Though it's more fun to read the New testament in Greek - and the Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures too, since the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible is what Jesus used and the early Church too (the LXX or Septuagint), I like to read in English as well. I suppose, over the years, I've preached most of my messages from the NIV, but I have spent time with the NEB (now the REB), the NRSV, the Good News Bible (I'm dating myself), the JB Phillips translation, The Message, yes, even the Elizabethan era's KJV. A number of people have been talking up the ESV, and since that translation is being widely used in the American South where I will be preaching in a little over a week, I decided to check it out.
Okay, let's cut to the quick. To my ears, the ESV has a stately cadence, religious and ceremonial. There is a slight stiffness to it, it does not flow like other English translations - there is a reason for that, its literal approach to translating from the Greek and Hebrew. I can live with this. Unfortunately, the translators have the annoying habit of tossing in words like BEHOLD and BE GONE and LEST and TRULY, I SAY TO YOU and O! O! O! Now why would they do this unless they had an express purpose of very obviously connecting with 1611? No one in the 21st century runs around saying BEHOLD or BE GONE or TRULY, I SAY TO YOU. They didn't in the 1st century either in Israel. But they did in Shakespeare's time.
I intend to read the whole translation and give it it's due. I will preach from it in the South as well. But I shudder that I might be treated to gems like STIFF-NECKED PEOPLE when I wander into the Old Testament. Already I was looking up Ezekiel 22:30 and instead of "stand in the gap" I got "stand in the breach"! Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Henry V, where chunks of this Bible belong.
Instead of BEHOLD why not say something real world like LOOK! Instead of TRULY, I SAY TO YOU why not say something comprehensible to this present generation such as LISTEN, I'M TELLING YOU or HONESTLY, I HAVE TO TELL YOU! The ESV seems fine for people that hang out in a church culture and like to use different grammar, syntax, vocabulary and voice when they're at a service - in other words, religious-ese or Christianese - but it's not great for helping newcomers understand you don't have to get all formal and religious in your language when you're worshiping or praying or talking about God.
With all the hype I was expecting something better than an anachronism but that is what the ESV is. Personally, the only way I can enjoy it - accepting its rather more ceremonial sound that echoes with the courts of King James and Elizabeth I and the stages of William Shakespeare - is to mentally drop those dreadful 400 year old prefixes like BEHOLD! and O! and BE GONE! - or verbally drop them if I'm reading out loud. If I do that, I can enjoy myself. Otherwise I'm happier in the Greek which is far more dynamic and contemporary than the ESV.
Look, there is no way this is a NEW translation. It's clearly in the KJV, ASV, RSV family line. And if you like that, have at her. I'm not here to say NAY to the ESV the way one of its editors, Wayne Grudem, said NAY to the TNIV (which, by the way, translates John 1:18 far better than the ESV). Only, please, don't tell new Christians they have to talk like the ESV in order to talk to God and please don't tell them words like BEHOLD and LEST and TRULY, I SAY are the way you talk when you get really spiritual. (And don't tell them it was the way Jesus talked on earth or the way angels talk now as if those frozen-in-time expressions are the real spiritual thing.) I was hoping we'd left all this behind or at least left it in the hands of the KJV worshipers.
The notes for the ESV Study Bible are quite good - they don't treat you like an imbecile and they have some good things to say, even some deep things to say that involve the original languages. And, as I said, though I'm more of a dynamic equivalency sort of guy, I can enjoy the more stately rhythms of the ESV within reason. But O! those jarring 17th century pet expressions. Why? Why on earth would you make a translation for the 21st century and deliberately put those back in? Go ahead, read the translation without them and you'll find you don't miss them, in fact, to my ear, dropping them vastly improves the translation and takes it from a 3.5 to a 4+
So enjoy it if it's your thing. But, to me, it leaves a lot to be desired, is not a big breakthrough translation and sounds a lot like other literal translations I read a long time ago when there were few other good contemporary English options out there. I'll read it, God will use it in my life, but I am waiting with even greater anticipation now for the 2011 NIV, which will give me something I can really celebrate (I hope) and which is tied into 2011 and beyond, not 1611 and ne'er another foot forward if we can help it, m'lord.
Sorry, Wayne.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
the world war against the jews (part 2)
Here is another important post I am passing along regarding the irrationality of a growing global antagonism towards Israel and the Jews:
Saborami65@aol.com
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 23:21:53 -0400
Subject: It's long--But Fantastic Article about the Jews- we are sick of moving!!!
Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about poor Helen Thomas, who I believe was probably just saying what everyone thinks and has therefore been made a scapegoat. Not that I really care, because we ought to share the scapegoat status once in a while. It’s the least we can do to dispel the stereotype that we are stingy, us irritating Jews.
Irritating enough, apparently – like the too-talented and bossy fame-hog Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) on Fox’s Glee – in our discovery of the written word, monotheism, modern physics, psychology, vaccinations, and the film industry, that every country that has ever “hosted” us has found it necessary to tell us to get the hell out, like Thomas did. (Ironically, the aforementioned Jewish character Rachel, in a particularly annoying moment in one episode, was told by classmates to move to Israel. I doubt the writers coordinated this telling joke – Jews do equal Israel in the eyes of the world, sorry J Street - with the State Department.)
Anywho. Helen, you know why we were in Germany and much of Eastern Europe in the first place? (And by the way, if I follow your advice, do you think the nice old ladies who got my grandmothers’ large houses and farms from theNazis in what was once Czechoslovakia will kick the property back two generations? That would be cool because I’d love a vineyard and an agricultural estate.)
…We were in Germany and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Russia (where we were regularly just plain killed by Cossacks), and also, for many centuries, Poland (ditto), cuz we were told to get the hell out of England, France, andSpain. (Or, you know, just plain killed by handsome and heroic fairytale knights.)
And you know why we were in Western Europe to begin with? Cuz we were told by the Greeks and the Romans – wait for it – to get the hell out of “Palestine,” where we had been living since the beginning of recorded history.
We also ended up in Babylonia (Iraq) and other Middle Eastern and North African countries, where we stayed as second class citizens for hundreds and hundreds of years, till the Arab world finally caught up with the pagans and theChristians in their hatred of the Jews. Amazing how the student has now far surpassed the teacher. But I digress.
(By the way, I am aware that the Arab narrative has us Ashkenazi Jews as descendants of the Khazars, but the actual facts have it different. See this new DNA study linking European Jews with their Middle Eastern counterparts, all stemming from one original population of Holy Land Jews predating Roman times. Never mind our own texts that say the same thing; I know they are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.)
In any event, there is no way around it: Jews being asked (usually not by old ladies on the White House lawn) to get the hell out of anywhere and everywhere is just the way it goes.
So it came to pass that about 200 years BCE the Macabees got sick of it and established a Jewish state in Palestine, within the Roman Empire, which lasted till about the time of Jesus (another Pesky Jew) and the destruction of the Second Temple.
And it also came to pass that Jewish settlers began arriving in Ottoman Palestine in the late 1800’s, after the Russians and the Poles made it clear that Jews were persona non grata in Eastern Europe. Palestine was as good a place as any to escape to, since it was the last place, about 2000 years before, that the Jews had a sovereign state (see above). Never mind Jewish liturgy and texts pining for Jerusalem, since I know these, too, are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.
Anyway, nowhere else wanted European Jews any more than Russia did, not even America really, where there were very strict quotas, although the Americans, again politely, refrained from all the messy European killing, which was apparently in vogue until after Hitler. Besides, those Ottoman Turks, as now, were known around the world for their amazing human rights activism and the Jews were excited to see it first hand. (No, not really. But anyway…they were better than the Polish peasants. Unless you were Armenian.)
It is true that there were people in Palestine before the Jews arrived en masse (for there was always a handful of Jews that remained here….), not *A People*, but rather a group of assorted regional Arabs (think Native American tribes in North America…who by the way were treated much worse by the Colonialists…) who had settled the area with not much agricultural success and had endured various rulers over the millennia.
But when the *Jews* came back, it was suddenly necessary, once again, to tell them to get the hell out. There was no living side by side, even though that was an express Jewish desire right up until 1947/8, when the Partition Plan was summarily rejected by the Arab League, who started the war that Israel won. If keeping land you win in a war others provoke (when you wanted to make peace) is called occupation, Helen, the world’s axis of furious justice has a lot bigger fish to fry than shitty little Israel.
The Arab desire to kick the Jews the hell out of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and not in 1948. It began the moment the initial groups of Jews arrived and started to make the land flower and produce crops.
That’s when the attacks on Jews began, and when the Arab world decided a new Jewish presence in the land would not do, back when there were about half a million Arabs and just under 100,000 Jews in the Holy Land, in the early 1900’s. 20% was too much, apparently, to bear. (The Hebron Massacre of 1929, where marauding Arabs killed nearly 70 Jews and wounded countless others, took place long before a single house was built over the Green Line.)
I can only imagine how awful it was – probably for both the Arabs and the British – when it became clear we were here to stay and grow to much further percentages. We are that annoying, what with trying to get rid of malaria and tuberculosis and everything.
At any rate, it seems that every time a Jewish minority starts to make a society too successful – so annoying!!!! – the indigenous people start to feel very uncomfortable, and tells them one way or another to get the hell out.
But now, alas, there is nowhere left for us to go, except the eternal place Ahmadinejad wants us to go, and Haniyeh and Nasralla, and Hitler before them, and Chemilniki before him, and Haman before him, and so on. And, I suspect, in her heart of hearts, perhaps Thomas and the likes of her, who, the pesky Jew Freud may have observed, seriously let her slip show.
Let me make it clear: I know that Israel has made mistakes over its 62 years, some clumsy and inept (was there no intelligence regarding the terrorists aboard the Mavi Marmara?!?), and some borderline immoral. But none worse than every other democracy on earth has also done, and most much better than the large majority of the UN rogue nations which condemn Israel daily have done…daily.
There is MUCH to improve in the way we govern, I will be the first to say it. I will also be the first to say that various Jews of the Bernie Madoff and Greed-is-Good-Goldman-Sachs ilk make me want to crawl under a rock. I know that the world is only waiting for these guys to emerge in order to pin their crimes on all of us, even though everything they do is in direct contradiction of actual Jewish values.
But let’s be honest: the international community’s human rights crusades on behalf of the Palestinians are just the latest Crusades, and the ones who REALLY suffer are not the Jews or the Israelis but the poor occupants of the Third World who are ignored while the enlightened First World castigates the Jews… and yes, of course, the Palestinians, who are kept in misery *by their own leadership* in order to provide the polite Jew haters with a media club to beat them with.
So here’s the thing: We are not going anywhere this time, Helen. We totally get it: Ya’ll pretty much hate us. It’s just the way it is, like a natural law. Nothing we can do – not giving away pieces of Palestine / Israel (witness our evacuation of Gaza in 2005, and handing over the keys to army bases and greenhouses- a new economy!
Food for the children! – which were summarily torched as property of the infidels); not donating billions annually to global charity, nor discovering a cure for Polio or the
Theory of Relativity, or writing revered legal and religious texts, or co-founding Google, or manufacturing the microprocessor in the majority of laptops that spew Jew hatred to the Internet, or founding Christianity itself, or championing women’s rights and gay rights in the US and helping to bring about a *human rights revolution* in America in the 60’s - None of those things will absolve us of our real sin: Existing and overcoming.
I’m really sorry they told you to get the hell out of the White House, Helen. It really wasn’t your fault that you thought you could say what you said. It’s not like it’s a secret: That’s what people think.
But this time, seriously. Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.
I know. Irritating.
Saborami65@aol.com
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 23:21:53 -0400
Subject: It's long--But Fantastic Article about the Jews- we are sick of moving!!!
Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about poor Helen Thomas, who I believe was probably just saying what everyone thinks and has therefore been made a scapegoat. Not that I really care, because we ought to share the scapegoat status once in a while. It’s the least we can do to dispel the stereotype that we are stingy, us irritating Jews.
Irritating enough, apparently – like the too-talented and bossy fame-hog Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) on Fox’s Glee – in our discovery of the written word, monotheism, modern physics, psychology, vaccinations, and the film industry, that every country that has ever “hosted” us has found it necessary to tell us to get the hell out, like Thomas did. (Ironically, the aforementioned Jewish character Rachel, in a particularly annoying moment in one episode, was told by classmates to move to Israel. I doubt the writers coordinated this telling joke – Jews do equal Israel in the eyes of the world, sorry J Street - with the State Department.)
Anywho. Helen, you know why we were in Germany and much of Eastern Europe in the first place? (And by the way, if I follow your advice, do you think the nice old ladies who got my grandmothers’ large houses and farms from theNazis in what was once Czechoslovakia will kick the property back two generations? That would be cool because I’d love a vineyard and an agricultural estate.)
…We were in Germany and Hungary and Czechoslovakia and Russia (where we were regularly just plain killed by Cossacks), and also, for many centuries, Poland (ditto), cuz we were told to get the hell out of England, France, andSpain. (Or, you know, just plain killed by handsome and heroic fairytale knights.)
And you know why we were in Western Europe to begin with? Cuz we were told by the Greeks and the Romans – wait for it – to get the hell out of “Palestine,” where we had been living since the beginning of recorded history.
We also ended up in Babylonia (Iraq) and other Middle Eastern and North African countries, where we stayed as second class citizens for hundreds and hundreds of years, till the Arab world finally caught up with the pagans and theChristians in their hatred of the Jews. Amazing how the student has now far surpassed the teacher. But I digress.
(By the way, I am aware that the Arab narrative has us Ashkenazi Jews as descendants of the Khazars, but the actual facts have it different. See this new DNA study linking European Jews with their Middle Eastern counterparts, all stemming from one original population of Holy Land Jews predating Roman times. Never mind our own texts that say the same thing; I know they are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.)
In any event, there is no way around it: Jews being asked (usually not by old ladies on the White House lawn) to get the hell out of anywhere and everywhere is just the way it goes.
So it came to pass that about 200 years BCE the Macabees got sick of it and established a Jewish state in Palestine, within the Roman Empire, which lasted till about the time of Jesus (another Pesky Jew) and the destruction of the Second Temple.
