“All the good stories deserve embellishment,” says Gandalf. In Jackson’s case, embellishment means lots of CGI and plot tangents not in the core source material, but a great story is still told. If you go see The Hobbit: A Fun Expected Journey, I cannot promise that you will come back fully happy. But if you do, you will not be the same.
Category Archives: Books
_Cloud Atlas_ Review (the novel)
I had not heard of Cloud Atlas until the trailer for the film. I immediately looked up the book and was interested. When a friend told me she had begun reading it, I quickly followed along.
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas is what some describe as a Russian doll of a novel, epic in scope and universal in theme. The story is broken into six different stories that weave together in connection. In terms of history, it’s a tale of “There and Back Again,” with fictional characters telling their story in layers unawares, from historical journal to epistolary romance to political thriller to farcical biopic pitch to digital recording to oral history.
Christmas Persecutes the Lonely: A Conversation with Scrooge and the Grinch
“Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the frayed, and the rejected” -Jimmy Cannon
Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch who stole Christmas have since reformed their ways and now attend a former Christmas villain support group. They both arrive a little early. This is their conversation:
Grinch: So, ‘Nezer, how’s the credit union management goin’ for ya?
Scrooge: Great. I’m glad I left before Marley and Farley was acquired by Goldman Sachs. Now there’s a name right out of a Dickens novel if I ever heard one. How does it feel to be the first Green Santa?
G: Inspirational. I really felt like I’ve opened up a lot of doors for minorities. Or should I say, opened a lotta chimneys.
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_A Faith Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: A Closure of Thoughts
“You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us.” -Justin Martyr
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”-Tertullian
*Matthew 5:9; 5:38-45; 26:52; Luke 6:27-28; Romans 12:14; 12:17-21; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Peter 3:9; and Revelation 12:11
Having finished the book A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, I have one wish, that it was instead called A Faith Worth Not Fighting For. I think that phrase is more positive and more accurately reflects the essays within. The Christian faith is something I will fight for in my heart and in the endeavors of my faith, not with weapons, but with the piercing sword of the spirit that gives new life. Here the authors explain why they chose the title they did, which I think is justified.
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 13
Chapter 12 was on the alleged violent Jesus in the temple.
Chapter 13 is about the alleged violent Jesus in John’s Revelation. J. Nelson Kraybill asks “What About the Warrior Jesus in Revelation 19: ‘He has trampled out the vintage’?”
To start with, Kraybill reminds us that “we should read Revelation as reassurance that God has chosen to act and redeem in the midst of a messed up world.” That’s important, considering some of the weird interpretations of the book that have come up over the ages. Far too many people still believe that it’s something like the “Left Behind” books that themselves left wisdom and truth behind. What John writes is in essence a revealing. In all the troubles Christians were undergoing and about to undergo, we Jesus is revealed. That is the purpose of the book John wrote on Patmos.
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 12
The last chapter dealt with the centurion. This chapter deals with the temple incident.
John Dear in Chapter 12 asks, “Didn’t Jesus overturn the tables and chase people out of the temple with a whip?”
Most of the paintings of this incident were done after versions of the Bible were disseminated that translated the word as “whip”. Like paintings of a white Jesus, sometimes these old images continue through a culture, regardless of what a text says.
However, Dear makes it clear that this incident reminds us that “the nonviolent Jesus was not passive. He did not sit under a tree and practice his breathing.” Jesus was very confrontational, and may have seemed angry enough to hit someone or more. It’s no wonder we may think his actions at the temple prove he wasn’t nonviolent because it was so…action-oriented. “His nonviolence was active, provocative, public, daring and dangerous.”
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 11
The last chapter discussed what Jesus meant by “bringing a sword”.
In Chapter 11, Andy Alexis-Baker looks at the case study of a Roman Soldier: “What About the Centurion?”
The argument has gone that since the centurion showed great faith, and that Jesus commended him, and did not tell him to leave the service, that it was ok for the centurion to be a soldier, and thus it’s ok for Christians to war.
But if you grew up with the heritage of faith that I did, you are very very familiar with how the whole “making arguments from silence” thing works. I’ve seen whole debates on whether silence is permissive or prohibitive (or either of these exclusively). Baker says “Jesus’ silence on the centurion’s profession has become a tacit endorsement of Christians becoming involved in state-sponsored killing.”
_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 10
The last chapter dealt with what it meant for “every soul to be subject to governing authorities“.
Chapter 10 Samuel Wells deals with a puzzling statement made by Jesus. Now we ask, “Didn’t Jesus say he came not to bring peace, but a sword?”
Matt. 10:34-39 is the central text in this chapter. Jesus did in fact say these words: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
The irony Wells points out is that nearly every Christian will tell you Jesus didn’t “come to bring the sword”, and yet so many Christians act as if he did, whereas he said he did “come to bring the sword”, and yet his life and the lives of his followers after his ascension show the opposite. So something’s strange here, right?
_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 9
Chapter 8 addressed the violence in the Old Testament and how we reconcile that with Christian nonviolence.
Chapter 9 deals with a single passage that gets abused quite a bit: “Let Every Soul be Subject”. Lee Camp tackles what this passage means in context, instead of in the absurd isolation in which it is often quoted, violently ripped from God’s word in order to serve agendas of violence.
If you read the entire passage of Romans 13, you realize that this one phrase was never meant to be a military mantra. We are to “present [our] bodies as living sacrifices” before God, and commanded not to “conform to the age” (often translated “the world”). Since we are a new creation, we live according to a new age. So whatever authorities we are under, they’re not ours.
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Book Trailer for _Wonder_ by R.J. Palacio
Recently I read the new juvenile fiction novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio, about a boy born with a facial disfigurement who is about to enter public school for the first time.
I was on a team with two others, Paige Horst and Katie Estes, cohorts of a graduate class in teaching young adult literature. Our goal was to create a book trailer for Wonder. We focused on the motif of space and the universe in the novel.
I recommend Wonder for adults and children. It’s a great message about kindness.
CALEB COY 