harem) but we assume. So, yeah, I'll assume she loved him. AT FIRST Anyway...then she gets all treacherous on him.

Down come the Phillistines....and they're (rightly) annoyed with Samson's shenanigans. So Delilah caves. Know what? I think I would've caved too if someone bribed me. Plus we KNOW how they had threatened Samson's other wife.

So she nags Samson -- Oh please! Let's not judge either her or Samson. Bible readers are always behaving as if IF they were in Samson's position they wouldn't have caved. Or if they loved someone they wouldn't have betrayed Samson. Well, let's see what happens when/if persecution comes. I can see why Delilah nagged. Although, I have to admit...she could've told Samson they were bribing her. Anyway I can see why Samson caved after being nagged so long. -- and Samson gives up his secret (He has a Nazarite vow of purity and cannot cut his hair.)

Again, at the end, we don't see the Phillistines harming any of the Israelites. They just don't seem real prone to harming anyone... and they only go against Samson after he killed their people.

But what gets me here in this story is how utterly at peace the Israelites were with being oppressed? And that God had to go to such measures to cause trouble with their oppressors? That's the way the Christian world is -- we're at ease with our diseases, the demonic element, the ways of the world. Ah, unholy peace! We need a holy troublemaker to challenge us to destroy the giants in the land. -C

Leadership Building Blocks: An Insider’s Guide to Success

Leadership Building Blocks: An Insider’s Guide to Success
by Dawn McCoy

Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: Flourish Publishing Group (February 1, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0981994490

ISBN-13: 978-0981994499

Want to be an extraordinary leader? Lead with courage and integrity – and make it work for you!

A former elected official and community leader offers timeless Leadership Building Blocks as strategies essential for today’s leaders. This book will challenge and inspire you to be bold, dynamic, and resilient and shows you how to leave a remarkable legacy in any leadership role.

You will follow the author’s experience and discover how to:

Get an insider perspective and condense your leadership learning curve
Honor your intuition and make better decisions
Achieve results with leadership short-cuts without compromising quality
Lead courageously in the face of adversity
Connect with people and secure buy-in from solid relationships
Are you new to a leadership role? Leadership Building Blocks provides you a step-by-step guide in your leadership journey. No longer wet behind the ears? You’ll gain helpful resources and greater insight.

Unlike other leadership books, Leadership Building Blocks offers you a systemic approach that keeps you on the right track. The result: reduce your learning curve, have more fun, and leverage your experiences.

About the Author

Dawn McCoy is author of Leadership Building Blocks: An Insider’s Guide to Success. As one of the youngest elected African-American elected to the Sacramento City Unified School Board, McCoy shares seven leadership fundamentals in her book. Inspiring readers to be top in their field, Dawn shares her insights based upon twenty years serving as a nonprofit and government executive.

A motivational speaker, coach, and founder of Flourish Leadership Group, a leadership development and communications firm, Dawn is dedicated to transforming ordinary people into extraordinary leaders. In recent years, she has worked with organizations to develop their vision and create phenomenal results. Dawn has worked with hundreds of individuals to help them capture their spirit of leadership and truly become the effective leaders they were meant to be.

Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults

Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults 
Christian Smith with Patricia Snell (Oxford University press)

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195371798
• ISBN-13: 978-0195371796

Finished Joshua

Okay, I have never really loved the book of Joshua. All that land allotment stuff. And I've always loved Judges. As a bit of legal fun -- to see how the people mess up when they start occupying the land and doing that which they thought was good in their hearts.

But now I've finished Joshua and I'm thinking of that spiritual kingdom we Christians should have conquered. Healing of the sick, casting out of demons, cleansing the lepers -- such giants! I'm sad, I'll admit it. The Church has cast aside so much of its glories. St Paul said we should preach the word with power, that God wants to prove the sonship and glory of Jesus through great works done in Christ's name.

I look at Joshua and it reminds me of the Book of Acts. The land still unconquered, the captain of the people's salvation...and the conqueror/deliverer now gone...and trusting the people to occupy the land. And I get so sad that in the geographical case and in the spiritual/literal case, the people of God have compromised with the giants.