And it also came to pass that Jewish settlers began arriving in Ottoman Palestine in the late 1800’s, after the Russians and the Poles made it clear that Jews were persona non grata in Eastern Europe. Palestine was as good a place as any to escape to, since it was the last place, about 2000 years before, that the Jews had a sovereign state (see above). Never mind Jewish liturgy and texts pining for Jerusalem, since I know these, too, are inadmissible in the international courts of the mind.
Anyway, nowhere else wanted European Jews any more than Russia did, not even America really, where there were very strict quotas, although the Americans, again politely, refrained from all the messy European killing, which was apparently in vogue until after Hitler. Besides, those Ottoman Turks, as now, were known around the world for their amazing human rights activism and the Jews were excited to see it first hand. (No, not really. But anyway…they were better than the Polish peasants. Unless you were Armenian.)
It is true that there were people in Palestine before the Jews arrived en masse (for there was always a handful of Jews that remained here….), not *A People*, but rather a group of assorted regional Arabs (think Native American tribes in North America…who by the way were treated much worse by the Colonialists…) who had settled the area with not much agricultural success and had endured various rulers over the millennia.
But when the *Jews* came back, it was suddenly necessary, once again, to tell them to get the hell out. There was no living side by side, even though that was an express Jewish desire right up until 1947/8, when the Partition Plan was summarily rejected by the Arab League, who started the war that Israel won. If keeping land you win in a war others provoke (when you wanted to make peace) is called occupation, Helen, the world’s axis of furious justice has a lot bigger fish to fry than shitty little Israel.
The Arab desire to kick the Jews the hell out of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and not in 1948. It began the moment the initial groups of Jews arrived and started to make the land flower and produce crops.
That’s when the attacks on Jews began, and when the Arab world decided a new Jewish presence in the land would not do, back when there were about half a million Arabs and just under 100,000 Jews in the Holy Land, in the early 1900’s. 20% was too much, apparently, to bear. (The Hebron Massacre of 1929, where marauding Arabs killed nearly 70 Jews and wounded countless others, took place long before a single house was built over the Green Line.)
I can only imagine how awful it was – probably for both the Arabs and the British – when it became clear we were here to stay and grow to much further percentages. We are that annoying, what with trying to get rid of malaria and tuberculosis and everything.
At any rate, it seems that every time a Jewish minority starts to make a society too successful – so annoying!!!! – the indigenous people start to feel very uncomfortable, and tells them one way or another to get the hell out.
But now, alas, there is nowhere left for us to go, except the eternal place Ahmadinejad wants us to go, and Haniyeh and Nasralla, and Hitler before them, and Chemilniki before him, and Haman before him, and so on. And, I suspect, in her heart of hearts, perhaps Thomas and the likes of her, who, the pesky Jew Freud may have observed, seriously let her slip show.
Let me make it clear: I know that Israel has made mistakes over its 62 years, some clumsy and inept (was there no intelligence regarding the terrorists aboard the Mavi Marmara?!?), and some borderline immoral. But none worse than every other democracy on earth has also done, and most much better than the large majority of the UN rogue nations which condemn Israel daily have done…daily.
There is MUCH to improve in the way we govern, I will be the first to say it. I will also be the first to say that various Jews of the Bernie Madoff and Greed-is-Good-Goldman-Sachs ilk make me want to crawl under a rock. I know that the world is only waiting for these guys to emerge in order to pin their crimes on all of us, even though everything they do is in direct contradiction of actual Jewish values.
But let’s be honest: the international community’s human rights crusades on behalf of the Palestinians are just the latest Crusades, and the ones who REALLY suffer are not the Jews or the Israelis but the poor occupants of the Third World who are ignored while the enlightened First World castigates the Jews… and yes, of course, the Palestinians, who are kept in misery *by their own leadership* in order to provide the polite Jew haters with a media club to beat them with.
So here’s the thing: We are not going anywhere this time, Helen. We totally get it: Ya’ll pretty much hate us. It’s just the way it is, like a natural law. Nothing we can do – not giving away pieces of Palestine / Israel (witness our evacuation of Gaza in 2005, and handing over the keys to army bases and greenhouses- a new economy!
Food for the children! – which were summarily torched as property of the infidels); not donating billions annually to global charity, nor discovering a cure for Polio or the
Theory of Relativity, or writing revered legal and religious texts, or co-founding Google, or manufacturing the microprocessor in the majority of laptops that spew Jew hatred to the Internet, or founding Christianity itself, or championing women’s rights and gay rights in the US and helping to bring about a *human rights revolution* in America in the 60’s - None of those things will absolve us of our real sin: Existing and overcoming.
I’m really sorry they told you to get the hell out of the White House, Helen. It really wasn’t your fault that you thought you could say what you said. It’s not like it’s a secret: That’s what people think.
But this time, seriously. Getting the hell out is not in the cards. We’re just sick of moving all the time.
I know. Irritating.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
the world war against the jews
Some still have morals, like Pilar Rahola:
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist and member of the far left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America.
She says:
"Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona ?
Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs?
Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan ?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel ?
Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?
Why don't they defend Israel 's right to exist?
Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?
And finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care.
And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum, I hear the left yelling with fervor: "We want freedom for the people!"
Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria , or Yemen , or Iran , or Sudan , or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.
The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don't inform, they propagandize.
When reporting about Israel , the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel , that there aren't any accusations left to level against her.
At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel ; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.
And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: "Our friends are the people of Iran , Libya and Venezuela , oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel ."
In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Or in my native city of Barcelona , the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70's and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel .
This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East , he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East , and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it is a symbol.
Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us with cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages.
And yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.
And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.
Conclusion:
I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not anti-Israeli like my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel . To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.
As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles.
Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty, I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too."
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist and member of the far left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America.
She says:
"Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona ?
Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs?
Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan ?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel ?
Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?
Why don't they defend Israel 's right to exist?
Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?
And finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn't care.
And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum, I hear the left yelling with fervor: "We want freedom for the people!"
Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria , or Yemen , or Iran , or Sudan , or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.
The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don't inform, they propagandize.
When reporting about Israel , the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel , that there aren't any accusations left to level against her.
At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel ; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.
And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel website. I quote from the expulsion document: "Our friends are the people of Iran , Libya and Venezuela , oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel ."
In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Or in my native city of Barcelona , the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70's and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel .
This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East , he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East , and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it is a symbol.
Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us with cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages.
And yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.
And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.
Conclusion:
I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not anti-Israeli like my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel . To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.
As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles.
Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty, I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too."
Monday, May 31, 2010
a world less spiritual?
When lethal and dangerous things happen because of religious people - suicide bombings, wars, book burnings, hate marches - there is always a group of people, or many groups of people, who call for religions to be banned.
As if that would solve all the major problems of the human race.
In the first place, not all wars and hate marches and other serious issues are caused by religious people. Atheists are pretty good at instigating wars in promoting their own doctrines and agendas, for instance, and so are agnostics. Consider Communist and atheist North Korea. Banning religion might please them. But it would not stop their lethal and aggressive inclinations.
In the second place, suppose you could ban all religions? People would remain with their hunger to know and understand the mystery of human life and the creation of our planet and the universe. Who would satisfy that craving? Well, others would with their own ideas and philosophical systems. They might claim to be atheists. But they would still be taking on the role of priests. It would be religion all over again just in different robes. In their own way they would be seeking to help people find the meaning of life and the universe and their purpose. Some of these new priests might even become god-like in their inclinations and authority.
But in the third place, you can no more ban religion than ban the inhalation of oxygen. Or ban sex. Or ban alcohol. People will find a way. Ask those who lived through the 70 years of the USSR whether Moscow was successful in banning religion. Ask them if the Kremlin succeeded in eliminating the need for faith and the spiritual quest. Ask them if Christianity ceased to exist.
Ask China.
Ask North Korea, come to think of it. Not that we'll get the truth on the matter out of Pyongyang. But I guarantee you they have not eliminated all religious faith though I'm sure they have tried hard.
People have sought religious and spiritual explanations from the beginning of the human race's ability to wonder and imagine. Archaeologists tell us they have found evidence of the quest. So do anthropologists. Religion and the spiritual cannot be banned because hearts and minds and thought cannot be banned. Soul and spirit cannot be banned. The quest to know cannot be banned. It does not matter what you believe or refuse to believe. It does not matter if you do not care about religion. There are many others who believe differently than you, people who are religious, and they cannot all be silenced or eliminated.
Those who cry for the banning of religion because of the damage they see religion can do conveniently forget about the good religion can do. They forget about the Martin Luther Kings, the Mother Teresas, the Francis of Assisis.
Yet most importantly they forget it appears to be endemic to the human race.
It will not go away. There will always be bad religion and good religion just as there will always be bad atheists and good atheists. Atheism is part of the religious equation too.
It is not a world, despite the crime and immorality and intolerance, that is less spiritual that we see in the 21st century.
People are still looking for God.
They look for a Messiah.
They look for a special Word, a Logos.
They are on a quest. Many of them. All of them, really, all of us. Some of us do not call it a quest and some of us do not call it religious.
But we are looking for the meaning of life and life after death and the meaning of creation.
And by whatever name we call it, it is still spiritual.
The world is as spiritual a place as it has ever been. And the people who live here are just as desperate for answers, for hope, for purpose, for light.
Nothing has changed in that regard for thousands of years.
It will never change.
How can it, if it really becomes clear to all one day that spirituality, from beginning to end, is the essence of our existence as human beings?
As if that would solve all the major problems of the human race.
In the first place, not all wars and hate marches and other serious issues are caused by religious people. Atheists are pretty good at instigating wars in promoting their own doctrines and agendas, for instance, and so are agnostics. Consider Communist and atheist North Korea. Banning religion might please them. But it would not stop their lethal and aggressive inclinations.
In the second place, suppose you could ban all religions? People would remain with their hunger to know and understand the mystery of human life and the creation of our planet and the universe. Who would satisfy that craving? Well, others would with their own ideas and philosophical systems. They might claim to be atheists. But they would still be taking on the role of priests. It would be religion all over again just in different robes. In their own way they would be seeking to help people find the meaning of life and the universe and their purpose. Some of these new priests might even become god-like in their inclinations and authority.
But in the third place, you can no more ban religion than ban the inhalation of oxygen. Or ban sex. Or ban alcohol. People will find a way. Ask those who lived through the 70 years of the USSR whether Moscow was successful in banning religion. Ask them if the Kremlin succeeded in eliminating the need for faith and the spiritual quest. Ask them if Christianity ceased to exist.
Ask China.
Ask North Korea, come to think of it. Not that we'll get the truth on the matter out of Pyongyang. But I guarantee you they have not eliminated all religious faith though I'm sure they have tried hard.
People have sought religious and spiritual explanations from the beginning of the human race's ability to wonder and imagine. Archaeologists tell us they have found evidence of the quest. So do anthropologists. Religion and the spiritual cannot be banned because hearts and minds and thought cannot be banned. Soul and spirit cannot be banned. The quest to know cannot be banned. It does not matter what you believe or refuse to believe. It does not matter if you do not care about religion. There are many others who believe differently than you, people who are religious, and they cannot all be silenced or eliminated.
Those who cry for the banning of religion because of the damage they see religion can do conveniently forget about the good religion can do. They forget about the Martin Luther Kings, the Mother Teresas, the Francis of Assisis.
Yet most importantly they forget it appears to be endemic to the human race.
It will not go away. There will always be bad religion and good religion just as there will always be bad atheists and good atheists. Atheism is part of the religious equation too.
It is not a world, despite the crime and immorality and intolerance, that is less spiritual that we see in the 21st century.
People are still looking for God.
They look for a Messiah.
They look for a special Word, a Logos.
They are on a quest. Many of them. All of them, really, all of us. Some of us do not call it a quest and some of us do not call it religious.
But we are looking for the meaning of life and life after death and the meaning of creation.
And by whatever name we call it, it is still spiritual.
The world is as spiritual a place as it has ever been. And the people who live here are just as desperate for answers, for hope, for purpose, for light.
Nothing has changed in that regard for thousands of years.
It will never change.
How can it, if it really becomes clear to all one day that spirituality, from beginning to end, is the essence of our existence as human beings?
late night music with felix mendelssohn
One of the great things about growing up in Winnipeg is the arts.
I well remember the first time I went to the symphony. The gleam of the brass section, the rich wood of the stringed instruments, the black dress of the musicians, this and all the other instruments such as drums, a harp, oboes and a piano, it all combined to give me an overwhelming sense of beauty and anticipation.
The first album my brother gave me as a gift (he is an artist and teaches at the University of Manitoba) was not The Rolling Stones, though we both liked the band, but Bella Bartok. It was an LP. On the flip side was Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Though I knew the regular tunes we're all supposed to know when it comes to classical music (The Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, The Beautiful Blue Danube, The Nutcracker, The 1812 Overture, etc.) I did not know Bartok or Stravinsky. The album opened up new worlds of the senses and the imagination.
I have hundreds of classical CDs now. I was just listening, for instance, to Rachmaninov's Vespers, a piece I have used to help get me in the mood for writing a novel set in mid-20th century Russia and Ukraine. If I walk over to one of my stashes of classical CDs, which is arranged in alphabetical order in a tower, I come pretty quickly to Bach, one of my favourite composers (someone many of us might never have known but for Felix Mendelssohn introducing his works to the world).
I used to think, well, one rendering of a piece is sufficient. If I haul out my CDs of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites you see an interpretation by Janos Starker done in his golden years, magnificent, my current favourite. But I liked Yo Yo's early interpretation too (I gave the double set to a friend who could not afford a copy but not before I downloaded it into my iTunes). I have Peter Wispelwey's take on it. Also Haimovitz with his three disc set (because he plays at a slower tempo). I want to get Gastinel and Queyras (his treatment of Britten's unaccompanied is marvelous). So you see? This makes me, I fear, something of an audiophile.
Pianists? The list would be too long. But in Bach you see Angela Hewitt and Glenn Gould whose version of The Goldberg Variations (the slow one made just before his death) is still the one I prefer. If we glance over all of the CDs we see Lang Lang and Argerich and Aimard and Volodos. And violinists. And trumpet players. And different conductors doing different interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Sibelius and Shostakovich.
