Archive for the 'Fun' Category

Penguins

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 12, 2005
in Fun and Movies
. 2 Comments

First off, Amanda at Pandagon has an interesting response to my post yesterday inspired by "Sixteen Candles."

Sunday night, my fiancee and I stood in a long line at the Laemmle theatre here in town to see what surely is, in my mind, the best film of the year so far:  March of the Penguins.  We are rather mad animal lovers in our house; we are also devoted subscribers to National Geographic.  But we had never seen a film like this: every single scene left me gasping in awe at the filmmakers (who spent a year in the brutal conditions of the Antarctic) and at the beauty of the Emperor Penguins.   The film is narrated by Morgan Freeman, but I would have been happy to watch the whole thing without human voices, just listening to the sounds of wind and the water and the animals themselves.  (To be fair, the sounds of the penguins were apparently enhanced by foley artists, but that doesn’t detract from the picture at all.)

Please go see this film if you live in Los Angeles or New York or Europe (where it is already playing); it will expand nationwide soon.  Though it’s rated G, there are scenes that could disturb the very young ones, and move older sensitive folk to tears.  But it’s a profoundly serious film for all ages, and though I don’t usually turn a blog post into an advertisement for a movie, I’m doing so here today.  Honestly, I haven’t cried so much in a film since the last ten minutes of Lost in Translation.

For those folks interested in conservation efforts with penguins, check out the work of Falklands Conservation, which sponsors an adopt-a-penguin program on East Falkland.*  For 25 quid, you too can adopt a King Penguin, the closest relative to the Emperor Penguins of the film.  (There are no charities currently working on wildlife conservation in Antarctica, for understandable reasons.  Let’s hope that they are never necessary on our coldest continent.)  We’ve adopted a couple of penguins in our household at Matilde’s request.  Please see the film, and if you are able, consider a contribution to the work of Falklands Conservation.

*My father, brother, sisters and I are all British citizens.  But we also have Argentine cousins who would rather we call these islands the Malvinas.  I recall that back at our Easter gathering in 1982, there were some rather tense words amongst the family at the time of the war.  And as a fan of English football, there’s no team in the world I’d rather see beaten regularly than Argentina.

Three embarrassments

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 1, 2005
in Fun
. 11 Comments

I’m not usually one for starting lighthearted memes, but here goes:

1. What’s the one book you are most embarrassed to admit you’ve read and enjoyed (as an adult)? No question: Bridges of Madison County. I picked it up in the spring of 1993 (when everyone was reading it). I read it in the North Campus student center at UCLA, while I was supposed to be finishing my prep for my qualifying exams. I read it in one sitting, and burst into tears halfway through. One of my students (I was a TA) came over to ask if I was all right; I nodded and pointed wordlessly to the book. I re-read it a few years later, expecting to laugh at myself, and found myself in tears all over again. There’s a point at which sentimentality trumps good taste, and my affection for this book is surely proof I’ve crossed that line.

2. What album are you most embarrassed to admit you bought as a teenager? Well, I’ve never admitted this on the blog, but I spent most of the 1980s as a devoted fan of the Scorpions. That’s embarrassing enough, but rock bottom was hit in the early to mid-1980s when I developed a real devotion to Dokken (often credited with starting the ’80s glam-metal revival that culminated years later with the likes of Poison.) My high school girlfriend was in love with Don Dokken, and, I believe, tried to be one of his groupies. The Dokken debut album, Breaking the Chains is still, I must confess, one of my favorite albums of the era.  You can listen to samples on the Amazon site, and shake your head ruefully.

3.  Celebrity you’re most embarrassed to admit you had a crush on in your youth:  As a kid, I was a devoted fan of Little House on the Prairie.  Did I get a crush on Melissa Gilbert or Melissa Sue Anderson?  Oh no.  At age ten, I had a thing for Mrs. Ingalls, Karen Grassle.  “More coffee, Charles?” was about all she ever got to say, but cripes, she said it well — and I loved that hair.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Five things meme

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 20, 2005
in Blogging and Fun
. 10 Comments

From both Camassia and Candied Ginger, a fun meme:  name five things that are overrated by the people you hang out with.  (Or, things that most of your friends enjoy that mystify you.) Here’s mine:

1. Jazz.  I grew up listening to folk and classical music (from my mother and father, respectively.)  Sophomore year, college, I had a roommate who loved John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Dave Brubeck.  Perhaps thanks to him, I developed a deep and abiding dislike for jazz.  I don’t understand it.  I can’t hum it.  I don’t like music I can’t hum.

