Last week I watched the film Chocolat for the first time. I'd never watched it before mainly because I'm prejudiced against chick flicks. Jo watched this movie a few years back and tried to get me to see it with her, but I declined. But last week I did. The movie itself was good. I love Johnny Depp and think he's one of the greatest actors ever. The thing that struck me the most about this movie is the way the characters were actually caricatures.
The priest in Chocolat is a great example. He is a bumbling young guy who doesn't seem to know what he is doing. Plus he is controlled by someone else. He doesn't seem to add any real value to the community except just be a placeholder for the office of priest and guide the congregation through rituals.
This caricaturization is not unique to Chocolat. Usually, any Christian portrayed on film or on TV is one of several extremes - they're either an over the top holy roller, an idiot, or a hypocrite - or possibly all three. Roman Catholic Christians seem to get the most frequent and worst portrayals. They are widely used to represent Christians and the Christian faith, partly stemming from the externals of Roman Catholicism - the robes worn by priest, the blacks suits and white collars, the habits of monks and nuns - you immediately identify them as a Roman Catholics. These visuals translate well into a medium which uses images to tell the story.
On one hand it bothers me that Christians are portrayed so stereotypically, but on the other hand, I realize that this kind of caricaturization happens across the board in movies. Characters are stereotyped and have qualities which lead to them being not a representation of real people, but to being caricatures of certain types of people. Muslims are terrorists, or at the very least untrustworthy. French people are arrogant and rude. Americans all carry guns and are violent. Etc, etc. Its easier to stereotype than to try to portray people in real ways.
In life this is true too. Its just much easier to say, 'all of group X is like this or that'. It takes more work to meet people in whatever group X is and befriend them. And how many times do we have our dearly held stereotypes broken down once we interact with someone from group X? I'd say almost always.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Sacrement!!
First of all, Les Québécois (French speaking people from Québec) use the word 'sacrement' as a curse word. But with their Candian French accent, its pronounced sack-ra-mon. They also use words and phrases such as "Tabernacle!" and "Sacre Bleu!" as curse words. But that's beside the point.
Recently I was reading some really interesting things in a book I have to read for VLI. This book is really good. Some of the books I read for VLI are as dry as crusty old bread or saltine crackers. They are the kind of books that insomniacs need to get into as they immediately induce sleep. But Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark Noll is not like that at all.
It deals with Christian history, but instead of it just being a straightforward history book, Noll picks out some of the most important events in Christian history, tells about the actual event, then shows its effects on Christianity as a whole (for better or worse). This book (and the class its a part of) is really teaching me a lot by revealing the history of our faith and showing how things got to be the way they are today.
The other day I was reading a really great passage on the theology of the sacraments as developed by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. The sacraments are things like Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist. The RCC's belief is that "saving grace comes through to people through the sacraments in a social setting... Receiving God's grace depended upon actually receiving the vehicle of that grace [the sacraments], and not so much how one felt about that transaction." Noll sums this theology of the sacraments by saying, "salvation was communicated through and by the sacraments."
I can kind of understand the Roman Catholic Church a little bit better now by knowing more about church history. Hooray for VLI!!
Recently I was reading some really interesting things in a book I have to read for VLI. This book is really good. Some of the books I read for VLI are as dry as crusty old bread or saltine crackers. They are the kind of books that insomniacs need to get into as they immediately induce sleep. But Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark Noll is not like that at all.
It deals with Christian history, but instead of it just being a straightforward history book, Noll picks out some of the most important events in Christian history, tells about the actual event, then shows its effects on Christianity as a whole (for better or worse). This book (and the class its a part of) is really teaching me a lot by revealing the history of our faith and showing how things got to be the way they are today.
The other day I was reading a really great passage on the theology of the sacraments as developed by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. The sacraments are things like Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist. The RCC's belief is that "saving grace comes through to people through the sacraments in a social setting... Receiving God's grace depended upon actually receiving the vehicle of that grace [the sacraments], and not so much how one felt about that transaction." Noll sums this theology of the sacraments by saying, "salvation was communicated through and by the sacraments."
I can kind of understand the Roman Catholic Church a little bit better now by knowing more about church history. Hooray for VLI!!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
vagabonds and hobos
I found this really amazing photo series on American vagabonds, otherwise known as hobos. Wikipedia defines vagabond as "a (generally impoverished) itinerant person...A vagabond is characterized by almost continuous traveling, lacking a fixed home, temporary abode, or permanent residence. Vagabonds are not bums, as bums are not known for traveling but preferring to stay in one location."
I met a guy like this back in January, a Mexican guy who spoke with a think accent and called himself Steve. He had this beautiful big yellow dog with him, a Lab I think. I had to drop something off somewhere on my way home from work one night and saw this guy sitting with a dog in the shadows. I was afraid to go talk with him, but did it anyway even though it was a little scary. It turns out though that he was the nicest guy you could ever meet and his dog was the sweetest dog ever (once she realized that I was going to try to harass her master). He was sitting in the shadows waiting for it to get a bit darker so no one would give him a hard time. Then when it was good and dark, he was going to walk across the street to 7-11 to guy some Raman noodles which he and his dog would eat for supper. He actually didn't want anything at all from me, although I did give him some money. He told me a lot about his life story, how he got to the US, how he still has a family back in Mexico, and that he was walking south on his way to Virginia or North Carolina, somewhere where the weather was warmer and the people were kinder.