Okay, enough already. My point? People have different takes on the Bible and we need to listen to them before we agree or disagree. People prefer different translations of the Bible - I enjoy The Message but I have a friend in BC who teaches English Lit who detests it. So? Make room for Gould and Hewitt and Aimard. On my shelf I also have JB Phillip's translation of the New Testament, made for his young people while London was being blown to bits in World war Two, still a fine rendering in my opinion. There is the NEB and the REB and the ESV and NRSV and the NIV and . . . yes, some in Greek and Hebrew as well. They all have their place but I prefer some over others just as I do in my classical music.
But I'm not blogging this just as an appeal to variety in Biblical translations or to ask others to respect a friend's opinions or a stranger's views when it comes to Biblical interpretation or the arts.
I'm saying YES to classical music. It's deep, complex, melodic, all-enveloping, overwhelming and extremely satisfying. I've already blogged about how I enjoy other forms of music, such as the blues. If I can be caught up in jazz or the blues and then come along and get caught up in Prokofiev's wonderfully intense piano pieces, why can't a few more of us? Hey, I open a drawer at my computer desk here, right now (events occur in real time, Kiefer) and there is Ryan Bingham nestled up to Steve Earle who is cozy with GKB (Glenn Kaiser Band) and shoulder to shoulder with them all is Rachmaninov and Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Why not? It's all good.
But classical takes you to some incredible places and I fear, in this day and age, a lot of it is being lost and forgotten just as Bach was for 150 years until Mendelssohn brought the stuff out of hiding and touched a million souls.
Classical remains soul music today. Try some at your local Soft Classic Cafe and see how it goes down. Want something with even more fire and darkness and breaking light? The Hard Classic Cafe is just down the street.
It can take you to another galaxy and back. But not back as the same listener.
I well remember the first time I went to the symphony. The gleam of the brass section, the rich wood of the stringed instruments, the black dress of the musicians, this and all the other instruments such as drums, a harp, oboes and a piano, it all combined to give me an overwhelming sense of beauty and anticipation.
The first album my brother gave me as a gift (he is an artist and teaches at the University of Manitoba) was not The Rolling Stones, though we both liked the band, but Bella Bartok. It was an LP. On the flip side was Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Though I knew the regular tunes we're all supposed to know when it comes to classical music (The Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, The Beautiful Blue Danube, The Nutcracker, The 1812 Overture, etc.) I did not know Bartok or Stravinsky. The album opened up new worlds of the senses and the imagination.
I have hundreds of classical CDs now. I was just listening, for instance, to Rachmaninov's Vespers, a piece I have used to help get me in the mood for writing a novel set in mid-20th century Russia and Ukraine. If I walk over to one of my stashes of classical CDs, which is arranged in alphabetical order in a tower, I come pretty quickly to Bach, one of my favourite composers (someone many of us might never have known but for Felix Mendelssohn introducing his works to the world).
I used to think, well, one rendering of a piece is sufficient. If I haul out my CDs of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites you see an interpretation by Janos Starker done in his golden years, magnificent, my current favourite. But I liked Yo Yo's early interpretation too (I gave the double set to a friend who could not afford a copy but not before I downloaded it into my iTunes). I have Peter Wispelwey's take on it. Also Haimovitz with his three disc set (because he plays at a slower tempo). I want to get Gastinel and Queyras (his treatment of Britten's unaccompanied is marvelous). So you see? This makes me, I fear, something of an audiophile.
Pianists? The list would be too long. But in Bach you see Angela Hewitt and Glenn Gould whose version of The Goldberg Variations (the slow one made just before his death) is still the one I prefer. If we glance over all of the CDs we see Lang Lang and Argerich and Aimard and Volodos. And violinists. And trumpet players. And different conductors doing different interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Sibelius and Shostakovich.
Okay, enough already. My point? People have different takes on the Bible and we need to listen to them before we agree or disagree. People prefer different translations of the Bible - I enjoy The Message but I have a friend in BC who teaches English Lit who detests it. So? Make room for Gould and Hewitt and Aimard. On my shelf I also have JB Phillip's translation of the New Testament, made for his young people while London was being blown to bits in World war Two, still a fine rendering in my opinion. There is the NEB and the REB and the ESV and NRSV and the NIV and . . . yes, some in Greek and Hebrew as well. They all have their place but I prefer some over others just as I do in my classical music.
But I'm not blogging this just as an appeal to variety in Biblical translations or to ask others to respect a friend's opinions or a stranger's views when it comes to Biblical interpretation or the arts.
I'm saying YES to classical music. It's deep, complex, melodic, all-enveloping, overwhelming and extremely satisfying. I've already blogged about how I enjoy other forms of music, such as the blues. If I can be caught up in jazz or the blues and then come along and get caught up in Prokofiev's wonderfully intense piano pieces, why can't a few more of us? Hey, I open a drawer at my computer desk here, right now (events occur in real time, Kiefer) and there is Ryan Bingham nestled up to Steve Earle who is cozy with GKB (Glenn Kaiser Band) and shoulder to shoulder with them all is Rachmaninov and Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Why not? It's all good.
But classical takes you to some incredible places and I fear, in this day and age, a lot of it is being lost and forgotten just as Bach was for 150 years until Mendelssohn brought the stuff out of hiding and touched a million souls.
Classical remains soul music today. Try some at your local Soft Classic Cafe and see how it goes down. Want something with even more fire and darkness and breaking light? The Hard Classic Cafe is just down the street.
It can take you to another galaxy and back. But not back as the same listener.
highway 61 south
In a few weeks I'll be flying into Jackson, Mississippi. Once there I'll be whisked off further south to places like Laurel and Soso and Hattiesburg. A friend is being ordained as a minister down there and he's asked me to do the ordination message. After that, I'm doing a series of evening messages based on chapters from my book STREAMS - this is kind of like a "deeper life" series of gatherings. And yes, I have thought about what I'm going to say, especially on the first evening which is the ordination: Jesus as healer, lover, warrior, God. Something like that.
I am a student of history so I'm not ignorant of Mississippi or the South's history. I know about the slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow and segregation, I know that Medgar Evers was killed in Jackson, I know about the murder of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County in 1964.
I also know that the pain of Jim Crow and sharecropping and emancipation delayed brought the world the musical form known as the blues just as slavery brought the world black spirituals. I know that rock and pop music and probably a lot more came out of the blues. I know that Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and that he was heavily influenced by gospel music and the blues.
The Mississippi Delta, that is, the culture and reality and blues music that is the Mississippi Delta, begins on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I may not get to Memphis on this trip but I will get to Vicksburg. And I will not only be looking at the Civil War battlefield but hunting out whatever's left, if anything, of Catfish Row.
I know that Highway 61 South will take me through the heart of the Delta and I intend to drive on that road, suh.
But the biggest thing, really, is the friends I've made in Mississippi and Louisiana over the past five years. Church groups have come up three times to help us with youth work at our church of Heartland in Alberta (someone else got a hold of the name Graceland first). The cool thing is, all three times it was my pleasure to work with Bucky, the genial and energetic young man whose ordination I am going to preach in a few weeks.
First time he was newly married and they were living and serving people and God in Franklin, Louisiana. Second time too. Third time he was coming up from Britney Spear's hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana where he served in a church. He's in Mississippi now but on the way to the Delta he helped us make a lot of great friends with Southern accents. So yes, blues and Mississippi's dramatic history aside, I am a fortunate man because I am not taking Highway 61 South as a tourist but as someone who is visiting with friends. And not only visiting, but getting to do God and soul stuff with those friends as well.
I don't know if anyone from Mississippi reads my blogs, but if you do, hey, maybe we'll get a chance to meet. Drop me a line.
I'm looking forward to this. A lot. I remain grateful, oh yes, grateful is the word.
I am a student of history so I'm not ignorant of Mississippi or the South's history. I know about the slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow and segregation, I know that Medgar Evers was killed in Jackson, I know about the murder of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County in 1964.
I also know that the pain of Jim Crow and sharecropping and emancipation delayed brought the world the musical form known as the blues just as slavery brought the world black spirituals. I know that rock and pop music and probably a lot more came out of the blues. I know that Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and that he was heavily influenced by gospel music and the blues.
The Mississippi Delta, that is, the culture and reality and blues music that is the Mississippi Delta, begins on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I may not get to Memphis on this trip but I will get to Vicksburg. And I will not only be looking at the Civil War battlefield but hunting out whatever's left, if anything, of Catfish Row.
I know that Highway 61 South will take me through the heart of the Delta and I intend to drive on that road, suh.
But the biggest thing, really, is the friends I've made in Mississippi and Louisiana over the past five years. Church groups have come up three times to help us with youth work at our church of Heartland in Alberta (someone else got a hold of the name Graceland first). The cool thing is, all three times it was my pleasure to work with Bucky, the genial and energetic young man whose ordination I am going to preach in a few weeks.
First time he was newly married and they were living and serving people and God in Franklin, Louisiana. Second time too. Third time he was coming up from Britney Spear's hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana where he served in a church. He's in Mississippi now but on the way to the Delta he helped us make a lot of great friends with Southern accents. So yes, blues and Mississippi's dramatic history aside, I am a fortunate man because I am not taking Highway 61 South as a tourist but as someone who is visiting with friends. And not only visiting, but getting to do God and soul stuff with those friends as well.
I don't know if anyone from Mississippi reads my blogs, but if you do, hey, maybe we'll get a chance to meet. Drop me a line.
I'm looking forward to this. A lot. I remain grateful, oh yes, grateful is the word.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
the lady and the writer
With the publication of my novel ZO in December of 2008 and its inclusion as a finalist for the Kobzar Literary Award in Toronto last March, many people became interested in what this work of fiction was about. To many readers' surprise, it was the first in a trilogy, and they found this out when they were left hanging - somewhat - at the conclusion of ZO.
Since I currently live in a small town it was easy enough for a number of readers to track me down and ask questions about the story and, most importantly for many of them, ask when the second novel in the trilogy was coming out. When I told them, casually, "Oh, about two years," some of them flew into a passion: "Two years! How can you expect people to wait two years after an ending like that?"
Well, it takes time to write and then revise and then edit. Then it takes time to choose a cover and a blurb for the back cover, to get it printed and bound, get the ISBN stuff squared away, etc., etc. But even at that, with a number of other writing opportunities suddenly falling into my lap, I had to wonder when I would get around to writing the sequel to ZO. Would it actually be two years - would it be that fast? Or might it be three or four? At the back of my mind, I sometimes thought: So much is going on. Maybe it won't happen.
Then one day my wife, who is an RN, came home with her own tale to tell. One of her patients, an elderly lady, after making make sure that her nurse was also my wife, said to her: "Well, I want to read the next book. You tell that man of yours that I'm in my 90s and I don't have as long as he has to get around to it. He needs to get it done and get it published."
Humorous as the story is I can't imagine any writer not being affected by her roundabout plea that the story continue and, eventually, be properly completed. So now the sequel to ZO is well underway. At certain stages I have been at it 8-12 hours a day or more. At first I scarcely knew how to start the sequel. Now I can't get all the characters to stop talking at the kitchen table in my head. Idea after idea is gushing forth. It's what Frederick Buechner called an artesian well effect. At one point two weeks ago I was so tired from unending days of writing and word processing I thought I couldn't go any further - I was only human, not a machine. But a few days writing more slowly out of doors rejuvenated me. Now I'm back to running to keep up with my characters and their story. I even tried to stop at the beginning of April, right after Easter, with an "All right, that's enough for a bit, I need to look into some other writing projects." Immediately a new character was in my head, talking, right at me, and I agreed to put his words down for the beginning of the second part of the book, but no more than that.
Fat chance. That was 35,000 words ago.
He's not the only odd incident. I brought a woman military driver into the story just to have a woman military driver. Talk about trying to leash a panther. She's such an important part of the novel now I don't think I'll ever be able to let her go. This happened with another person I brought in with the idea they would need to be "killed off" a few thousand words later. Yeah, right. There is too much to them. They are obviously not going to be killed off a few thousand words down the line. Who knows if they will ever be?
This story has too much energy for me - almost. I've never quite run into this sort of extended depth and complexity and intensity with my fiction writing before. Oh, sure, there's been moments and seasons, but this has no let up. If I could go at it 24/7 without ever eating or sleeping and never losing my edge I might just be able to hold my own with this crew. As it is, I'm hanging on for the ride and my hair is streaming out behind me.
I'll get there. And every indication of re-reading is that it appears to be worth the trip.
I hope the lady thinks so too.
I'm shooting for a late fall or early 2011 publication date.
cheers
Since I currently live in a small town it was easy enough for a number of readers to track me down and ask questions about the story and, most importantly for many of them, ask when the second novel in the trilogy was coming out. When I told them, casually, "Oh, about two years," some of them flew into a passion: "Two years! How can you expect people to wait two years after an ending like that?"
Well, it takes time to write and then revise and then edit. Then it takes time to choose a cover and a blurb for the back cover, to get it printed and bound, get the ISBN stuff squared away, etc., etc. But even at that, with a number of other writing opportunities suddenly falling into my lap, I had to wonder when I would get around to writing the sequel to ZO. Would it actually be two years - would it be that fast? Or might it be three or four? At the back of my mind, I sometimes thought: So much is going on. Maybe it won't happen.
Then one day my wife, who is an RN, came home with her own tale to tell. One of her patients, an elderly lady, after making make sure that her nurse was also my wife, said to her: "Well, I want to read the next book. You tell that man of yours that I'm in my 90s and I don't have as long as he has to get around to it. He needs to get it done and get it published."
Humorous as the story is I can't imagine any writer not being affected by her roundabout plea that the story continue and, eventually, be properly completed. So now the sequel to ZO is well underway. At certain stages I have been at it 8-12 hours a day or more. At first I scarcely knew how to start the sequel. Now I can't get all the characters to stop talking at the kitchen table in my head. Idea after idea is gushing forth. It's what Frederick Buechner called an artesian well effect. At one point two weeks ago I was so tired from unending days of writing and word processing I thought I couldn't go any further - I was only human, not a machine. But a few days writing more slowly out of doors rejuvenated me. Now I'm back to running to keep up with my characters and their story. I even tried to stop at the beginning of April, right after Easter, with an "All right, that's enough for a bit, I need to look into some other writing projects." Immediately a new character was in my head, talking, right at me, and I agreed to put his words down for the beginning of the second part of the book, but no more than that.
