1 July 2017 Sleepers

Sleepers

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I love finding sleepers—the movies that don’t make it big in the theatres but have a beautiful story to tell. But I’m especially drawn to movies that portray one of the four kinds of love as defined by Buechner here:

“The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely.

The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.”

—From The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner

Here are some sleeper recommendations:Continue reading

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18 September 2014 The Healed Soul

The Healed Soul

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“The soul is healed by being with children.”

–Fyodor Dostoevsky

Happiness came at last for Dostoevsky in his mid-forties. Anna Snitkina and Fyodor Dostoevsky married and enjoyed sixteen wondrous years.

Anna’s writings gave us an intimate glimpse of Dostoevsky as an adoring husband. Once, he waited three hours for her on a street corner when her return was delayed. He also took great joy in giving her beautiful gifts—even when money seemed scarce.

8b0c79d0b2He had a tireless love of children and soothed the housekeeper’s children when he heard coughing or crying in the night. As a devoted father, he helped with bathing and feeding their children, unlike men of his day. Anna described him…

“Fyodor was uncommonly tender with his daughter, fussed over her, carried her about in his arms, sang her to sleep and felt so happy that he wrote (a friend), ‘Oh, why aren’t you married and why don’t you have a child? I swear to you that ¾ of life’s happiness lie in that, and ¼ at most in the rest.’”[i] Anna added, “Neither before nor since have I seen a man with such a capacity to enter the world of children.”[ii]

Dostoevsky also proved to be deeply passionate about God. He knew the depths of spiritual battles and once wrote:

“Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”[iii]

Another time he wrote, “God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple; here it is:Continue reading

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8 May 2014 Heart Conditions

Heart Conditions

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“I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not better for it.”

–Abraham Lincoln

While I love reading historical biographies of remarkable people, I’m particularly fascinated to learn about things that shaped their childhoods. What’s the real story behind the familiar one? What early events, influences, relationships and turning points affected them in their youth? What were those famous people like behind the scenes when their lives seemed more ordinary? Or like Abraham Lincoln essentially asked: How did they treat the dog and the cat?

The best stories, I’ve found, were in the kids’ section of our local library. Biographers often focused on childhood tales because of their intended audience. I will never forget one story about Abraham Lincoln. With all that has been written about that great man, this account is relatively unknown. Here it is, as I remember…

It happened one summer afternoon. Young Abe and his sister, Sally, set out to play in the woods behind their rustic cabin. They headed toward a certain stream. After walking a good distance, it felt good to cool their weary feet in the flowing water. Abe suddenly noticed a good-sized fish lingering in a deeper pool. He didn’t bring a pole, but made up his mind then and there to catch that fish with his bare hands. Positioning himself, he waited patiently for the right moment.Continue reading

Filed Under: 2014, Character, Experiencing God Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,