The sinner and the saint

After Luke 7:36-50 

The woman weeps and anoints

his feet; the man, the host, a man

known to follow the law, likely

congratulates himself for inviting

the man to dine. How freethinking. 

How liberal. How progressive. 

But the guest points out what’s

obvious: that the woman 

of contrition, the woman

of weeping, loves him more

than the man who follows

the law.

 

Photograph by Mahdi Bafande via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

“I Open the Window” – poem by Jane Hirschfield at Literary Hub.

 

The State We’re In – Matthew Hosier at Think Theology.

 

Bible debates, ancient and modern: why did the early church choose only four gospels? – Richard Ostling at Get Religion. 

Saturday Good Reads - Sept. 16, 2023

The Sound of Freedom was definitely the surprise movie hit of the summer. Grossing more than $182 in the U.S. alone, the movie outperformed several better known film franchises. Telling the story of the sexual trafficking of children, the movie was well-written, well-performed, and well-directed. And, of course, the mainstream movie critics hated it, almost unanimously. As Delphine Chui at The Critic Magazine points out, their problems had less to do with the movie and vastly more to do with the culture war. 

 One of the most moving things I read this past week with the story of a father desperate to connect with his behaviorally challenged son. Steve Salermo at Quillette explains how a pit bull made a huge difference. 

 

Our culture is repaganizing, and even the non-religious are beginning to see the dangers. Read Louise Perry at First Things Magazine. 

 

More Good Reads

 

Life and Culture

 

In Missouri v. Biden, Internet Censorship Case, a Win and a Loss – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

The Government Censored Me and Other Scientists. We Fought Back – and Won – Jay Bhattacharya at The Free Press.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Monday Morning Memo: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – David Murray at Writing Boots.

 

Publishing needs to be more diverse, but how? – Victoria Smith at the Critic Magazine.

 

Faith

 

Let Suffering Lead to Gentleness, Not Bitterness – Lara d’Entremont. 

 

What’s the Big Deal About a New Papyrus with Sayings of Jesus? – Michael Holmes at Text and Canon Institute.

 

Selflessness and Sorrow: The Unknown Life of Jesus – Michael Patton at Parchment and Pen.

 

Poetry

 

Grey Gardens – Sarah Nichols at Every Day Poems.

 

Science

 

Mistranslation of Newton’s First Law Discovered After 300 Years – Stephanie Pappas at Scientific American. 

 

Academia’s Missing Men – Lawrence Krauss at Quillette.

 

Music

 

Spiritual Renewal and Modern Choral Music – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Story Behind the Song: How Robert Flack Changed the World with ‘Killing Me Softly’ – Atreyi Banerji at Far Our Magazine.

 

News Media

 

BBC News prefers some voices to others – Joe Hackett at The Critic Magazine.

 

Biden’s Praetorian Media Guard – Matt Taibbi at Racket News. 

Rachmaninov: “Bogoroditse Devo” All-Night Vigil

 

Photograph: Woman Reading by Leon Selbert via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The greater sin

After Luke 7:36-50

A sinful woman of the city,

a euphemism for prostitution,

weeps and anoints his feet

with oil. The host, a man

of some means who followed

the law, is taken aback,

surprised at how unacceptable

this is for his guest to accept

such an anointing. But he says 

nothing. The anointed one

smiles, understanding

the host’s thought, and answers

aloud with a story, a tale 

of two debtors, one lesser and

one greater, and asks which one 

will love the canceller of the debt 

more?

 

Photograph by Kat J via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

The Severe Kindness of Jesus: Hearing Mercy in His Words – Jon Bloom at Desiring God.

 

A Scriptural Soldier: A review of The Letters, Writings, and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell – Crawford Gribben at New Criterion.

 

Jesus of the Scars – poem by Edward Shillito at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

History Matters – Joel Kotkin at Quillette.

 

Poetry Club: Coffee Shop Collage – “Do the Shells Still Hear?” – Tweetspeak Poetry.

"Terminus" by Pete Brassett

Some things were left somewhat hanging in the third Munro and West mystery, Duplicity, by Scottish writer Pete Brassett. Specifically, one of the villains in the story was never caught. But things, including some new things, are coming to a head in Terminus, the fourth in the series. 

It begins with two seemingly unconnected stories. An elderly priest tells a good friend about an old friend of his, a one-time love interest, who’s died and left a surprising will. Surprising, in that he had witnessed her will, in which she’d left everything to various charities. But a week before her death, apparently, she changed attorneys and left her estate to a foundation in the Netherlands. The friend decides to contact the police.

 

At the same time, retired Detective Inspector James Munro is seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident. His former Detective Sergeant Charlotte West, with whom Munro works now on something of a consultant basis, soon realizes that this was no accident; Munro was deliberated targeted, and he made be targeted again. Her fears seem justified when Munro slips out of the hospital to recuperate at home and the doctor is killed in his room.