Fat chance. That was 35,000 words ago.
He's not the only odd incident. I brought a woman military driver into the story just to have a woman military driver. Talk about trying to leash a panther. She's such an important part of the novel now I don't think I'll ever be able to let her go. This happened with another person I brought in with the idea they would need to be "killed off" a few thousand words later. Yeah, right. There is too much to them. They are obviously not going to be killed off a few thousand words down the line. Who knows if they will ever be?
This story has too much energy for me - almost. I've never quite run into this sort of extended depth and complexity and intensity with my fiction writing before. Oh, sure, there's been moments and seasons, but this has no let up. If I could go at it 24/7 without ever eating or sleeping and never losing my edge I might just be able to hold my own with this crew. As it is, I'm hanging on for the ride and my hair is streaming out behind me.
I'll get there. And every indication of re-reading is that it appears to be worth the trip.
I hope the lady thinks so too.
I'm shooting for a late fall or early 2011 publication date.
cheers
ROOTED & STREAMS
Two books of mine have been released from Zondervan over the past month.
One is entitled ROOTED, the other STREAMS.
ROOTED has a longer history. When I lived near Banff, Alberta, a famous tourist resort, I first realized that we had a number of major gardens in the Bible that had strong spiritual connections to one another. Eden, of course, was first and obvious, and it had a direct link to Gethsemane, another garden, where Jesus made up his mind to go forward and undo the curse of humanity's sin in Eden. Then I looked and no sooner is Jesus taken down dead from the Cross then his body is placed in a tomb in another garden. And in that garden where he has been laid out dead he will rise from the dead on a spring Passover morning.
These three gardens were enough to give me a sermon series which I preached at the church I pastored near Banff in the town of Canmore. I used Eden, Gethsemane and the Garden Tomb. I spoke this message in various other locations as well, including the next church I pastored which is located only a few hours south of Banff. As time went on, I found En Gedi, another garden, and also felt that many portions of Revelation present the Kingdom of Heaven in a garden-like state, so I included those and wound up with five gardens in all.
The first time I put this idea in book form was a work entitled The Five Gardens of God. A couple of years later Zondervan asked me to re-work the book, make it more appealing to the mainstream without sacrificing its strengths, add more story, and ROOTED was born.
STREAMS came to be because they wanted a companion volume to go out with ROOTED and they indicated an interest in the water theme (I had suggested deserts or wilderness or high places and mountains). I spent several months working with water in the Bible, especially rivers and lakes and seas, in the same way I had worked with gardens. This time I included a lot of personal story from the start.
So far the feedback from both books has been positive and there has certainly been a lot of interest in the "new kid" of the two, STREAMS. Both are being distributed in Canada, the USA and Britain. Recently, the rights for a Deutsche ROOTED was sold to a publisher in Germany.
I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to tell stories and Biblical truths in such a way they might help others to see Christ and see the sometimes smooth and sometimes rugged road of believing that lies ahead of them. I hope I will get the chance to try out another couple of themes in two different books.
cheers
One is entitled ROOTED, the other STREAMS.
ROOTED has a longer history. When I lived near Banff, Alberta, a famous tourist resort, I first realized that we had a number of major gardens in the Bible that had strong spiritual connections to one another. Eden, of course, was first and obvious, and it had a direct link to Gethsemane, another garden, where Jesus made up his mind to go forward and undo the curse of humanity's sin in Eden. Then I looked and no sooner is Jesus taken down dead from the Cross then his body is placed in a tomb in another garden. And in that garden where he has been laid out dead he will rise from the dead on a spring Passover morning.
These three gardens were enough to give me a sermon series which I preached at the church I pastored near Banff in the town of Canmore. I used Eden, Gethsemane and the Garden Tomb. I spoke this message in various other locations as well, including the next church I pastored which is located only a few hours south of Banff. As time went on, I found En Gedi, another garden, and also felt that many portions of Revelation present the Kingdom of Heaven in a garden-like state, so I included those and wound up with five gardens in all.
The first time I put this idea in book form was a work entitled The Five Gardens of God. A couple of years later Zondervan asked me to re-work the book, make it more appealing to the mainstream without sacrificing its strengths, add more story, and ROOTED was born.
STREAMS came to be because they wanted a companion volume to go out with ROOTED and they indicated an interest in the water theme (I had suggested deserts or wilderness or high places and mountains). I spent several months working with water in the Bible, especially rivers and lakes and seas, in the same way I had worked with gardens. This time I included a lot of personal story from the start.
So far the feedback from both books has been positive and there has certainly been a lot of interest in the "new kid" of the two, STREAMS. Both are being distributed in Canada, the USA and Britain. Recently, the rights for a Deutsche ROOTED was sold to a publisher in Germany.
I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to tell stories and Biblical truths in such a way they might help others to see Christ and see the sometimes smooth and sometimes rugged road of believing that lies ahead of them. I hope I will get the chance to try out another couple of themes in two different books.
cheers
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
the holodomor
Holodomor is a Ukrainian word. It means "murder by starvation."
After the recent Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, I read some blogs where people expressed a longing for a return of the old Soviet Union, the nation that produced powerhouse athletes that truly challenged those from the USA and Canada and Germany, especially during the Winter Games.
I've even seen a song on TV where some American country-folk-roots singer is also pining away for the old Soviet Union. "Mister Gorbachev," he croons, "please put back that wall," meaning the Berlin Wall. Give us back the good old USSR, he goes on.
People that blog like that or write songs like that obviously never had family in Latvia or Lithuania or the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Georgia or Estonia. Or, like myself, the former East Germany and Ukraine.
It was the "good old USSR," under the leadership of a person considered a hero now in the new Russia - Joseph Stalin - that murdered millions of my people on my father's side in the early 1930s. The Communist government in Moscow wiped out whole villages and towns and left the bodies to rot in the streets and fields. A New York Times reporter saw the slaughter and yet wrote back glowing reports of life in the Stalinist Soviet Union in direct contradiction to what he was experiencing first-hand. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for the Times with his dispatches. Bizarrely enough, the paper still touts this Pulitzer as one of their prizes, when the reporter long ago admitted his reports were a lie. The Times owners, management and staff should be in sackcloth and ashes and hanging their collective heads in shame.
The Times wasn't the only paper to sing the praises of the USSR, nor was their reporter the only one to say it was heaven on earth. George Bernard Shaw did a tour of the Soviet Union and proclaimed it was something of a paradise and any rumours to the contrary were false. (It was a rigidly controlled tour that you'd think a smart man like he was would have seen through, even with his rose-coloured Socialist glasses on. Obviously he saw what he wanted to see.)
One of the few papers that told the truth was The Manchester Guardian and one of the few journalists who tried to get the world to cry out in anger was Malcolm Muggeridge. He was ridiculed and ignored. Oh, that love for the good old murderous USSR, it clings to so many from generation to generation.
Stalin took all the crops and he took all the seed to plant new crops. He terrorized farms and towns to get both the harvest and the seed that would guarantee another harvest the coming year. He starved six to ten million to death. But then, he hated the Ukrainians anyway, and their pride and independence and unwillingness to bow the knee to the new czars of Soviet dictatorship, so this was a convenience to his Soviet-winter-cold-heart. He killed more people in two years, just by taking away their food, than Hitler did in ten with his gas chambers and ovens and SS. Nor did Stalin mind murdering millions of Russian farmers using the same methods that worked so well in Ukraine.
Ah, but for Shaw and The New York Times of the 1930s and 40s, and that American singer, the Soviet Union is something wonderful to behold.
The cover-up has been so long-lasting that when a woman I knew sat down and read my novel ZO, she came away saying it was a good story but that the part about the mass starvation in Ukraine was over the top and hard to believe. Once I explained to her that I had not thought it up, that it was true, she demanded to know why she hadn't heard of it (whereas everyone knows about the Jews and The Holocaust).
Why? It's that old twisted romanticism for the USSR that many on the left, and some on the right, cling to like a sweet dream that, in actuality, is no more than the result of an opiate, a drug-induced hallucination, a stupor that blinds the eyes to the human hell the Soviet Union produced from 1917 to 1989. There are some who still want the USSR to look like utopia, who believe it was utopia, and who deny The Holodomor ever took place, just as there are still those, from generation to generation, who deny the Jewish Holocaust ever occurred.
On Thursday night, March 4th, at the Palais Royale in Toronto, I'm privileged to be one of several finalists for The Kobzar Literary Award, an award that celebrates the people of Ukraine and the people blessed with Ukrainian ancestry who write and are written about in Canadian literature.
I stand there with the others to say thank you to the people of Ukraine who immigrated to this country and put their blood in me.
I stand there to celebrate their strength, their love for freedom, their passion for the land on both sides of the Atlantic.
I stand to say The Holodomor did happen, thank God Ukraine is free from the grip of the old USSR, and may the Soviet Union never return and the ghost of Stalin never haunt the fields and hearts of Ukrainians in any place, especially the homeland, ever again.
After the recent Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, I read some blogs where people expressed a longing for a return of the old Soviet Union, the nation that produced powerhouse athletes that truly challenged those from the USA and Canada and Germany, especially during the Winter Games.
I've even seen a song on TV where some American country-folk-roots singer is also pining away for the old Soviet Union. "Mister Gorbachev," he croons, "please put back that wall," meaning the Berlin Wall. Give us back the good old USSR, he goes on.
People that blog like that or write songs like that obviously never had family in Latvia or Lithuania or the Czech Republic or Slovakia or Georgia or Estonia. Or, like myself, the former East Germany and Ukraine.
It was the "good old USSR," under the leadership of a person considered a hero now in the new Russia - Joseph Stalin - that murdered millions of my people on my father's side in the early 1930s. The Communist government in Moscow wiped out whole villages and towns and left the bodies to rot in the streets and fields. A New York Times reporter saw the slaughter and yet wrote back glowing reports of life in the Stalinist Soviet Union in direct contradiction to what he was experiencing first-hand. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for the Times with his dispatches. Bizarrely enough, the paper still touts this Pulitzer as one of their prizes, when the reporter long ago admitted his reports were a lie. The Times owners, management and staff should be in sackcloth and ashes and hanging their collective heads in shame.
The Times wasn't the only paper to sing the praises of the USSR, nor was their reporter the only one to say it was heaven on earth. George Bernard Shaw did a tour of the Soviet Union and proclaimed it was something of a paradise and any rumours to the contrary were false. (It was a rigidly controlled tour that you'd think a smart man like he was would have seen through, even with his rose-coloured Socialist glasses on. Obviously he saw what he wanted to see.)
One of the few papers that told the truth was The Manchester Guardian and one of the few journalists who tried to get the world to cry out in anger was Malcolm Muggeridge. He was ridiculed and ignored. Oh, that love for the good old murderous USSR, it clings to so many from generation to generation.
Stalin took all the crops and he took all the seed to plant new crops. He terrorized farms and towns to get both the harvest and the seed that would guarantee another harvest the coming year. He starved six to ten million to death. But then, he hated the Ukrainians anyway, and their pride and independence and unwillingness to bow the knee to the new czars of Soviet dictatorship, so this was a convenience to his Soviet-winter-cold-heart. He killed more people in two years, just by taking away their food, than Hitler did in ten with his gas chambers and ovens and SS. Nor did Stalin mind murdering millions of Russian farmers using the same methods that worked so well in Ukraine.
Ah, but for Shaw and The New York Times of the 1930s and 40s, and that American singer, the Soviet Union is something wonderful to behold.
The cover-up has been so long-lasting that when a woman I knew sat down and read my novel ZO, she came away saying it was a good story but that the part about the mass starvation in Ukraine was over the top and hard to believe. Once I explained to her that I had not thought it up, that it was true, she demanded to know why she hadn't heard of it (whereas everyone knows about the Jews and The Holocaust).
Why? It's that old twisted romanticism for the USSR that many on the left, and some on the right, cling to like a sweet dream that, in actuality, is no more than the result of an opiate, a drug-induced hallucination, a stupor that blinds the eyes to the human hell the Soviet Union produced from 1917 to 1989. There are some who still want the USSR to look like utopia, who believe it was utopia, and who deny The Holodomor ever took place, just as there are still those, from generation to generation, who deny the Jewish Holocaust ever occurred.
On Thursday night, March 4th, at the Palais Royale in Toronto, I'm privileged to be one of several finalists for The Kobzar Literary Award, an award that celebrates the people of Ukraine and the people blessed with Ukrainian ancestry who write and are written about in Canadian literature.
I stand there with the others to say thank you to the people of Ukraine who immigrated to this country and put their blood in me.
I stand there to celebrate their strength, their love for freedom, their passion for the land on both sides of the Atlantic.
I stand to say The Holodomor did happen, thank God Ukraine is free from the grip of the old USSR, and may the Soviet Union never return and the ghost of Stalin never haunt the fields and hearts of Ukrainians in any place, especially the homeland, ever again.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
loving enemies
Most people are aware of how both Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were heavily influenced by Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount.
This led to both of them acting as catalysts for independence movements that were characterized by their dynamic non-violent approach. In Gandhi's case it brought about India's liberation from Great Britain. In King's case, it brought about the liberation of America's African-American population.
For many, the idea of loving one's enemies and interacting with them in a non-violent manner is all right for mass movements like King's and Gandhi's, but it is impossible to make work on a day-by-day, person-to-person basis. How do you love, let alone like, someone who hurts your children, back stabs you at work or trashes your family to others whenever they get the chance?
I believe the best way to love your enemies is to do exactly what you do when you love your friends.
If a good friend embarks on actions I think are not only unwise, but dangerous, I sit down with them, have a coffee, and express my concerns. Out of love. They may or may not listen, but it is what good friends do.
If a good friend is out of line with me, I tell them. If they do things that will hurt not only themselves, but my wife and children and other friends, I do what I can to make them stop. If they are engaging in actions that will hurt strangers, I challenge them on that too. Outside of self-defense, or their involvement in law enforcement or necessary military operations, if they are doing things that harm others - psychologically, physically, emotionally, spiritually - I make it a point to challenge them to cease and choose another manner in which to resolve their issues. And I do it out of love for them as well as love for those they intend to harm.
There is no difference with my approach to my enemies.