I'm mad at the early church for losing the way under Constantine, at other parasitic religions that fed off Christianity (and further confused the issue) and at modern human laziness and sin. I want to believe that at least in this life -- in MY life-- the glories of Christ's great salvation can be revealed. So upsetting, though.

I have several atheist and moslem friends who walk about sneering at Christ. Philosophical ideas are not what God told us to use. We are to use God-with-us, the power of Jesus' blood, the power of God's living word, the name to which all names must bow. I could argue til I'm blue in my black face that Jesus is Lord and that he had to shed his perfect and righteous blood for the remission of the sins of the whole world -- of whom I am chief sinner. But let God heal my son! Let God's people rise up against giants such as cancer and schizophrenia and autism and AIDS with only the name of Jesus...and let the giants tumble.... then my friends will shut their mouths and magnify our God! -C

Weekend Movie-Viewing: The Suffering Silent Lover Edition

Okay, there's a lot of suffering silent lovers in Asian films. Perhaps the Asian culture has more about self-sacrifice than the western culture. (But I've seen a lot of movies with silent loving western types.) Who knows? Not in the mood to ponder too much now.

So I saw two movies. The first was Diva Love, a Taiwanese romantic comedy and the second was Ditto, a Korean romantic version of the American film Frequency.

Diva Love was so forgettable, I not only forgot scenes from the movie, I actually forgot what the entire film was about and had to jog my memory. Okay, so here it goes: Gorgeous hunk sees gorgeous girl and says, "if she's destined for me, we'll meet again." So, of course they meet again but this time -- as happens in sacrificing suffering lover films-- she's with some other guy. His brother. She's married to HIS brother. His brother (of course) is weak and is fooling around with a secretary. Long story short, yadda yadda, they get together after brother and sis-in-law divorce. The only good thing about this movie was the actor...quite cute. The bad thing about this flick: the depiction of Asian young modern woman. She's hip and modern but kinda cute floozy-lite. She has that kind of "what the hell is this offense?" thing that women in these flicks have? I mean she gets offended about something -- I guess to show she's a strong woman-- but really there's nothing there that would offend me. But it's the kind of offense one finds in western and eastern romantic comedies...to show the woman has a mind of her own and is real deep. So, yeah, whatever. But what was really especially annoying was the forced giddiness when she gets drunk or feels sad or hopeless. Yeah, I know... it's supposed to be cute. Well, it's not.

Not that women in the Taiwanese culture can't be cutely drunk, or cutely tempestuous. But honestly, I don't know if they really can do it in such a western way. (Am i being too provincial here?) Those kind of silly tantrums and shouting in a restaurant and well...all those stereotypical young woman drama.... I just felt it was way borrowed. I'd have preferred sexual humor founded in the Asian culture. But then, as I said, I could be talking out my ear. Maybe all young drunk sexy things act this way....and that's why guys love them.

So the next movie.... now this one was sadder...seeing it's Korean and all. In Ditto, a boy from 2000 and a girl from 1979 talk to each other on Ham radio. Usual stuff happens but then boy tells girl who his parents are. SPOILER!!!! Yes, boy is the son of girl's present boyfriend and present best friend. From the moment the girl hears this, she withdraws from life. And she lives her life in sorrow. (People love real deeply in korean films.) But then there is the chance that she could fall in love with the son of her boyfriend. But when she meets him (in the present) -- although the sparks are all there-- she does the same thing (DITTO, get it) that she did before ...bypass him. Thus she dooms herself to sorrow for the rest of her life.

Okay, call me a hopeless romantic. But why couldn't she have hooked up with the son? I thought about it. First, I suppose because she couldn't have fallen in love with a kid younger than she was. There's this weird Korean thing about age-friends. So it would've been weird. Second, she would've been in love with her old boyfriend, really. Not the son himself. Thirdly, if she chose to love him she would've been intruding yet again into someone else's life -- the young girl the kid from 2000 is kinda sorta hanging out with. (Okay, a very romantic part of me wanted the girl from 2000 to somehow be the daughter of the 1979 girl. In that way, the children could've gotten together even though the parents didn't. Yes, I wanted that because I'm hopelessly western. And because, great marriage though I have, I totally think a person could love again. There can be more than one great loves in a person's life, no?)