2.  Cats.  I know that many folks to whom I link — and many of my friends — are cat lovers.  I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them.  I have watched too many a cat torture too many an adorable rodent.  As a devoted fan of mice, rats, chinchillas, degus, rabbits and birds, I have a hard time loving those who prey upon them.

3.  Harry Potter.  Read one book.  It was nice, but no Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings.

4.  Arguing politics.  When I was a kid, I loved to debate.  Now, I hate it.  I’m the one at the family dinner table who, when things get heated over abortion or whatnot, interrupts the conversation to ask how cousin so-and-so’s marriage is working out.  (I find that family gossip tends to be the best way of derailing an argument.)

5.  Avocados and artichokes.   I know, I’m a native Californian.  I can’t stand either of them, so help me.

Self-indulgent meme

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 7, 2005
in Blogging, Fun and Vanity
. 10 Comments

I generally don’t like memes, but this one (from Eve via Camassia) is really a fun idea: list ten things you’ve done that your readers probably haven’t.  Nine of these are things I’ve done in the past 12 months.  So here goes:

1.  Appeared on the Glenn Sacks show.

2.  Had an IV after finishing a 50K.

3.  Get pulled out of a car at gunpoint by adolescent soldiers in the middle of nowhere, Cesar province, Colombia.

4.  Begin writing children’s stories about chinchillas.  (One special one in particular).

5. Donate money to both Planned Parenthood and Feminists for Life in the same calendar year.

6.  Get Kate Winslet confused with Cate Blanchett while watching the Oscars.  (Really.)

7.  Get on a transatlantic flight under my own power, and leave slumped in a wheelchair.

8.  Serve as faculty adviser for Campus Crusade for Christ while attending a liberal Episcopal Church and teaching gender studies.

9. Serve as foreperson of a jury,and rather than convict, do everything possible to hang the jury (hey, I had reasonable doubt.)

10. Publicly declare a commitment to vegetarianism, and fall off the wagon with a carne asade burrito three days later.

The Gilligan update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 1, 2004
in Fun, Mass media and Teaching
. 8 Comments

Back in May, I posted about getting a phone call from a casting agent about trying out for a spot on the new Gilligan’s Island reality TV series.  They were looking for a "real professor", and the agent was eager to get me to try out.  Though flattered, I declined to go in and audition.  I have dreams of being famous, of course… but not via reality TV.   I confess I was tempted, but not for long.

The show debuted last night, apparently, though I didn’t watch it.  I did a little hunting on the internet, and found the show’s website.  Here are the two professors who are on the show, competing against each other: Eric Anderson, a sociology prof at SUNY Stony Brook (who describes himself as very handsome), and Pat Abbot, a 64 year-old geology teacher at San Diego State who describes himself as being a historian of the earth and humanity.  (Is that all?  What does he do in his afternoons?)

Has anyone watched the show?  Should I regret not trying out?  Should I bite the bullet and find out when it airs again?

Schwyzer, Schwitzer, Schwizer, Switzer

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 29, 2004
in Family and Fun
. 6 Comments

My father recently used Google to discover a whole set of relations in Australia and New Zealand.  He and I had a happy time on the phone and the internet last night, doing some geneaological digging about.

Despite the current spelling of my name, I have no Swiss ancestry.  The original spelling, "Schwitzer", was an exclusively Jewish name.  Why my ancestors — whom we have traced back to a town called Breclav (formerly Lundenburg) in the Czech Republic –  were named for the German verb "to sweat" is beyond me, though given my proclivity for exercising, I suppose it is appropriate.  In any case, honoring the power of search engines, I am sticking the four major spellings of the family name in one post.    Any descendants of sweaty ones from the Habsburg empire should drop me a line…

An enchanting bear, and some quick thoughts on Reagan

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 6, 2004
in Athletics and Fitness, Fun, People and Politics
. 7 Comments

Before I comment on our 40th president, let me note that yesterday morning, while running on the White Saddle trail above Monrovia, two of my companions and I came face to face with a bear. We were within forty feet of the creature, and it blocked our path as we careened downhill. We all came to a sudden stop. The bear (full-sized, but of indeterminate sex) didn’t move. My friend Sharon shrieked and started back up the hill. I was transfixed, having always wanted to see a bear on a trail run, and so I began to slowly walk towards it (I wasn’t really thinking very clearly). My buddy Mark was the calmest (he was the only one to have had past bear/running experiences.) Mark held his ground and began to shout loudly at the bear, and eventually I joined in, yelling “go home” (I couldn’t think of anything else, though given where we were, it was a wildly inappropriate thing to say!) After watching us with mild interest for a moment, the splendid creature walked off the trail and rumbled down into the canyon. It made my day, though next time, I will need to be more cautious. It wasn’t that I was brave — I’m not — it was that I was so enchanted by seeing something so damn cute that I wanted to get as close as I could. Sigh. I’m such a sucker for adorable, furry mammals of any size.