Loving your enemies does not mean letting them run rampant - destroying your reputation, indulging in harmful gossip towards you with others, hurting or killing your wife or husband or children or friends. Love does not permit that because loving your enemies means not only keeping them from harming themselves, but harming others, because harming others is a blow against their own lives and souls. And loving your enemies certainly does not mean you stop loving others and allow enemies to destroy them.
Loving your enemies means challenging their harmful behavious towards yourself and others. It means taking action to stop them from doing what is wrong. It means defending yourself and others not only for their victims' sakes but their own sakes as well.
Since when did love mean being a spectator when people hurt people? Since when did love mean doing nothing when you could do something to stop people from harming people? Since when did loving your friends meaning letting them self-destruct? Since when did it mean letting them indulge in whatever vicious behaviour they desire without you, their friend, saying or doing anything to attempt to change their minds and behaviour?
Since when did loving your enemies mean never challenging their destructive behaviour towards yourself and others? Since when did it mean letting them do whatever terrible things they wish? Since when did it mean never resisting their efforts to do yourself and others harm? You don't permit the friends you love to engage in that sort of viciousness towards yourself and those you care about and even those who are strangers. Why would you act any differently towards the enemies Jesus has commanded you to love?
Love your friend. Love your enemy. Act in the same manner towards each when they take a path of darkness and destruction. Loving them means helping them not to do the things that harm others and, by so doing, also harm themselves.
Love does not mean letting others do the things that make the world most ugly and wicked and which also make themselves most ugly and wicked.
Love does not only mean saying yes at the right times. It also involves saying no.
This is how friends are loved. This is how enemies are loved.
This is how our worlds and the one greater world is changed.
Jesus said, Love one another as I have loved you.
He also said, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hurt you. Pray for those who try to treat you in dark and destructive ways.
Talk. Pray. Challenge. Resist. Embrace. Forgive.
Love your enemies as you love your friends.
It's not just rhetoric. Not just wishful thinking.
It works.
This led to both of them acting as catalysts for independence movements that were characterized by their dynamic non-violent approach. In Gandhi's case it brought about India's liberation from Great Britain. In King's case, it brought about the liberation of America's African-American population.
For many, the idea of loving one's enemies and interacting with them in a non-violent manner is all right for mass movements like King's and Gandhi's, but it is impossible to make work on a day-by-day, person-to-person basis. How do you love, let alone like, someone who hurts your children, back stabs you at work or trashes your family to others whenever they get the chance?
I believe the best way to love your enemies is to do exactly what you do when you love your friends.
If a good friend embarks on actions I think are not only unwise, but dangerous, I sit down with them, have a coffee, and express my concerns. Out of love. They may or may not listen, but it is what good friends do.
If a good friend is out of line with me, I tell them. If they do things that will hurt not only themselves, but my wife and children and other friends, I do what I can to make them stop. If they are engaging in actions that will hurt strangers, I challenge them on that too. Outside of self-defense, or their involvement in law enforcement or necessary military operations, if they are doing things that harm others - psychologically, physically, emotionally, spiritually - I make it a point to challenge them to cease and choose another manner in which to resolve their issues. And I do it out of love for them as well as love for those they intend to harm.
There is no difference with my approach to my enemies.
Loving your enemies does not mean letting them run rampant - destroying your reputation, indulging in harmful gossip towards you with others, hurting or killing your wife or husband or children or friends. Love does not permit that because loving your enemies means not only keeping them from harming themselves, but harming others, because harming others is a blow against their own lives and souls. And loving your enemies certainly does not mean you stop loving others and allow enemies to destroy them.
Loving your enemies means challenging their harmful behavious towards yourself and others. It means taking action to stop them from doing what is wrong. It means defending yourself and others not only for their victims' sakes but their own sakes as well.
Since when did love mean being a spectator when people hurt people? Since when did love mean doing nothing when you could do something to stop people from harming people? Since when did loving your friends meaning letting them self-destruct? Since when did it mean letting them indulge in whatever vicious behaviour they desire without you, their friend, saying or doing anything to attempt to change their minds and behaviour?
Since when did loving your enemies mean never challenging their destructive behaviour towards yourself and others? Since when did it mean letting them do whatever terrible things they wish? Since when did it mean never resisting their efforts to do yourself and others harm? You don't permit the friends you love to engage in that sort of viciousness towards yourself and those you care about and even those who are strangers. Why would you act any differently towards the enemies Jesus has commanded you to love?
Love your friend. Love your enemy. Act in the same manner towards each when they take a path of darkness and destruction. Loving them means helping them not to do the things that harm others and, by so doing, also harm themselves.
Love does not mean letting others do the things that make the world most ugly and wicked and which also make themselves most ugly and wicked.
Love does not only mean saying yes at the right times. It also involves saying no.
This is how friends are loved. This is how enemies are loved.
This is how our worlds and the one greater world is changed.
Jesus said, Love one another as I have loved you.
He also said, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hurt you. Pray for those who try to treat you in dark and destructive ways.
Talk. Pray. Challenge. Resist. Embrace. Forgive.
Love your enemies as you love your friends.
It's not just rhetoric. Not just wishful thinking.
It works.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
what does it mean to be human? (part 1)
Let us begin like this:
A researcher in what we call Strong AI (AI for Artificial Intelligence) tells you his goal is to produce non-biological human life, that is, a human being that has no biological components. He advises you that biology does not a human being make and that by the dawn of the 21st century, it will be a post-biological world, at least as far as human beings are concerned.
Startled, you protest, "I can't conceive of humanity as being anything other than biological! A machine is a machine and a human is a human and they are built of different substances and they are not the same thing."
So he smiles (condescendingly perhaps, since he is well used to this sort of reaction to his life's work and knows exactly how to counter it) and says he would like to present a scenario to you.
Suppose, he says, your son, whom you love, is in a terrible car accident and badly burned and mangled, yet still manages to survive. The year is 2032 and the technology is available to rebuild his body inside and out. Instead of spending the rest of his life deformed, in pain and paralyzed from the neck down, he can have his life back again in full health.
So using silicon, fluids, microchips, computer components and all sorts of synthetic material your son is rebuilt or re-created or - the researcher's favorite word - refreshed. Not only that, although you are aware your son has been restored using non-biological material, when you finally see him after weeks of "restorative surgery" he looks just like he has always looked - same face, same smile, same hug, same laugh. The doctor tells you he is 75% non-biological and 25% biological, but you can't tell the difference. They even put components in his brain to replace damaged tissue and he acts just like your son - he is your son! Even though he is more synthetic than biological.
Now, asks the researcher, is your son still human?
Well, you respond, if you put it that way - that it's him, his mind and personality are intact, even his endearing and irritating quirks are there - yes, of course he's still human. Just like the person with a metal plate in his head or leg is still human. Just like the person with an artificial heart or kidney or eye is still human. Restoring his body using non-biological materials doesn't change the fact this is the same son I held in my arms at birth and taught to ride a bicycle at seven.
So, says the researcher, if he's still human at only 25% biological, why wouldn't he still be human at 15% biological, or 10%, or 5% or 0% biological?
Wouldn't he still be your son? Still a human being?
Even if his body no longer consisted of blood and bone and skin and his brain no longer consisted of grey tissue and grey matter?
? ? ? ?
A researcher in what we call Strong AI (AI for Artificial Intelligence) tells you his goal is to produce non-biological human life, that is, a human being that has no biological components. He advises you that biology does not a human being make and that by the dawn of the 21st century, it will be a post-biological world, at least as far as human beings are concerned.
Startled, you protest, "I can't conceive of humanity as being anything other than biological! A machine is a machine and a human is a human and they are built of different substances and they are not the same thing."
So he smiles (condescendingly perhaps, since he is well used to this sort of reaction to his life's work and knows exactly how to counter it) and says he would like to present a scenario to you.
Suppose, he says, your son, whom you love, is in a terrible car accident and badly burned and mangled, yet still manages to survive. The year is 2032 and the technology is available to rebuild his body inside and out. Instead of spending the rest of his life deformed, in pain and paralyzed from the neck down, he can have his life back again in full health.
So using silicon, fluids, microchips, computer components and all sorts of synthetic material your son is rebuilt or re-created or - the researcher's favorite word - refreshed. Not only that, although you are aware your son has been restored using non-biological material, when you finally see him after weeks of "restorative surgery" he looks just like he has always looked - same face, same smile, same hug, same laugh. The doctor tells you he is 75% non-biological and 25% biological, but you can't tell the difference. They even put components in his brain to replace damaged tissue and he acts just like your son - he is your son! Even though he is more synthetic than biological.
Now, asks the researcher, is your son still human?
Well, you respond, if you put it that way - that it's him, his mind and personality are intact, even his endearing and irritating quirks are there - yes, of course he's still human. Just like the person with a metal plate in his head or leg is still human. Just like the person with an artificial heart or kidney or eye is still human. Restoring his body using non-biological materials doesn't change the fact this is the same son I held in my arms at birth and taught to ride a bicycle at seven.
So, says the researcher, if he's still human at only 25% biological, why wouldn't he still be human at 15% biological, or 10%, or 5% or 0% biological?
Wouldn't he still be your son? Still a human being?
Even if his body no longer consisted of blood and bone and skin and his brain no longer consisted of grey tissue and grey matter?
? ? ? ?
Thursday, January 07, 2010
terror
A few miles south of where I live by the Rocky Mountains a number of paramilitary groups have their home. If you look up their websites, they always seem to be led by a Reverend somebody who has a high definition portrait taken in suit and tie (not camo) and they invariably have some sort of quasi-Christian creed they subscribe to. They want nothing to do with African-Americans, Hispanics, immigrants of any visible minority, and they don't like Jews. Armed to the teeth, they promote a holy white supremacy in the name of Jesus Christ (who, apparently, was not a Jew).
About a thousand miles east of me there is talk of sharia law. One imam on a television documentary states that Allah recognizes no such country as Canada. The only nation Allah recognizes is Islam. Another imam declares it is the "will of Allah" that sharia law come to Canada and that Canadian law is not valid for the Muslim, only sharia. Muslims should do whatever they can to make sharia law part of the Canadian fabric.
Terror has existed on our planet for a long time - terror, that is, which is politically motivated. The terror of the czars of Russia was politically motivated and so was the terror that Lenin and Stalin brought in after the czars. Terror existed under the kings of France but the Revolution that overthrew them had not been around long before it succumbed to its own Reign of Terror. When the American South lost the war in 1865 the region spawned a movement that subjugated African-Americans for a century and effectively produced an American Apartheid that was nothing less than terrorism. Terror came to Germany as government under the Nazi regime.
It is true that poverty can be a breeding ground for movements of terror. The French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror rose out of poverty and misery. The Russian Revolution and its subsequent purges erupted from the grinding poverty of the peasants. The American South was dirt poor after the War Between the States. Nazism came to power out of a Germany impoverished from its defeat in the First World War and humiliated by the penalties its conquerors inflicted upon it. People point to poverty in Yemen and Afghanistan to explain the proliferation of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, both radical Islamist groups that use terror to promote their agendas.
Poverty explains why such movements can gain a large following for they provide people with meaning, purpose, identity, hope. It helps explain why terrorist movements gain ground in the first place because the movements tap into a frustration and an anger.
Yet I feel this only partly explains why the leadership of such movements come into being.
The leaders of terrorist cells may or may not come out of poverty and humiliation. But they know how to harness that poverty, humiliation and alienation to a cause, a greater cause that they believe in.
For many of the paramilitary groups south of me in states like Idaho and Montana (and north of me in regions of central Alberta and British Columbia), the cause is the supremacy of the white race. The groups tap into poverty, job loss, the need to belong and a twisted version of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
For the Islamist radicals, nothing less than the annihilation of Western culture and the domination of Islam will satisfy. They also tap into poverty, unemployment, the need to belong and a twisted version, Muslim moderates say, of the teachings of the Quran and Muhammed.
That white supremacist groups and Islamist supremacist groups will come to blows in the near future in Europe, the UK, Canada and the US is inevitable. That they will strike out at civilians and civilian targets, as well as military ones, is also inevitable. What is not inevitable is that any of these terrorist groups should prevail.
First, our law should be as fair and inclusive as possible and it should be the one law for all people groups. It should not be a religious law, not a law for Jews or Christians or Muslims or whites or blacks or Native Americans. It should not be a law that ties a nation to a creed that denies freedom of speech, religion, press or beliefs.
Second, it is imperative that a nation's sovereignty not only be respected but safeguarded. A nation cannot be subjugated to the totalitarianism of any belief that denies the nation's freedom, legitimacy or authority.
Third, the rights of all people groups within the nation must be respected and upheld and any movement that seeks to destroy the rights and freedoms and lives of these people groups must be resisted legally and effectively.
Fourth, it is incumbent upon the moderates who exist outside or on the fringes of supremacist movements to speak up. Christians should be pointing out the differences between the legitimate teachings of Christ and those of the movements that twist his words to racist ends. Similarly, Muslims should be pointing out the differences between the legitimate teachings of the Quran and Muhammed and those of the movements that twist the words of the Quran and Muhammed to racist and life-destroying ends.
As a Christian, I have a responsibility to challenge those who shoot abortion doctors and then say they are pro-life and have upheld a higher law. I have a responsibility to challenge paramilitary groups who say they follow Jesus but hate Jews and Muslims and African-Americans. I have a responsibility to challenge those who in the name of Christianity destroy life far beyond the mandate of any legitimate law enforcement group or military group to maintain order and resist lawlessness.
I expect the same from Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists and other religious followers. They should not let their faith communities become wombs for hatred and bloodshed and intolerance. But I also expect the same from atheists and agnostics - their organizations should not become think tanks of exclusivity and racism and intolerance either. Neither should the ranks of political parties or NGOs or human rights groups. Human nature is easily capable of subverting the most idealistic agendas and turning those agendas into licenses to kill.
Terror will always be with us. But so must the will to resist its intolerance and totalitarianism and viciousness. It is not simply the job of a few enlightened human rights leaders or politicians. The better angels of our human nature must gain the ascendancy. All of us who oppose the tactics and agendas of supremacist groups must find our voice. Or, in these days and times, risk losing it forever.