So I wasn't real please at the ending. Then I got into a discussion with a friend who really loves sad movies. Too much so I think. And I got to thinking about the willfulness of hopelessness. Nihilism could become so romanticized in some people that hope offends some people. (I am not naming names but it got me annoyed that he wouldn't want to give these characters hope. And it got him annoyed that I kept insisting on a hopeful way out of the story.)

Dang, that someone could hold on to hopelessness with so much willful intensity! No, I don't think so. Give a character hope, I say. But what got me was the willful need to be hopeless. Very annoying. Anyway, that's my internet movie stuff for the weekend. -C

WTF Moment in Bible Study: the death of leaders

Okay, so there is hubby and me finishing up Deuteronomy. And what do I do? I start crying and weeping and blubbering at Moses' death. Snot is everywhere. I'm imagining all the Israelites feeling bereft cause the leader who has led them these many years is now going to die. (Why do people go up to mountains to die? Okay, Moses is buried by God in a valley but he died on the mountain. So, yeah... Aaron dies on Horeb and Moses dies on Nebo.)

Anyway, I got to thinking of when Jesus died and left his disciples. Then I got to thinking of the verse about ....God had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Maybe I've been wounded by all the silly helpless, cruel, cold, inept ministers I've had to deal with. Or maybe I'm dealing with loss of grandfather issues. Who knows? Maybe it was some sort of cosmic desperate cry of loneliness and wanting to be near God...or at least to be near someone who is close to God.

Then I remembered one of my favorite hymns that we sing almost every night. There's a line which goes: "Not as orphans are we left in sorrow now." I tell myself I must remember that.

I just cried and cried as if I had lost my own father. Very weird.

Alleluia! sing to Jesus! His the scepter, His the throne.
Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.
Hark! the songs of peaceful Zion thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus out of every nation has redeemed us by His blood.

Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?

Alleluia! bread of angels, Thou on earth our food, our stay;
Alleluia! here the sinful flee to Thee from day to day:
Intercessor, Friend of sinners, Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,
Where the songs of all the sinless sweep across the crystal sea.

Alleluia! King eternal, Thee the Lord of lords we own;
Alleluia! born of Mary, Earth Thy footstool, Heav’n Thy throne:
Thou within the veil hast entered, robed in flesh our great High Priest;
Thou on earth both priest and victim in the Eucharistic feast.

Okay, saw Synesthesia 2006

I saw Synesthesia today (some movies on that list I simply cannot bring myself to watch) and well,....flooding thoughts.

Basic synopsis: Weird murderer killing people surrounded by this little girl, Mari. Shin and Takashi -- computer-types just this shy of the law-- protect her. Shin's a synesthete. And the murderer is a synesthete. And the female cop looking to find the murderer suspects as much.

First: weirdly, the thing that touches me about this film is Shin's relationship with Takashi. Okay, sure it's the helpless little friend/brother thing but it works. And although the writers didn't give Takashi much of a backstory, there was enough there to make the viewer really like him and LONG for his happiness. Heck, we didn't even know the depth of his need to find love until he discovered it when he fell for Mari.

Secondly: that ending. The very last bits of it.... Aaaargh!!!!!!! This is something that annoys the heck out of me when it comes to certain Japanese movies and you'll probably groan in disbelief when I say this but honestly I would rather believe that Shin is carrying his friend's body down that hill rather than Mari's. YES, the shot is messed up. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen a Japanese or Korean movie which is unduly confusing because I simply don't know what has happened at the end. (Yes, you may laugh...but it took me a while to figure out the ending of Viva Love.) So here we have a long shot.... and someone being carried...and I KNOW it's supposed to be Mari because, well, Takashi is a smelly corpse by now and probably burnt. But as a writer (and you're one too) I will challenge these screenwriters. They're the ones who had Takashi say (when he was so involved in the video game) "Take me to the hill yadda yadda and bury me yadda yadda." So, if they were to book-end that little motif and honor the friendship between the guys they SHOULD've had Shin carry his friend's body...or urn.