It occurs to me that my youngest students at the college (most of whom were born in the mid-1980s) have little or no memory of Ronald Reagan. Yesterday, watching coverage of his death on various cable news channels (while also enduring the heartbreak of the Belmont Stakes), I was struck by how many memories hearing that marvelous voice of his brought back for me! I hadn’t heard his speeches in years, and last night, there they all were. I was thirteen when he was inaugurated, twenty-one when he left office. He was the president of my youth and of the years of my political awakening, and as a result, had a huge impact upon my politics.

I walked precincts for Carter-Mondale in 1976, as a nine year-old boy. In 1980, I wore an “Anderson of Illinois” button; my mother was unwilling to vote for Jimmy Carter but was desperately opposed to Ronald Reagan. In 1984, I wore a Jesse Jackson button in the primaries (for which I endured considerable ridicule at my conservative, upper-middle class high school), and was grieved by decent Walter Mondale’s trouncing that November. The secular liberalism of my childhood was rooted in a belief that we, the fortunate, had a moral responsiblity to help those less fortunate than ourselves — and that responsibility could not be carried by individuals alone, but was the appropriate task of the state. To a great extent, I still believe that.

So, I loathed Ronald Reagan’s politics. The tax cuts, the firing of the PATCO workers, the invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Libya, the Iran-Contra scandal; I denounced them all with the fiery certainty of adolescence. But even as I hated his actions, I loved to listen to him speak. I found him impossible to dislike. And unlike many liberals, I never thought he wasn’t bright. The recent publication of many of his handwritten notes and letters make clear that he wasn’t the “amiable dunce” that many of us on the Left insisted that he was. (Jonathan Dresner briefly disagrees here). From what I’ve read, he was a surprisingly subtle thinker with a fine layman’s knowledge of history and superb political instincts. I see no reason why we on the Left cannot simultaneously abhor a man’s politics while declaring him to be a bright, well-intentioned and fundamentally decent person. Reagan always seemed to be gracious to his adversaries; I only wish all of his adversaries had been equally gracious in return.

He often made me cry. That’s not hard, mind you, I’m a very sentimental guy. National Review put up his 1989 farewell address today, and re-reading it, this thorough-going socialist puddled up. In some small way, I loved Reagan because I felt I had a kindred spirit in this sentimental man who preferred moving personal stories to dry and impersonal facts. I too longed for a shining city on a hill, though my current fixation on Anabaptism renders me suspicious of any possibilty of transforming the state into such a place. Anyhow, read the speech — and amidst the half-truths and the folksiness, perhaps you too will see something beautiful and compelling.

UPDATE: Conservative gay Trojan blogger Boi from Troy has a roundup of various bloggings on the passing of the Gipper. Some are touching, some are profane, some are self-righteous, all are genuine. And I really liked the way John Kerry phrased his tribute; read it here. Jonathan Dresner has also expanded on his comments about Reagan’s intelligence, the clarification is here.

More on the name thing

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 1, 2004
in Feminism, Fun and Marriage
. 6 Comments

In today’s National Review Online, my favorite social conservative columnist, Frederica Mathewes-Green, has a splendid argument against hyphenating names when one marries. Since she obviously has a hyphenated name, her case is all the more interesting and compelling — and very, very funny.

She concludes thus:

The hyphenated name wasn’t a noble experiment, it was just a sign of the times, good for a few laughs, a few scrapbook pages of mangled address labels. It wasn’t the important thing. So if you’re planning a wedding right now my advice is: Don’t plan a wedding. Plan a marriage instead. Make it wonderful, and when it isn’t wonderful, make it last.

And no matter how romantic it sounds, a hyphenated name will only give you headaches. Oh, what a tangled web we create, when first we practice to hyphenate.

I’ve been married several times. None of my spouses took my name. I always assured them that it didn’t bother me in the least that they kept their maiden names. I was lying through my teeth.