About a thousand miles east of me there is talk of sharia law. One imam on a television documentary states that Allah recognizes no such country as Canada. The only nation Allah recognizes is Islam. Another imam declares it is the "will of Allah" that sharia law come to Canada and that Canadian law is not valid for the Muslim, only sharia. Muslims should do whatever they can to make sharia law part of the Canadian fabric.
Terror has existed on our planet for a long time - terror, that is, which is politically motivated. The terror of the czars of Russia was politically motivated and so was the terror that Lenin and Stalin brought in after the czars. Terror existed under the kings of France but the Revolution that overthrew them had not been around long before it succumbed to its own Reign of Terror. When the American South lost the war in 1865 the region spawned a movement that subjugated African-Americans for a century and effectively produced an American Apartheid that was nothing less than terrorism. Terror came to Germany as government under the Nazi regime.
It is true that poverty can be a breeding ground for movements of terror. The French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror rose out of poverty and misery. The Russian Revolution and its subsequent purges erupted from the grinding poverty of the peasants. The American South was dirt poor after the War Between the States. Nazism came to power out of a Germany impoverished from its defeat in the First World War and humiliated by the penalties its conquerors inflicted upon it. People point to poverty in Yemen and Afghanistan to explain the proliferation of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, both radical Islamist groups that use terror to promote their agendas.
Poverty explains why such movements can gain a large following for they provide people with meaning, purpose, identity, hope. It helps explain why terrorist movements gain ground in the first place because the movements tap into a frustration and an anger.
Yet I feel this only partly explains why the leadership of such movements come into being.
The leaders of terrorist cells may or may not come out of poverty and humiliation. But they know how to harness that poverty, humiliation and alienation to a cause, a greater cause that they believe in.
For many of the paramilitary groups south of me in states like Idaho and Montana (and north of me in regions of central Alberta and British Columbia), the cause is the supremacy of the white race. The groups tap into poverty, job loss, the need to belong and a twisted version of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
For the Islamist radicals, nothing less than the annihilation of Western culture and the domination of Islam will satisfy. They also tap into poverty, unemployment, the need to belong and a twisted version, Muslim moderates say, of the teachings of the Quran and Muhammed.
That white supremacist groups and Islamist supremacist groups will come to blows in the near future in Europe, the UK, Canada and the US is inevitable. That they will strike out at civilians and civilian targets, as well as military ones, is also inevitable. What is not inevitable is that any of these terrorist groups should prevail.
First, our law should be as fair and inclusive as possible and it should be the one law for all people groups. It should not be a religious law, not a law for Jews or Christians or Muslims or whites or blacks or Native Americans. It should not be a law that ties a nation to a creed that denies freedom of speech, religion, press or beliefs.
Second, it is imperative that a nation's sovereignty not only be respected but safeguarded. A nation cannot be subjugated to the totalitarianism of any belief that denies the nation's freedom, legitimacy or authority.
Third, the rights of all people groups within the nation must be respected and upheld and any movement that seeks to destroy the rights and freedoms and lives of these people groups must be resisted legally and effectively.
Fourth, it is incumbent upon the moderates who exist outside or on the fringes of supremacist movements to speak up. Christians should be pointing out the differences between the legitimate teachings of Christ and those of the movements that twist his words to racist ends. Similarly, Muslims should be pointing out the differences between the legitimate teachings of the Quran and Muhammed and those of the movements that twist the words of the Quran and Muhammed to racist and life-destroying ends.
As a Christian, I have a responsibility to challenge those who shoot abortion doctors and then say they are pro-life and have upheld a higher law. I have a responsibility to challenge paramilitary groups who say they follow Jesus but hate Jews and Muslims and African-Americans. I have a responsibility to challenge those who in the name of Christianity destroy life far beyond the mandate of any legitimate law enforcement group or military group to maintain order and resist lawlessness.
I expect the same from Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists and other religious followers. They should not let their faith communities become wombs for hatred and bloodshed and intolerance. But I also expect the same from atheists and agnostics - their organizations should not become think tanks of exclusivity and racism and intolerance either. Neither should the ranks of political parties or NGOs or human rights groups. Human nature is easily capable of subverting the most idealistic agendas and turning those agendas into licenses to kill.
Terror will always be with us. But so must the will to resist its intolerance and totalitarianism and viciousness. It is not simply the job of a few enlightened human rights leaders or politicians. The better angels of our human nature must gain the ascendancy. All of us who oppose the tactics and agendas of supremacist groups must find our voice. Or, in these days and times, risk losing it forever.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
monsignor quixote
Recently my son did a school project on Graham Greene's Monsignor Quixote. So, to keep in step with what he was up to, I read Greene's novel for the first time.
Greene has an ability few people of faith, any faith, have - and that is the ability to see the weak spots in one's faith as clearly as the strong points. He also has the ability to see the weak spots and strong points of faiths, religious or otherwise, that stand in opposition to his personal beliefs.
In Monsignor Quixote, two friends, one a Communist ex-mayor, the other a Catholic priest who has been promoted out of his parish, take to the roads of Spain to tilt at various windmills that are all around them.
Greene is equally at home pointing out issues with Communism as he is taking issue with Catholic Christianity. So the conversation from both main characters rings true as they rattle along in the small car. Though we know Greene is seen as something of a Catholic writer, and we may sense a slight tilt - often very slight - in that direction, he allows the Communist to score telling points against inconsistencies and hypocrisies in Christianity. He also takes the trouble to show some of the strengths of the Communist "faith." There is an even-handed approach here we are not used to seeing from writers of any stripe - someone usually has a one-sided axe to grind about something.
The only way Greene can do this sort of thing effectively, I maintain, is because he is able to slip into the skin of the Communist or the Catholic in his story, without pretense or guile, and be sympathetic to their point of view. In this back and forth fashion he creates his own contemporary catechism that permits himself, and his readers, to arrive at a better and deeper truth than if he had simply mounted his horse and charged single-mindedly at one opposing target. Unquestionably, he is interested in taking us closer to God and the spiritual, the denouement of the novel shows that, but he is interested in doing it in a more roundabout "give and take" sort of way that shows truth exists in more places than just the few where one might expect to find it, depending on who you are (such as during Mass or in a church setting or at a Communist Party meeting). Truth is in all sorts of places, Greene tells us in Monsignor Quixote, including some very odd locations, and God things happen in those odd places as much, or more, as they do in the expected places.
This makes the novel an excellent read for just about anybody: those asking questions, those who think they have no more questions to ask, those with doubts and struggles, those who feel complacent, those who seek and those who are sure they have stopped seeking. Greene does not write unkindly, and he certainly does not write polemically - with the exception of a kind of Christlike cleansing-the-temple polemic on occasion - so readers can feel safe in the sense they have placed themselves in the hands and imagination of someone who cares.
The novel is quickly read, and there is a movie as well, but it is the sort of novel you read and then think about. A good book for this week of Orthodox Christmas or, as we call it here in my home, Ukrainian Christmas. Or, as Greene would undoubtedly like, a good book for any time of year, not only a standard set of days delineated as godly and holy ones. For the godly and the holy, he would maintain, are to be found everywhere.
If we look and listen, Christ is obvious in what is not obvious.
Greene has an ability few people of faith, any faith, have - and that is the ability to see the weak spots in one's faith as clearly as the strong points. He also has the ability to see the weak spots and strong points of faiths, religious or otherwise, that stand in opposition to his personal beliefs.
In Monsignor Quixote, two friends, one a Communist ex-mayor, the other a Catholic priest who has been promoted out of his parish, take to the roads of Spain to tilt at various windmills that are all around them.
Greene is equally at home pointing out issues with Communism as he is taking issue with Catholic Christianity. So the conversation from both main characters rings true as they rattle along in the small car. Though we know Greene is seen as something of a Catholic writer, and we may sense a slight tilt - often very slight - in that direction, he allows the Communist to score telling points against inconsistencies and hypocrisies in Christianity. He also takes the trouble to show some of the strengths of the Communist "faith." There is an even-handed approach here we are not used to seeing from writers of any stripe - someone usually has a one-sided axe to grind about something.
The only way Greene can do this sort of thing effectively, I maintain, is because he is able to slip into the skin of the Communist or the Catholic in his story, without pretense or guile, and be sympathetic to their point of view. In this back and forth fashion he creates his own contemporary catechism that permits himself, and his readers, to arrive at a better and deeper truth than if he had simply mounted his horse and charged single-mindedly at one opposing target. Unquestionably, he is interested in taking us closer to God and the spiritual, the denouement of the novel shows that, but he is interested in doing it in a more roundabout "give and take" sort of way that shows truth exists in more places than just the few where one might expect to find it, depending on who you are (such as during Mass or in a church setting or at a Communist Party meeting). Truth is in all sorts of places, Greene tells us in Monsignor Quixote, including some very odd locations, and God things happen in those odd places as much, or more, as they do in the expected places.
This makes the novel an excellent read for just about anybody: those asking questions, those who think they have no more questions to ask, those with doubts and struggles, those who feel complacent, those who seek and those who are sure they have stopped seeking. Greene does not write unkindly, and he certainly does not write polemically - with the exception of a kind of Christlike cleansing-the-temple polemic on occasion - so readers can feel safe in the sense they have placed themselves in the hands and imagination of someone who cares.
The novel is quickly read, and there is a movie as well, but it is the sort of novel you read and then think about. A good book for this week of Orthodox Christmas or, as we call it here in my home, Ukrainian Christmas. Or, as Greene would undoubtedly like, a good book for any time of year, not only a standard set of days delineated as godly and holy ones. For the godly and the holy, he would maintain, are to be found everywhere.
If we look and listen, Christ is obvious in what is not obvious.
Friday, November 27, 2009
why I write
My thanks to a good friend, Len Hjalmarson, for the cri d'coeur he forwarded to me and which I include below. It is by the American Terry Tempest Williams, a woman who is a writer and a naturalist:
why I write
I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.
I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white.
I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue.
I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things
differently perhaps the world will change.
I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends.
I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure.
I write against power and for democracy.
I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.
I write in a solitude born out of community.
I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that make me complacent.
I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain.
I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know.
I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness.
I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy.
I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt.
I write out of my anger and into my passion.
I write from the stillness of night anticipating — always anticipating.
I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around me.
I write because I believe in words.
I write because it is a dance with paradox.
I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand.
I write because it is the way I take long walks.
I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness.
I write with a knife, carving each word from the generosity of trees.
I write as ritual.
I write out of my inconsistencies. I write with the colors of memory.
I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as witness to what I imagine.
I write by grace and grit.
I write for the love of ideas.
I write for the surprise of a sentence.
I write with the belief of alchemists.
I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short.
I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by understanding and misunderstanding.
I write past the embarrassment of exposure.
I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds — and then I realize it doesn’t matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass.
I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.
I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.
- Terry Tempest Williams
why I write
I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.
I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white.
I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue.
I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things
differently perhaps the world will change.
I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends.
I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure.
I write against power and for democracy.
I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.
I write in a solitude born out of community.
I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that make me complacent.
I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain.
I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know.
I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness.
I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy.
I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt.
I write out of my anger and into my passion.
I write from the stillness of night anticipating — always anticipating.
I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around me.
I write because I believe in words.
I write because it is a dance with paradox.
I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand.
I write because it is the way I take long walks.
I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness.
I write with a knife, carving each word from the generosity of trees.
I write as ritual.
I write out of my inconsistencies. I write with the colors of memory.
I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as witness to what I imagine.
I write by grace and grit.
I write for the love of ideas.
I write for the surprise of a sentence.
I write with the belief of alchemists.
I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short.
I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by understanding and misunderstanding.
I write past the embarrassment of exposure.
I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds — and then I realize it doesn’t matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass.
I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.
I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.
- Terry Tempest Williams
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
some words from jack kerouac
I read On The Road when I was a teen. I read it very quickly, at least as quickly as Jack wrote it (three days). What I remember is the energy and how life came across as intriguing even without the need to resort to big literary moments or plot twists. Even as a 15 or 16 year old, I savoured it page by page.
I offer you today a quote from Jack passed on to me by a friend. It's one of those quotes that you have to share with those you think it might matter to - the ones who have a lust for life, a longing to do far more than survive or exist, the ones who crackle with intensity.
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
Jack Kerouac
I offer you today a quote from Jack passed on to me by a friend. It's one of those quotes that you have to share with those you think it might matter to - the ones who have a lust for life, a longing to do far more than survive or exist, the ones who crackle with intensity.
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
Jack Kerouac
Thursday, October 29, 2009
shakespeare alive
Some of us live in places where we can see Shakespeare performed live on stage, others of us don't. Even if we do live in areas where we can see Shakespeare live it still usually means we won't see him more than once or twice a year - unless there's a Shakespearean summer festival going on or we live in Stratford-on-Avon, England (where the Royal Shakespeare Company performs). So what to do if we want to see Shakespeare acted out, the way it was meant to be seen and the way it should be seen - as opposed to simply seeing it printed on the page of a book?
The world of the dvd, fortunately, gives us many options, and if readers want to send in their favourite choices, I'll be happy to post them. In the meantime, I'm going to make a list - and check it twice - of the dvds I've seen and which I think bring Shakespeare alive. My main goal in doing this is to get persons who have been slain by Shakespeare in school to come back from the dead, like Juliet, and enjoy a world in which Shakespeare's plays add a certain depth and lustre to their lives.
I should say that some of the Shakespeare productions on dvd are done like movies - without a stage - and others are films of a stage presentation. In most cases, all of the dialogue is subtitled, enormously helpful if you are trying to get the hang of Elizabethan English. But there's nothing like the thrill of realizing you understand what's going on without using close captioning. The great benefit is you can concentrate on the faces and the acting and not the printed word. This can happen more quickly than you think for I have seen it happen with both my children, while watching a Shakespeare dvd, in no very great amount of time.
MY FIRST LIST (SECOND LIST TO FOLLOW IN ANOTHER BLOG ON ANOTHER DAY)
MY SHAKESPEARE
This is kind of a warm up piece that showcases the enduring power of Shakespeare when it's done right. It's something of a reality TV piece. A young actor returns to a poor district of London and literally plucks people off the street, including a lot of youth, holds auditions and forms a cast of non-actors and non-English majors in order to perform a modern dress version of Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). How they get there - learning to act for the first time in their lives and memorizing Shakespeare for the first time in their lives - is simply an incredible story to watch unfold. It transforms the lives of the young men and women involved in the production quite literally.
