Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Isaiah, textures on October 16, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Arguably the most astonishing feature of the biblical meta-narrative is YHWH’s penchant for employing unqualified agents in the execution of his finest work.
Some texts articulate this as the means of assuring that YHWH alone receives the glory of the outcome, a matter that causes no embarrassment to biblical aesthetics. Others simply record the fact, allowing the reader to configure the motive. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Philippians, textures on October 15, 2007| Leave a Comment »
A strong habit of mind suggests that you cannot command love and you cannot command joy. One enjoys no mandate over one’s feelings. What one feels, according to this usually unquestioned view, simply is what it is.
To attempt control over the nature and course of one’s emotions is to spit into the wind. Worse, it is a genuine betrayal of the self-evident authenticity of feeling. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Philippians, textures on October 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »
It is at least curious and more likely significant that the apostle Paul lodges such a pragmatic exhortation in the framework of a theological reflection upon Christ’s intelligent, self-aware humiliation:
Do all things without murmuring and arguing.
Paul’s argument is rich with counter-cultural nuance. It stands on its head the accepted, prudent, self-evident consensus about getting one’s way, getting ahead. It asks out loud whether life as strife is really the truth it claims to be or, rather, the most self-limiting of lies. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Isaiah, textures on October 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »
It may be that only those who know their weakness can profit from a discourse on strength. It is plausible that only those who have stumbled badly, wilted under an unwavering sun, exhausted all illusion of self-empowerment can embrace the notion of divine sovereignty over their wretched, torn lives.
It may be that prophetic literature like the fortieth chapter of Isaiah reckons more clearly with such a paradox than ten thousand trucks full of self-help literature, enslaved as the latter is to the notion that we are capable meaningfully of rising up from the ditches into which life shoves us, with our consent or without it. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Isaiah, textures on October 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Though the move from exile to ‘consolation’ in the complex plot of the book called Isaiah is signaled in chapter 35, the door swings all the way open on its hinges in chapter 40. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Indigo Girls, music, reseña on October 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
If a reviewer titles his scribblings this way, this does not run against the tide of his admiration for this amazing duo. Rather, it nods in the direction of the deeply introspective tone of the lyrics of this album, prone as they are towards examining the unseemly part of the human heart, both those of the writers and of the flawed human beings they know. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Casablanca, film, film music, Max Steiner, music, reseña on October 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Casablanca, one of the twentieth century’s great films, is memorialized here not so much by stirring film music as by the fact that you get the exquisite screenplay banter that still evokes grins at its genius on, say, the forty-second hearing.
I assume that technology did now allow the separation of Max Steiner’s score from the spoken witticisms that begin at the beginning and don’t end until the end of this fantastic movie. As a result, this ‘soundtrack’ is actually a trip through some of Casablanca’s finest moments, spoken and played. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Isaiah, textures on October 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The Assyrian emissary Rab-Shekah casts public doubt on all that Jerusalemites have learned to believe about themselves, their city, and their guardian deity. Moreover, he refuses to deliver his message in the dulcet tones of diplomatic Aramaic, choosing instead to stop the hearts of the common people on the wall by elaborating his terrifying ultimatum in the common Judahite dialect.
It is a moment when hearts shake like the leaves of wind-blown trees. Nervous glances are cast in the direction of the king’s palace and the prophet’s house. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Gloria Estefan, Latin music, music, reseña on October 6, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
She lives parallel lives. And even when she misses, she hits.
These are the thoughts that occur to this long-time Gloria fan upon close and repeated listenings to Into the Light. This 1991 release shows Gloria losing the girl-next-door sweetness and putting on some ‘tude. Some of it doesn’t work. Some of it does. (more…)
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Isaiah, textures on October 6, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The language of the landscape rejoicing is particularly powerful because one normally thinks of the ground beneath our feet as a stage, not a performer. It is inert, the platform and the background of the interesting and significant activities of those who appear upon it. (more…)
Canter Bridge 