Reasons to Rejoice

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 28, 2004
in Blogging, Christianity, Fun, GLBTQ, Having children, Marriage and Sports
. 9 Comments

What are you grateful for tonight? I’m grateful that our chinchilla is well, that I have a new car coming, and that I am finally online with my cable modem from home. Oh yes, and I am running again, healed from that loathsome and tenacious respiratory infection.

There are other reasons to rejoice: XRLQ and wife are to have a baby boy; send your congrats to the erascible and erudite unpronounceable one.

The Cal Golden Bears softball team is in the semifinals of the College World Series; I caught a bit of the game today.

In my post on confirmands at All Saints, I mentioned that Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles was planning to perform his first same-sex blessing since becoming bishop on May 16. It happened as planned; here is the account.

Bishop Bruno invited Malcolm and Mark to stand in full view of family and friends to declare their covenant to one another : promises to live together in love, to be faithful to one another, to support one another so that they might grow into maturity of faith in Jesus Christ and to do all in their power to make their life together a witness to the love of God in the world.

The bishop then instructed the couple to clasp each other’s hand so that he could wrap them with a beige silk scarf presented by Mark’s brother, John, and painted by Malcolm’s mother, Beatrice, half a century ago. The bishop pointed out the painted image on the scarf – a flock of cranes – and noted it symbolized good health, prosperity and the uniting of two families. After tying the scarf in a knot around their hands, Malcolm and Mark took turns pledging their love for one another.

The invited guests prayed for the couple and gave their promises to celebrate with them and stand by them in times of trouble and distress. Then, all, many with tears of joy in their eyes, raised their hands and joined the bishop in the blessing the union of these two loving and gracious men. How could they not?

Not all are rejoicing. Kendall Harmon is concerned as to definitions:

Sure sounds like a wedding to me. But it isn’t one we are told. No legal implications either. So we are clear on what it is not (or are we really?) What is it then? Can you do something this significant without even an agreed upon term for what it actually is? Without any meaningful development of a basically coherent theology for it?

Well, liberals are very clear on what we think it should be: a wedding. A wedding legally, spiritually, and theologically indistinguishable from a heterosexual wedding. The problem for me, as a liberal with deeply evangelical impulses, is that most of the best theology is on the other side. Liberal theologians end up using Enlightenment rhetoric about liberty and rights as often as they cite Scripture. The left has completely captured my heart. Unfortunately, the right has my head. Yet as a complete and utter ENFJ, I’m going to put my heart first. As my second-favorite poet, Auden said:

and always, though truth and love
can never really differ, when they seem to,
the subaltern should be truth.

Saying goodbye to the truck

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 27, 2004
in Fun, Memories, Men and Masculinity, Relationships and Vanity
. 9 Comments

First off, everyone needs to go and read Father Jake on the subject of “Pacifism for Violent SOBs.” Best post of the week.

Sometime in the next couple of days, I expect to turn in the Toyota Tundra 4×4 that I’ve been leasing for some four years now. The Tundra, for those unfamiliar, is a full-sized 8-cylinder pickup truck that gets (on a good day) fourteen miles to the gallon. I’ll bet that most of my readers who don’t know me are surprised I have a thing for pickup trucks. (An activist I know from Men Can Stop Rape, Jonathan Stillerman, has a good piece on men and trucks; read it here.)

I’ve had the truck since November, 1999. At that time, I confess I was dating (briefly) a young woman who seemed, for lack of a better phrase, “somewhat nonplussed” by what she regarded as my insufficiently masculine demeanor. In other words, she wanted a more macho guy. (Running marathons didn’t count; she wanted, I realized too late, a lumberjack). Thus, when I leased the truck, I was — in part — trying to impress her. But I was also fulfilling a fantasy that I’d had since my childhood: driving a pickup. Most of the holidays and summers of my childhood were spent on a ranch in the hills northeast of San Jose, California. I spent my days up there following around (and idolizing) ranch hands and caretakers, men who drove old Fords and Chevys, smoked Marlboro Reds and drank Olympia beer. I loved the way the trucks smelled of cigarette smoke, hay, motor oil and, yes, horse manure. Climbing into the cab of a truck driven by Ed, or George, or Brad (the man’s men of my youth), I felt big. I felt good. And I wanted a truck.