THE REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
You gotta love this. A three man team does all of Shakespeare's plays in 90 minutes and they do it with a huge dose of humour. Every play gets mentioned or touched on. Some get more air time than others, but it's a great introduction to The World of William especially for those who have never been interested in anything to do with Shakespeare before. Hilarious.
HAMLET
*Hamlet with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close - gorgeous sets and excellent acting, a crisp pace that never allows the great play to flag - directed by Franco Zeffirelli
*Hamlet with Kenneth Branagh as actor and director - a longer version but utterly superb - perhaps start with Zeffirelli's take and return later to Branagh's
ROMEO & JULIET
*Romeo and Juliet directed by Franco Zeffirelli - beautiful sets and cinematography, as per usual with Zeffirelli - the best historical version of the play
*Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann - a superb modern dress gangsta version of the play - all the Elizabethan script is there but the setting is urban 21st century and the colours are uber vivid
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
*Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's comedy about how friends conspire to make two enemies, a man and a woman, fall in love - Kenneth Branagh acts and directs - Denzel Washington is in on this one and so is Keanu Reeves - excellent
HENRY V
*Henry V, the Battle of Agincourt, Kenneth Branagh once more doing a magnificent job acting and directing - simply one of the greatest performances of ANYTHING - how's this for a cast? Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Ian Holm, Christian Bale - unbelievable
MACBETH
*Macbeth, the dark and powerful tragedy - the only dvd worth getting is done in a Braveheart and Rob Roy style, where the Scots actually look like medieval Scots - the version you want has Sean Connery's son Jason in the lead role doing an excellent job - it was the winner of the Silver Screen Award at the 30th US International Film Festival (1997) - forget Polanski's blood bath - this is the one to watch until Kenneth Branagh gives us a version - or Sir Ian McKellen
KING LEAR
*King Lear set in medieval Japan and directed by Akira Kurosawa - entitled RAN - totally absorbing
This is enough to start with, especially if you're trying to seriously cuddle up with William for the first time. Best of luck and I hope you find some joy and entertainment - and truth.
The world of the dvd, fortunately, gives us many options, and if readers want to send in their favourite choices, I'll be happy to post them. In the meantime, I'm going to make a list - and check it twice - of the dvds I've seen and which I think bring Shakespeare alive. My main goal in doing this is to get persons who have been slain by Shakespeare in school to come back from the dead, like Juliet, and enjoy a world in which Shakespeare's plays add a certain depth and lustre to their lives.
I should say that some of the Shakespeare productions on dvd are done like movies - without a stage - and others are films of a stage presentation. In most cases, all of the dialogue is subtitled, enormously helpful if you are trying to get the hang of Elizabethan English. But there's nothing like the thrill of realizing you understand what's going on without using close captioning. The great benefit is you can concentrate on the faces and the acting and not the printed word. This can happen more quickly than you think for I have seen it happen with both my children, while watching a Shakespeare dvd, in no very great amount of time.
MY FIRST LIST (SECOND LIST TO FOLLOW IN ANOTHER BLOG ON ANOTHER DAY)
MY SHAKESPEARE
This is kind of a warm up piece that showcases the enduring power of Shakespeare when it's done right. It's something of a reality TV piece. A young actor returns to a poor district of London and literally plucks people off the street, including a lot of youth, holds auditions and forms a cast of non-actors and non-English majors in order to perform a modern dress version of Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). How they get there - learning to act for the first time in their lives and memorizing Shakespeare for the first time in their lives - is simply an incredible story to watch unfold. It transforms the lives of the young men and women involved in the production quite literally.
THE REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
You gotta love this. A three man team does all of Shakespeare's plays in 90 minutes and they do it with a huge dose of humour. Every play gets mentioned or touched on. Some get more air time than others, but it's a great introduction to The World of William especially for those who have never been interested in anything to do with Shakespeare before. Hilarious.
HAMLET
*Hamlet with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close - gorgeous sets and excellent acting, a crisp pace that never allows the great play to flag - directed by Franco Zeffirelli
*Hamlet with Kenneth Branagh as actor and director - a longer version but utterly superb - perhaps start with Zeffirelli's take and return later to Branagh's
ROMEO & JULIET
*Romeo and Juliet directed by Franco Zeffirelli - beautiful sets and cinematography, as per usual with Zeffirelli - the best historical version of the play
*Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann - a superb modern dress gangsta version of the play - all the Elizabethan script is there but the setting is urban 21st century and the colours are uber vivid
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
*Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's comedy about how friends conspire to make two enemies, a man and a woman, fall in love - Kenneth Branagh acts and directs - Denzel Washington is in on this one and so is Keanu Reeves - excellent
HENRY V
*Henry V, the Battle of Agincourt, Kenneth Branagh once more doing a magnificent job acting and directing - simply one of the greatest performances of ANYTHING - how's this for a cast? Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Ian Holm, Christian Bale - unbelievable
MACBETH
*Macbeth, the dark and powerful tragedy - the only dvd worth getting is done in a Braveheart and Rob Roy style, where the Scots actually look like medieval Scots - the version you want has Sean Connery's son Jason in the lead role doing an excellent job - it was the winner of the Silver Screen Award at the 30th US International Film Festival (1997) - forget Polanski's blood bath - this is the one to watch until Kenneth Branagh gives us a version - or Sir Ian McKellen
KING LEAR
*King Lear set in medieval Japan and directed by Akira Kurosawa - entitled RAN - totally absorbing
This is enough to start with, especially if you're trying to seriously cuddle up with William for the first time. Best of luck and I hope you find some joy and entertainment - and truth.
killing shakespeare
Imagine going to the cinema, getting your ticket, buying some popcorn and a Coke, then being given a big thick spiral-bound notebook as you go to take your seat. All around you people are munching and guzzling and reading from the notebook. There's some music being filtered into the theatre that's supposed to go along with what you're reading and there you sit, reading voraciously like everyone else. And what are you reading? Why, the movie script, of course. Why else would you go to the movies?
Katie: Did you know her? I mean, was she a friend or what?
Bob: I don't know how to answer that.
[music thread begins]
[cut to memory shot - Bob with Alice in Warsaw just after the Second World War]
Alice: So now that the war is over, what are we to each other? Who are you to me?
[close-up of Bob's younger but war-torn face]
Bob: I don't know how to answer that.
[cut to plane droning overhead]
[cut to Alice staring at Bob]
[cut to Katie staring at Bob]
[cut to Bob staring at a boy on a tricycle in Warsaw]
After reading the movie you take the script home with you and add it to your collection of movie scripts. Then you turn on the TV to watch CSI:Miami. It consists of a script being scrolled up from the bottom of the screen (in colour).
Suspect: I didn't do it, I wasn't there.
Horatio: Are you sure about that?
Suspect: Of course, I'm sure. I know where I was the night Johnson got his head caved in by a Mercury speedboat motor.
[cut to close-up of Horatio Gates tilting his upper body and head and almost hissing at the suspect]
Horatio: Who told you it was a Mercury? That information hasn't been made public.
Suspect: [shrugging and stuttering] Just guessing . . . I guess . . .
[cut to Horatio pulling off his sunglasses]
Horatio: Well, Mr. Hendricks, we'll see how your DNA matches up with the saliva we pulled off the motorboat's propeller . . .
Suspect: Ok, Ok, yeah, I was there, but only for a minute . . .
[cut to screeching tires, a gunshot, and a woman screaming]
And so it goes till you've watched another great episode of CSI. What could be more fun than exercising your imagination in this way?
If we did movies and TV like this, just reading the scripts, no actors, no FX, no sets, no action, no nothing . . . well, you can guess how unpopular TV and movies would suddenly become. We watch movies and TV dramas because we want to see a show, a performance, we want to be entertained and even enlightened, we want some excellence, some great shots, some great acting.
So why do we kill Shakespeare for people by doing it the wrong way?
Why do we give them movie scripts to read and wonder why they don't get excited?
The scripts are for the actors and the sound crews and the lighting and the stunt team so that they can put on a show that we sit back and watch. The scripts are not for us. We want the finished product, we want the performance, we want the whole gleaming structure - not the scaffolding and the cranes and the blueprints.
Shakespeare's plays are the movies of Elizabethan England. You enjoy them by watching them. Not reading them.
That's where English Lit courses have always gotten it wrong. For centuries. And that's why too many people hate Shakespeare. Go read a movie script sometime and see if it holds your attention, especially if you don't have a part in the film. BORRRRRRING!
The only reason I can see for reading Shakespeare is in preparation for watching a performance of Shakespeare. That's it. As prep for a show so that you can understand the language and the plot better (after all, it is Elizabethan English, and that was 400 years ago). Otherwise, unless you're an actor or director or you're reading the sonnets, leave the scripts alone.
Can you imagine taking a course on film in high school or university and never watching a film, just reading the scripts? Absurd. So why do we approach Shakespeare as if we're reading a novel or a short story or a poem? We're not reading novels or short fiction or poetry - we've come to watch a play being performed. Studying Shakespeare - or any playwright and their plays for that matter - should be about watching the plays being staged.
In case you think it won't work, my son watched a series of Shakespeare dvds when he was 15. He did not sit and read the scripts, he watched the plays being performed on film, ones like Hamlet and King Lear and As You Like It. Sometimes we used subtitles and sometimes we didn't. To my surprise, in no time at all, he developed an ear for the language, understood what was going on, laughed at the jokes without prompting, and got into both traditional and modern dress Shakespeare. He got into Shakespeare in the same way we get into Clint Eastwood or Francis Ford Coppola - by watching it. Which, incidentally, was the same way the men and women and children of England got into it way back when. It's still the best way and beats reading movie scripts by a hundred to one.
If you were turned off of Shakespeare in school, try the performance approach. Trust me, the difference between printed page and powerful performance will astonish you.
[Thanks to Ron Reed, founding Artistic Director of Pacific Theatre in Vancouver, BC, Canada, for the germ of the idea for this blog.]
Katie: Did you know her? I mean, was she a friend or what?
Bob: I don't know how to answer that.
[music thread begins]
[cut to memory shot - Bob with Alice in Warsaw just after the Second World War]
Alice: So now that the war is over, what are we to each other? Who are you to me?
[close-up of Bob's younger but war-torn face]
Bob: I don't know how to answer that.
[cut to plane droning overhead]
[cut to Alice staring at Bob]
[cut to Katie staring at Bob]
[cut to Bob staring at a boy on a tricycle in Warsaw]
After reading the movie you take the script home with you and add it to your collection of movie scripts. Then you turn on the TV to watch CSI:Miami. It consists of a script being scrolled up from the bottom of the screen (in colour).
Suspect: I didn't do it, I wasn't there.
Horatio: Are you sure about that?
Suspect: Of course, I'm sure. I know where I was the night Johnson got his head caved in by a Mercury speedboat motor.
[cut to close-up of Horatio Gates tilting his upper body and head and almost hissing at the suspect]
Horatio: Who told you it was a Mercury? That information hasn't been made public.
Suspect: [shrugging and stuttering] Just guessing . . . I guess . . .
[cut to Horatio pulling off his sunglasses]
Horatio: Well, Mr. Hendricks, we'll see how your DNA matches up with the saliva we pulled off the motorboat's propeller . . .
Suspect: Ok, Ok, yeah, I was there, but only for a minute . . .
[cut to screeching tires, a gunshot, and a woman screaming]
And so it goes till you've watched another great episode of CSI. What could be more fun than exercising your imagination in this way?
If we did movies and TV like this, just reading the scripts, no actors, no FX, no sets, no action, no nothing . . . well, you can guess how unpopular TV and movies would suddenly become. We watch movies and TV dramas because we want to see a show, a performance, we want to be entertained and even enlightened, we want some excellence, some great shots, some great acting.
So why do we kill Shakespeare for people by doing it the wrong way?
Why do we give them movie scripts to read and wonder why they don't get excited?
The scripts are for the actors and the sound crews and the lighting and the stunt team so that they can put on a show that we sit back and watch. The scripts are not for us. We want the finished product, we want the performance, we want the whole gleaming structure - not the scaffolding and the cranes and the blueprints.
Shakespeare's plays are the movies of Elizabethan England. You enjoy them by watching them. Not reading them.
That's where English Lit courses have always gotten it wrong. For centuries. And that's why too many people hate Shakespeare. Go read a movie script sometime and see if it holds your attention, especially if you don't have a part in the film. BORRRRRRING!
The only reason I can see for reading Shakespeare is in preparation for watching a performance of Shakespeare. That's it. As prep for a show so that you can understand the language and the plot better (after all, it is Elizabethan English, and that was 400 years ago). Otherwise, unless you're an actor or director or you're reading the sonnets, leave the scripts alone.
Can you imagine taking a course on film in high school or university and never watching a film, just reading the scripts? Absurd. So why do we approach Shakespeare as if we're reading a novel or a short story or a poem? We're not reading novels or short fiction or poetry - we've come to watch a play being performed. Studying Shakespeare - or any playwright and their plays for that matter - should be about watching the plays being staged.
In case you think it won't work, my son watched a series of Shakespeare dvds when he was 15. He did not sit and read the scripts, he watched the plays being performed on film, ones like Hamlet and King Lear and As You Like It. Sometimes we used subtitles and sometimes we didn't. To my surprise, in no time at all, he developed an ear for the language, understood what was going on, laughed at the jokes without prompting, and got into both traditional and modern dress Shakespeare. He got into Shakespeare in the same way we get into Clint Eastwood or Francis Ford Coppola - by watching it. Which, incidentally, was the same way the men and women and children of England got into it way back when. It's still the best way and beats reading movie scripts by a hundred to one.
If you were turned off of Shakespeare in school, try the performance approach. Trust me, the difference between printed page and powerful performance will astonish you.
[Thanks to Ron Reed, founding Artistic Director of Pacific Theatre in Vancouver, BC, Canada, for the germ of the idea for this blog.]