Thirdly.... True, the two synesthetses (?) found each other. And I keep remembering C S Lewis' definition of friendship. ("True friendship is when you meet someone and you say, "You do that too?" Something like that.) But dang! Although it was touching for him to find someone very much like himself, it wasn't as if he hadn't found love. And that is an important point. Sure we saw his pregnant girlfriend being stressed out about her inability to truly understand him...but the filmmakers mightily missed the boat because they didn't show his grief or sorrow about not being understood. So, whether it was a writerly mistake or not, the film itself doesn't show that
Shin lacked much or even was feeling alone. Not meaning to be a pain here...but you know as well as I do that writers can "think" they've put something into a plot when they haven't really put it in the story at all. Shin just didn't seem all that lonely. So, my friend James who recommended this flick has imbued the Shin character with a longing and grief the character just doesn't have...or at least one which (if it's there) isn't properly shown by the screenwriters' skill.

There are so many things that bothered me about this movie....although I gotta say I liked it. It didn't quite do the paranoia thriller thing for me. It didn't do the police procedural thing. (Nope. Definitely didn't hold together there.) It didn't do the surreal hallucinatory thing (which might have been nice.) It didn't do the medical thriller. And it didn't touch me with the sense of loss. When James described this movie, I thought: wow, I'll be enveloped in loss, longing, and alienation. I WAITED for it. Nada, nada. I want my alienation and isolation heavy. And we didn't see this from Shin at all. Yep, he was relatively well-adjusted.

I will always remember this movie as the story of two lost "brothers:" Mari's brother who lost her. Shin's loss of Takashi (his friend/brother.) And maybe even as a story of a pregnant woman attempting to connect to her boyfriend but I will always remember it joyfully as the story of Takashi. Which isn't bad. I liked the movie for that...and that's where the heart of the film was for me.

James steered me to a good flick...but alas, for all the wrong reasons. I liked it, though..
I have to add that hubby thought Shin shouldn't have killed her. He's sitting beside me suggesting Shin should have sent her to the cops or to psychotherapists. Honestly! Yeah, Shin didn't have to kill her but it was one of the most necrophiliac erotic murders I've seen in a while. So...perhaps some fulfillment there. For the characters...not me.

Korean and Japanese Movies Recommended to me that I HAVE to see

This is a compiled list from several folks. These don't include the one's I've already seen. Some are very heart-breaking and some are popcorn stuff. They don't include the ones I've seen already and posted on. (A few Chinese flicks thrown in)

Project Makeover
Happiness
Josee, the Tiger, and The Fish
My Girl and I
Sorum
Seducing Mr Perfect
Brotherhood
Samaritan Girl
The Classic
Legend of the Seven Cutter
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance
Synaesthenia
Becoming Myself
Please teach me English
Marriage is a Crazy Thing
Someone Special
Love & Pop
Love Phobia
...ing
Spring Bears Love
The Man who was superman
Old Boy
Dead Friend
Innocent Steps
You are my Sunshine
No One To Watch Over Me
what happened last night
The house guest and my mother
10 Promises to my dog
One liter of tears
You are not alone
Attack of the pinup boys
A tale of two sisters
Ditto
The Turning Gate
My Sassy Girl
Tears
Lovely Complex
100 Days with Mr Arrogant
Romantic Island
He was cool
Windstruck
My first love
My Brother is Type B
Almost Love
My Love
A Wolf's Temptation
Daisy
Crazy First Love
A moment to Remember
Sweet Lies AKA Lost and Found
Hana-bi
Now and Forever
Don't laugh at my romance
Paris Love Story
Beast and the Beauty
When Romance meets Destiny
Dear Enemy
Secret Sunshine
The Case of the Itaewon Homicide
First Kiss
Singles
Love Me Not
Frivolous Wife
Old Miss Diary
The sunflower
Daddy long legs
A boy who went to heaven
Tears for you
Picnic
Princess Aurora
One fine spring day
Once in a summer.
Castaway on the Moon
The Chaser
I'm a Cyborg
Art of Seduction
Kick the Moon
My Tutor Friend 2
And the Rest is Silence
3 Iron House ? <-- I think.... I can't read my handwriting.
White Valentine
The Killer
Baby and Me
Beautiful
Departures
Fine, Totally Fine,
My Brother
Voice of a Murderer