In retrospect, it’s surprising that I waited until I was 32 to get my first pickup. My first car was a used ‘83 Honda Accord; the second, a leased Toyota Corolla. Getting hooked on leasing has kept me within the Toyota family for over a decade, simply because the incentives to keep leasing are so great. But when I turned in my previous car that November day almost five years ago, I asked to take a test drive in a brand-new, shiny red Tundra pickup. I started it up, and before I had pulled out of the dealership, I knew I was hooked. I felt big again. The girl was only briefly impressed; we broke up six weeks later. The truck, replete with wood trim, leather seats, and on-demand four-wheel drive has been mine ever since. So too have the lease payments. And in all that time, I’ve used the four-wheel drive exactly once.

It’s been difficult to show up to Pasadena Mennonite Church in a four-wheel drive pickup with leather seats and walnut paneling. It’s difficult to rhapsodize about the virtues of simple living and conservation when you’re getting 14 miles to the gallon with a ridiculously over-powered V8 engine. It’s turned into a bit of a “white (or fire-engine red) elephant” in my life, and a source of bemusement to my family and friends.

I’m likely to lease a Toyota Solara this time around. Still a fun car, but far more economical and far less bulky. Yes, I suppose like a good progressive, I should be eager to lease a hybrid (like the Toyota Prius), but I confess I am unwilling as of yet to downsize to quite so small a car. But at least I’ve gotten the pickup — and the attendant fantasies of my childhood — out of my system.

UPDATE: Through some very nice connections that my girlfriend has, I found a 2004 red Solara SLE; it’s being dropped off tonight. The truck will be gone within the hour.

Battles and more Birthdays

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 26, 2004
in Chinchillas, Christianity, Fun and Politics
. 1 Comment

Matilde continues to show signs of improvement. Though she is only slowly returning to her normal pellets, this morning she enthusiastically ate half an almond and a “craisin”. She also climbed on to our heads (a favorite chinnie trick). We are increasingly hopeful of a full recovery from last Friday’s electrocution.

Today is my gal’s 29th birthday; we went out for an elegant breakfast this morning. Her main birthday present was a pair of tickets to see Elton John in Las Vegas this summer (with airfare). I admit, giving the gift of concert tickets (especially to an artist one loves) is fairly self-serving. I’m happy to say, however, that she is very excited.

Ralph Luker has a terrific post this morning over at Cliopatria. Entitled “What Battle Have you Fought? What Victory Have you Won?”, it is a direct challenge to the secular left to recognize and honor the fact that no struggle for justice in American history has ever succeeded without strong support from organized religion. Ralph writes:

To my colleagues of the secular Left, I’d ask two simple questions: What battle have you fought? What victory have you won? I’m an American historian and I’d stake my professional reputation, such as it is, on the claim that no work of progress has been achieved in American history without major support from our religious communities. From founding organizing colonies to fighting a Revolution; from abolishing slavery to enfranchising women; from the civil rights movement to the feminist revolution, these things could not have been achieved without major support from our religious communities.

With what I am coming to see as his characteristic eloquence, Ralph gives us a healthy corrective this morning.

A prophet to the disobedient; felinity and hell

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 30, 2004
in Animal Rights and Fun
. 6 Comments

Jenell Paris has received a message for the four-legged disobedient ones within her household; happily, she shares it with us. Read it now; here’s a chilling excerpt:

Today is the day of repentance! The Day is approaching when repentance will be no more, and I will gather my faithful into my arms, and send the faithless out into the alleys where there is no Iams, no blankets, no radiators, and the heartworm dieth not. Stop your fur-chewing today, while you still have a chance!

It is fortunate that chinchillas are not mentioned in Scripture. Chinchillas are rodents, however, and thus ought to be seen as an oppressed class. From earliest times, felines have preyed upon them, as often for sport as for food. The connection between sin, oppression, and “felinity” is nicely captured in Zephaniah:

Woe to the city of oppressors,
rebellious and defiled!
She obeys no one,
she accepts no correction.
She does not trust in the LORD ,
she does not draw near to her God.
Her officials are roaring lions…

I don’t even need to mention the big cats in Daniel, do I?

We know where sheep go, we know where goats go, and increasingly, I become certain that I know where those who prey on innocent rats and mice will go if they do not repent and turn from evil.

Hoax warning

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 2, 2004
in Fun
. Closed

This one is wonderful, the perfect answer to the endless urban legend e-mails that circulate:

‘I hate those hoax warnings, but this one is important!! Please send this to everyone on your e-mail list. If a man comes to your front door and says he is conducting a survey and asks you to show him your arse, do not show him your arse. This is a scam; he only wants to see your arse. I wish I’d got this yesterday. I feel so stupid and cheap.’