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
far from the madding crowd
Hardy finally gave up, you know. His novels were so heavily criticized, so many different groups and individuals weighing in for one reason or another, that he threw in the towel and retreated into his poetry. And he wrote some good poems. One of my favourites is about the legend of the animals in the barns and stables going to their knees at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve. It is written in a wistful, plaintive tone, the poetry of a man who lost his faith along the way but who never really wanted to lose it and never found anything better to replace it.
But to return to the novels. The works of Thomas Hardy used to be a staple of high school English literature courses. Why they are not anymore is an issue for another blog: they are readable, highly dramatic and often keep the interest of a good number of teenage readers. If people have read anything by Hardy it will probably be Tess of the D'Urbervilles, commonly referred to as Tess. Or maybe they haven't read it, but recall the title because they saw a film version of it (the ill-starred Roman Polanski's being the best).
Hardy's novels can be grim fare. No one is spared the jarring, jagged blows of life. The novels are Shakespearean tragedies. The stage is littered with dead bodies or dead souls at the denouement. Yet this is too easy to say, true as it is. There are glimmers of redemption in many of his novels' final pages, far more glints of hope than William affords us at endings of Othello, King Lear or Hamlet. Without spoiling you with spoilers I shall mention a few (for I have no idea who has been reading Hardy these days of the Yorkshire moors when even the people who gave us Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Hopkins and Eliot and Tolkien have lost their literature and lost their fiction and so lost their way).
I might as well start with Tess. A tale that still haunts and hurts when I re-read it and re-live it. What horrific loss in the book, loss of all kinds, and the loss is relentless right up to the final paragraphs. Yet, there, just there, a shaft of light, a bright promise of new life, surprising, but there it is. (Read it for yourself - but please start at the beginning of the novel, not at the end, so that the proper impact may be most properly felt.)
Then there's The Return of the Native - I remember my older brother reading this in high school in the 1960s and all the mysterious books of those long lost days - including Pride and Prejudice and The Sun Also Rises - stirred a hope that I would one day get to open these intriguing volumes. (Alas, I was not to open them in high school literature courses, for by the 1970s they had vanished from the curriculum.)
Native has its share of tragedies and loss, just like Tess, and just like Tess the curtain closes not simply on bodies and broken lives but great promise and great hope, even a fledgling faith in a better world and a better God. The difference with the feel-good endings of the formula fiction of today is that the characters of Hardy's novels and the readers of those characters' pen and paper lives pay a price to get to the crack of sunlight and it's never a given. Tess and Native have those crinkles of the luminous, however brief, but Hardy's novel of Oxford the Cruel, Jude the Obscure, has none of it. Jude is, like all Hardy's novels and poems, beautifully written, but painful, oh so painful in its beauty. No dreaming spires here except ones that impale you.
But when Hardy does bring you into the light of a decent day, blinking furiously to take in the colours and sudden blessings, you know very well there has been no formula or fluff, you have lived and suffered real life just like your own real life and others' real lives. You have been somewhere in your imagination that matters and that can change your soul. I have yet to read a Hardy novel that does not turn me inside out and offer a form of catharsis or transformation, and that for the better, even though the pain may be razor sharp - not unlike the way in which the grace of God comes to us in the stone cold dark and cuts both dead and living flesh and dead and living spirit.
Yet, I confess here and now - for all blogging seems to me to be something of a confessional for all who strike the keys - that I have not read all Hardy's novels. But soft, before you howl foul, I am pretty sure my reading of the ones I've missed along the cobblestone years will bear me out, for Hardy is Hardy, yet I will submit to this - after I've read my missing links, I will return to blog about any theory of his art I must alter or any fresh insight I have threshed from the fields of Wessex (or that have threshed me). Surely that's fair.
And I will begin with Far From the Madding Crowd, a title that has always intrigued me. Following that I will delve into The Mayor of Casterbridge. Then I'll work my way through the others: Desperate Remedies, A Pair of Blue Eyes, The Woodlanders, Under the Greenwood Tree . . . and on and on until I find myself at his own end with his wonderful poems. Let us see if what I have written here holds up - a great adventure it will be to find out.
And if you haven't read any or much of Hardy, why not join me this autumn and see what you come across in his dark and leafy wood, infrequently ignited by vertical light so pure you can only shut your eyes and wish its illumination may be so, may truly be so.
But to return to the novels. The works of Thomas Hardy used to be a staple of high school English literature courses. Why they are not anymore is an issue for another blog: they are readable, highly dramatic and often keep the interest of a good number of teenage readers. If people have read anything by Hardy it will probably be Tess of the D'Urbervilles, commonly referred to as Tess. Or maybe they haven't read it, but recall the title because they saw a film version of it (the ill-starred Roman Polanski's being the best).
Hardy's novels can be grim fare. No one is spared the jarring, jagged blows of life. The novels are Shakespearean tragedies. The stage is littered with dead bodies or dead souls at the denouement. Yet this is too easy to say, true as it is. There are glimmers of redemption in many of his novels' final pages, far more glints of hope than William affords us at endings of Othello, King Lear or Hamlet. Without spoiling you with spoilers I shall mention a few (for I have no idea who has been reading Hardy these days of the Yorkshire moors when even the people who gave us Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Hopkins and Eliot and Tolkien have lost their literature and lost their fiction and so lost their way).
I might as well start with Tess. A tale that still haunts and hurts when I re-read it and re-live it. What horrific loss in the book, loss of all kinds, and the loss is relentless right up to the final paragraphs. Yet, there, just there, a shaft of light, a bright promise of new life, surprising, but there it is. (Read it for yourself - but please start at the beginning of the novel, not at the end, so that the proper impact may be most properly felt.)
Then there's The Return of the Native - I remember my older brother reading this in high school in the 1960s and all the mysterious books of those long lost days - including Pride and Prejudice and The Sun Also Rises - stirred a hope that I would one day get to open these intriguing volumes. (Alas, I was not to open them in high school literature courses, for by the 1970s they had vanished from the curriculum.)
Native has its share of tragedies and loss, just like Tess, and just like Tess the curtain closes not simply on bodies and broken lives but great promise and great hope, even a fledgling faith in a better world and a better God. The difference with the feel-good endings of the formula fiction of today is that the characters of Hardy's novels and the readers of those characters' pen and paper lives pay a price to get to the crack of sunlight and it's never a given. Tess and Native have those crinkles of the luminous, however brief, but Hardy's novel of Oxford the Cruel, Jude the Obscure, has none of it. Jude is, like all Hardy's novels and poems, beautifully written, but painful, oh so painful in its beauty. No dreaming spires here except ones that impale you.
But when Hardy does bring you into the light of a decent day, blinking furiously to take in the colours and sudden blessings, you know very well there has been no formula or fluff, you have lived and suffered real life just like your own real life and others' real lives. You have been somewhere in your imagination that matters and that can change your soul. I have yet to read a Hardy novel that does not turn me inside out and offer a form of catharsis or transformation, and that for the better, even though the pain may be razor sharp - not unlike the way in which the grace of God comes to us in the stone cold dark and cuts both dead and living flesh and dead and living spirit.
Yet, I confess here and now - for all blogging seems to me to be something of a confessional for all who strike the keys - that I have not read all Hardy's novels. But soft, before you howl foul, I am pretty sure my reading of the ones I've missed along the cobblestone years will bear me out, for Hardy is Hardy, yet I will submit to this - after I've read my missing links, I will return to blog about any theory of his art I must alter or any fresh insight I have threshed from the fields of Wessex (or that have threshed me). Surely that's fair.
And I will begin with Far From the Madding Crowd, a title that has always intrigued me. Following that I will delve into The Mayor of Casterbridge. Then I'll work my way through the others: Desperate Remedies, A Pair of Blue Eyes, The Woodlanders, Under the Greenwood Tree . . . and on and on until I find myself at his own end with his wonderful poems. Let us see if what I have written here holds up - a great adventure it will be to find out.
And if you haven't read any or much of Hardy, why not join me this autumn and see what you come across in his dark and leafy wood, infrequently ignited by vertical light so pure you can only shut your eyes and wish its illumination may be so, may truly be so.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
special poets: jane kenyon
Ms. Kenyon is a poet I discovered only recently, perhaps two weeks ago. One of her poems was included in a book comprised of readings for Lent and Easter. I am now tracking down her books of poetry. There is a collection of all her poems but the cover is awful, a still life that looks like an artificial dead life, and her books have a Frostean feel and a Wyethean feel (whose art should have graced the cover) and I simply won't have that book cover covering her poems in my house. (So there.) The covers I've seen on the separate editions have a much better feel about them: houses and trees and windows and beached boats.
But of course, I'm judging the cover and not the book of poems. I have just begun my sojourn with Kenyon's writing but the poems I have read tend to shortness, much said in little, ordinary things lifting us into the extraordinary - they have the kind of punch and precise beauty that keep a reader turning pages in the hunt for yet another brief cluster of letters and syllables that crack open the profound like a man cracks open an egg to mix in a drink or cook for a meal.
Yes, I've just begun so I don't know what I'll find. Just as no one told me about the Jesus Poems that Dylan Thomas wrote, which showed me that while he may have struggled with churchianity he had a deep love for Jesus, I don't know what I may find in her writings that deals with the metaphysical and angels and God and life and death. She doesn't have to write about those things in order for me to enjoy her poetry. But since that first poem of hers I read did talk about those things in a few dozen words, well, I expect I will find more thoughts on these matters as I delve into her volumes of paper and ink and soul.
I liked that first poem so much I included it in a final revision of a book for Harper Collins/Zondervan I was working on during Easter. I leave you with it and hope you will explore her poetry along with me. The poet laureate of New Hampshire, her physical presence left us in 1995.
Looking at Stars
The God of curved space, the dry
God, is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood spattered
the hem of his mother's robe.
But of course, I'm judging the cover and not the book of poems. I have just begun my sojourn with Kenyon's writing but the poems I have read tend to shortness, much said in little, ordinary things lifting us into the extraordinary - they have the kind of punch and precise beauty that keep a reader turning pages in the hunt for yet another brief cluster of letters and syllables that crack open the profound like a man cracks open an egg to mix in a drink or cook for a meal.
Yes, I've just begun so I don't know what I'll find. Just as no one told me about the Jesus Poems that Dylan Thomas wrote, which showed me that while he may have struggled with churchianity he had a deep love for Jesus, I don't know what I may find in her writings that deals with the metaphysical and angels and God and life and death. She doesn't have to write about those things in order for me to enjoy her poetry. But since that first poem of hers I read did talk about those things in a few dozen words, well, I expect I will find more thoughts on these matters as I delve into her volumes of paper and ink and soul.
I liked that first poem so much I included it in a final revision of a book for Harper Collins/Zondervan I was working on during Easter. I leave you with it and hope you will explore her poetry along with me. The poet laureate of New Hampshire, her physical presence left us in 1995.
Looking at Stars
The God of curved space, the dry
God, is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood spattered
the hem of his mother's robe.
significant writers: richard llewellyn
The Welsh have given us many wonderful things: the Welsh revivals (there have been several), hymns before football matches (soccer in Canada & the US), coal miners that sing well, Richard Burton, Dylan Thomas . . . and the novel How Green Was My Valley ought to be added to my truncated and certainly non-exhaustive list.
The book is so lyrical it's almost a poem from beginning to end. Wonderful metaphors and similes pull the reader's imagination in. It is the colour of the fiery green Welsh grass, the deep black Welsh coal, the pigeon grey Welsh winter sky. It is the colour of people and of language and of family happiness and family anguish.
At one time I believe the book was better known. Now, unless it pops up on a course in UK lit, I believe it's largely forgotten. But if Dylan Thomas had written a novel, it might have had this book's fluidity and imagery and phrasing if not exactly the same themes or immediate clarity.
Yes, I mentioned that family was in it – so is growing up, so is love and school and first kisses, so are hatreds and strikes and violence. And God. God has to be around somewhere if we're talking about the Welsh and God's there all right, often treated with worship and reverence, but often as not challenged in anger.
I like book covers and I like good ones enough not to purchase certain editions if I think the publisher's front cover people had a very bad day. Penguin usually does well at this sort of thing and they have a nice paperback of Llewellyn's novel with a green, hilly, meadowy Welsh scene on the front - at least, it looks like the Wales I've enjoyed on two separate trips. (And I've yet to see it rain in Wales though the flaming green tells me it does.) If you haven't got a copy of the book and want one you might try looking that edition up on Amazon or in a brick and mortar store. It's a very nice copy to read and have hanging around your house on tables and couches and kitchen counters or by the bed.
Richard has written other books you might want to look into. He wrote a sequel to this called Green, Green My Valley Now. And his second book (How Green being his first) may be the one you've heard mentioned in certain company – None But the Lonely Heart.
He passed beyond us in 1983.
The book is so lyrical it's almost a poem from beginning to end. Wonderful metaphors and similes pull the reader's imagination in. It is the colour of the fiery green Welsh grass, the deep black Welsh coal, the pigeon grey Welsh winter sky. It is the colour of people and of language and of family happiness and family anguish.
At one time I believe the book was better known. Now, unless it pops up on a course in UK lit, I believe it's largely forgotten. But if Dylan Thomas had written a novel, it might have had this book's fluidity and imagery and phrasing if not exactly the same themes or immediate clarity.
Yes, I mentioned that family was in it – so is growing up, so is love and school and first kisses, so are hatreds and strikes and violence. And God. God has to be around somewhere if we're talking about the Welsh and God's there all right, often treated with worship and reverence, but often as not challenged in anger.
I like book covers and I like good ones enough not to purchase certain editions if I think the publisher's front cover people had a very bad day. Penguin usually does well at this sort of thing and they have a nice paperback of Llewellyn's novel with a green, hilly, meadowy Welsh scene on the front - at least, it looks like the Wales I've enjoyed on two separate trips. (And I've yet to see it rain in Wales though the flaming green tells me it does.) If you haven't got a copy of the book and want one you might try looking that edition up on Amazon or in a brick and mortar store. It's a very nice copy to read and have hanging around your house on tables and couches and kitchen counters or by the bed.
Richard has written other books you might want to look into. He wrote a sequel to this called Green, Green My Valley Now. And his second book (How Green being his first) may be the one you've heard mentioned in certain company – None But the Lonely Heart.
He passed beyond us in 1983.
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