 

Pete Brassett

Two stories, two investigations – and soon the two begin to converge. And slowly do Munro, West and the other policemen on the team realize that it all seems to tie to the villains who were killed in Duplicity.

 

Brassett, a native Scot, has published 10 novels in the Munro and West series, as well as a number of general fiction and mystery titles. 

 

The author tells a fine story, but what’s also entertaining is the humor, and it all comes from the mouth of James Munro. The humor adds a lightness to what might have become a very dark story inside.

 

Related:

 

She by Pete Brassett.

 

Avarice by Pete Brassett.

 

Duplicity by Pete Brassett.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Raymond Chandler: An American Classic – Michael Mandelbaum at American Purpose.

 

Perseverance and Grace: Why I Don’t Deserve a Damn Bit of Credit for My Life – Alex Sosler at Front Porch Republic.

 

Thorn Bush – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

Samuel Pepys’ Cries of London – Spitalfields Life.

“The Civil War: The Final Year by Those Who Lived It”

It’s last of the four volumes of Civil War, told in the words of people who lived it. The Civil War: The Final Year covers the year from March of 1864 through June of 1865, and it’s every bit as somber and thought-provoking as its three predecessors. 

The volume is edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Fred C. Frey Professor and History Department Chair at Louisiana State University. The Final Year covers some of the final major battles of the war, including Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Atlanta, and Petersburg, as well as Ulysses S. Grant taking control of the Union army and William Sherman’s march across Georgia to the sea. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Civil War Trails: New Designation for Church Destroyed by Civil War – Drew Gruber at Emerging Civil War.

 

Saved by the Bell – The Signal Corps at the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion – Richard Heisler at Emerging Civil War.

“The Battle of Maldon” by J.R.R Tolkien, Edited by Peter Grybauskas

In 991, Vikings attacked Anglo-Saxons in eastern Essex, not far from the current city of Chelmsford northeast of London. A large stream connected by a bridge separated the two forces. The Anglo-Saxons could have likely held off the Vikings for a considerable period. But the Vikings asked permission to cross the bridge to fight, and it was granted by the Anglo-Saxon leader Beorhtnoth. It’s not known why, except perhaps that Beorhtnoth thought he might find glory in battle. 

And that he did, except it wasn’t what he expected. The hand-to-hand combat was vicious and intense. When the Battle of Maldon ended, Beorhtnoth was dead, along with several members of his family, and the Vikings were victorious.

 

What detail we have of the battle is contained in the fragment of an epic poem probably written shortly after the battle. It’s one of the oldest British historical manuscripts, older than even Beowulf. And J.R.R. Tolkien spent considerable time, particularly in the earlier part of his academic career, studying and translating the poem and researching the period.  He also wrote a verse play himself, a fictional attempt to file in some of the missing texts.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Blackberry Memories – poem by Janice Canerdy at Society of Classical Poets.

 

A Hobbit’s Journey Home: Dreaming of the Shire – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

A list of things lost – poem by Kathleen at The Course of Our Seasons.

"Blue Moon" by Aviv

It’s a fairy tale of sorts, a tale of two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness. 

A beautiful, kind princess lives in the Kingdom of Light, and her life is filled with the kind of lovely things you’d expect. Across the shared river is the Kingdom of Darkness, ruled by a prince. One day, as the princess and her court picnic on the riverbank, she looks across and feels an almost irresistible attraction – for what, exactly, she’s not sure. She starts swimming. The members of the court think she’s merely doing a short swim, but this time, she swims to the other side.

 

The prince of Darkness, for his part, has also been feeling an attraction. The two meet, and the rest, as they say, is fairy tale history. Almost. There is more to come, much more, and what is coming will threaten everyone.

 

Aviv

Blue Moon: A Love Story Between Darkness and Light is the first short novel, in fact, the first story published by an Israeli writer who is simply calls himself Aviv, a name that I believe translates into English as “Spring.” What we know about him is he was born in the 1970s and that he’s long been an enthusiast about myths, fairy tales, and legends. And with Blue Moon, he’s written one, and it’s delightfully illustrated by Shani Atzmon.

 

You can take the story at face value and read it as a love story between two people and told as a fairy tale. You can also read it as a metaphorical exploration of the human psyche, with all of us being composed of darkness and light. You could also read it geopolitically, but I don’t think that’s the author’s intention. Instead, he’s told a story, and you are to make of it as you will.

Some Monday Readings

 

Blue sky – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Miller.

 

Walking England’s Coast Part 1: From Dover to Romney – Chris Arnade at Walking the World.

 

Ernest Hemingway survived 2 plane crashes. His letter from it just sold for $237,055 – Jennifer Ludden at NPR. 

 

Dreaming spires? Arnold’s Oxford – Nicholas Shrimpton at New Criterion.