Courtesy of Felix at Leaving Munster.

Hymns, praise choruses, and cows

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 15, 2004
in Christianity, Fun and Links
. Closed

Jay at Only Wonder Understands has a very fine joke this morning about the aforementioned; brought forth a belly laugh from me.

The anxiety of tapering, and some links

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 10, 2004
in Athletics and Fitness, Books, Christianity, Fun, Links and Movies
. 9 Comments

“Tapering” is the process of preparing for a marathon or other major race by reducing your training and increasing your eating in the days leading up to the big event. I’m three days out from Saturday’s Catalina Marathon, and I am thoroughly grumpy! As I’ve learned through trial and error, you can’t really rest enough in the week before a marathon. After weeks of running five and six days in a row, I am only running twice this week, for short distances. To make matters worse, I gradually ramp up my carbohydrate intake (a reverse Atkins diet), for four full days before the race. The end result is that on this morning, I feel bloated and sluggish. It’s so counter-intuitive to me to do progressively less “studying” before a big test! I always crammed before exams, but in distance running, cramming invariably leads to disaster. Nothing to do but eat and sit and stretch and wait. If I were more spiritually aware, I would no doubt find some sort of Lenten discipline in tapering, but right now, I just feel like an anxious and slothful little piglet.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed lately:

Kendall Harmon posts what I think is the best review of the Passion of the Christ that I’ve seen so far; it’s written by a Father Leander Harding. Here’s an excerpt:

Both for religious and non -religious people there is a stereotype of the cross as the place where an angry God punishes Jesus instead of us. Many of the critical reviews of the movie castigate the movie for promoting this stereotype.

But this is not the story of the cross that Gibson is telling. In the beginning of the film when Jesus is tempted in the garden by the Satan figure, the temptation is “that one man can not bear the sins of the world.” The burden that Jesus bears in the film is not the burden of the Father’s anger but the weight of sin, the piling up of human hatred and evil, from the banal calculating evil of Pilate and Caiaphas to the stupid, intoxicated blood lust of the Roman soldiers… The Cross is not the apotheosis of the Father’s anger but the measure of His love and of the lengths He goes to transform and redeem. That is the familiar Christian story that I believe the filmmaker is trying to tell.

I don’t normally link to quizzes, but this one was particularly brief and fun (thanks to Annika, Lorie, and Candied Ginger); take the Book Quiz at Blue Pyramid. I ended up being “100 Years of Solitude” by Marquez. I’m not sure I identify with the reasons why:

Lonely and struggling, you’ve been around for a very long time.
Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there
is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all
the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.

Hmmm.

And here is a link to the sermon that my friend Scott Richardson (dean of the cathedral in San Diego) preached last Sunday. At length, Scott quotes from Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. In one part of that famous story, an aged Spanish cardinal confronts Jesus, who has returned unexpectedly to 16th century Seville:

(The cardinal) sees everything (Christ’s miraculous works of healing and love) and commands his guard to arrest Jesus immediately. In the middle of the night the prelate comes to visit the prisoner. Why, he asks, do you come to hinder us? You have no right to add anything to what you have said in the past. Tomorrow I will condemn you and burn you at the stake as the worst of heretics.

You come to set people free. That is not what people want; freedom is a curse for most humans, a terrible burden. We relieve them of that burden and carry it ourselves. You were once offered three temptations by the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness. You rejected them all in the name of freedom. Instead of taking possession of human freedom, you increased it and thereby burdened the spiritual kingdom of humanity with suffering forever. In place of rigid laws, you gave them free hearts to decide right from wrong, having only your image before them as a guide. It is too much and it has taken us all these years to rectify your tragic error. You once scattered the flock; we have gathered it – weak, rebellious, fearful incomplete creatures created in jest. We save them from the terrible anxiety and great agony they endure in making a free decision for themselves. We will not allow you to so burden them ever again.

Reflecting on both this passage from Dostoevsky and on Mel Gibson’s movie, Scott concludes his sermon this way:

My question now, as I come to the end of this offering, is not: Who killed Jesus? It is, rather: Who uses their gift of freedom to choose to come to the aid of the suffering Christ, and all whom he loves, in the present moment? Who has discovered the truth of the old adage; in choosing service we find our perfect freedom? Who freely chooses to wipe the brow and carry the cross even now? And, most important; is this - active love freely chosen and freely offered - the narrow door that Jesus speaks of…?