Anyways, I don't know how I should feel about people who choose this lifestyle. But no matter how I feel, these photos are amazing.
I met a guy like this back in January, a Mexican guy who spoke with a think accent and called himself Steve. He had this beautiful big yellow dog with him, a Lab I think. I had to drop something off somewhere on my way home from work one night and saw this guy sitting with a dog in the shadows. I was afraid to go talk with him, but did it anyway even though it was a little scary. It turns out though that he was the nicest guy you could ever meet and his dog was the sweetest dog ever (once she realized that I was going to try to harass her master). He was sitting in the shadows waiting for it to get a bit darker so no one would give him a hard time. Then when it was good and dark, he was going to walk across the street to 7-11 to guy some Raman noodles which he and his dog would eat for supper. He actually didn't want anything at all from me, although I did give him some money. He told me a lot about his life story, how he got to the US, how he still has a family back in Mexico, and that he was walking south on his way to Virginia or North Carolina, somewhere where the weather was warmer and the people were kinder.
Anyways, I don't know how I should feel about people who choose this lifestyle. But no matter how I feel, these photos are amazing.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
recommended reading
I recently read The Twilight Watch, the 3rd book in a fantasy/ sci-fi series (Night Watch and Day Watch are the first two books) by Sergei Lukyanenko. Movies have been made of some of the stories from the first two books, but they are nowhere near as good as the books.
Each book is divided into three stories. The stories are set in a universe filled with magicians, vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural beings. There are basically two kinds of beings - magical and non-magical. Within the realm of the magical beings, there are two sides - the Light and the Dark. These sides have made an uneasy pact to not obliterate each other, but to keep the Balance. Enter the two Watches: Night Watch and Day Watch which 'watch' each other, or keep each other from upsetting the Balance.These books are definite page turners, the kind of books that I am compelled to read it - they call out to me, 'read me, you know you want to...' They are so amazingly good and are three of the best books of any genre that I've ever read. So put these on your summer reading list if you're into fantasy & sci-fi.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Tom Wolfe and Ritalin
I came across an article written by Tom Wolfe (author of Bonfire of the Vanities and The Right Stuff). It was originally published in in 1996 by Forbes magazine. The article is called "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died." This full article is really great, but I especially loved this section on ADD and the drug Ritalin. You can find the full article at OrthodoxyToday.org.
"I have children in school, and I am intrigued by the faith parents now invest--the craze began about 1990--in psychologists who diagnose their children as suffering from a defect known as attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether this "disorder" is an actual, physical, neurological condition or not, but neither does anybody else in this early stage of neuroscience. The symptoms of this supposed malady are always the same. The child, or, rather, the boy--forty-nine out of fifty cases are boys--fidgets around in school, slides off his chair, doesn't pay attention, distracts his classmates during class, and performs poorly. In an earlier era he would have been pressured to pay attention, work harder, show some self-discipline. To parents caught up in the new intellectual climate of the 1990s, that approach seems cruel, because my little boy's problem is... he's wired wrong! The poor little tyke --the fix has been in since birth! Invariably the parents complain, "All he wants to do is sit in front of the television set and watch cartoons and play Sega Genesis." For how long? "How long? For hours at a time." Hours at a time; as even any young neuroscientist will tell you, that boy may have a problem, but it is not an attention deficit.
Nevertheless, all acrossAmerica San Francisco Los Angeles and San Diego America
"I have children in school, and I am intrigued by the faith parents now invest--the craze began about 1990--in psychologists who diagnose their children as suffering from a defect known as attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether this "disorder" is an actual, physical, neurological condition or not, but neither does anybody else in this early stage of neuroscience. The symptoms of this supposed malady are always the same. The child, or, rather, the boy--forty-nine out of fifty cases are boys--fidgets around in school, slides off his chair, doesn't pay attention, distracts his classmates during class, and performs poorly. In an earlier era he would have been pressured to pay attention, work harder, show some self-discipline. To parents caught up in the new intellectual climate of the 1990s, that approach seems cruel, because my little boy's problem is... he's wired wrong! The poor little tyke --the fix has been in since birth! Invariably the parents complain, "All he wants to do is sit in front of the television set and watch cartoons and play Sega Genesis." For how long? "How long? For hours at a time." Hours at a time; as even any young neuroscientist will tell you, that boy may have a problem, but it is not an attention deficit.
Nevertheless, all across
Monday, July 14, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
2 year old photos
A couple of weeks ago, I found this cool site called mykidtookthese.com. Jo decided to try this with Adelle so we gave her our old digital camera and turned her loose. Its so cool to see the world from her prespective. Here are a few that I like:
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