Today's The Big Day!

Today is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.  Martin Luther nailed up those documents on October 31, 1517.

I'm a big Luther fan and a big Reformation fan. I totally believe that we humans need to be constantly evaluating and reforming ourselves.

The main issue with Luther and his 95 theses was the church getting off the track, mainly by getting greedy.  The church was selling indulgences.  This means that you could buy your way into heaven.  I love what my minister said about this on Sunday.

Buying an indulgence was your "Get out of Hell free card."

But this is now and that was 500 years ago so what's the point?

Every local church, every denomination, and every institution in the world is constantly in danger of falling into the "greed trap."  I'm grateful we have folks around who call us into question.


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GRATEFUL

For the last four Sundays the four ministers at my church have preached four very different sermons based on the four stanzas of the hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.  Our magnificent choir sang a different version of this hymn each of the four weeks.  The overall theme was:  GRATEFUL.

Which, by the way, is not only a spiritually sound concept but is psychologically sound, and an excellent tool to keep us from going crazy in these weird times.

Come thy fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, 
  never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise...

I love the symmetry of all this, what with my OCD leanings.  It's been like solving a big puzzle, trying to understand how it all fits together.

The first sermon was on coming out of the desert.  That is whatever desert you or I might currently be in.  Like worrying about finances, or kids, or if North Korea might drop a bomb in my back yard tonight.  So let's picture a fountain bubbling up out of the desert - and go with it.   

The second sermon was on getting rid of so many crazy things we count on that we know won't work and just going with our belief in God as the ultimate source.

...he to rescue me from danger...

The third sermon was about sheep.  And how they (we) wonder off from time to time.

...prone to wonder, Lord I feel it...

The fourth (and I suppose final, but don't know for sure) sermon this morning was again a reminder of the massive number of blessings God pours down on us.

...here's my heart, o take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above...


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Mindhunter

As of last night Dave and I have watched all ten episodes of the first season of Mindhunter on Netflix.  If you want a fast paced, exciting "find the killer and bring him or her to justice" kind of show, this is not it.

This is a very, very slow paced "think piece" about how, in the 1970s, the FBI began to do profiling in order to understand why and how people do unthinkable things to each other.

And when we hear some of these people share their stories it's really no wonder they've turned to what we call deviant behavior.   Mindhunter is essentially about crime solving with academics.  But the eventual goal is crime prevention.  Beware!  It's dark.  Both in content and visually.  (We can hardly see it.)  Much of it is interviews with serial killers.  Not for the squeamish.

Just by coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing, I have just finished re-reading the # 1 bestselling "Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris.  I read it the first time when it came out in 1988, and then saw the film which won the Big Five Academy Awards in 1991 for best film, producer, director, screenwriter and actor.

"Silence of the Lambs" is fiction.  But it also explores why people do evil things to other people.  FBI rookie Clarice Starling gets inside Buffalo Bill's head.  She also has great respect for Dr. Lector's intellect and rules of conduct.

I don't think he'd ever bushwhack me - it's rude, and he wouldn't get to ask any questions that way.  Sure he'd do it as soon as I bored him.

So if you, like me, must wait for season two of Mindhunter, I suggest you re-read "Silence of the Lambs."  It's full of brilliant minds, evil and good.  And this time around I was way more aware of the strong, smart, good women, especially Clarice and Catherine Martin.


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A Good Man Is Hard to Find

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."  - Most quoted line from A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Written in 1953,  this short story is probably Flannery O'Connor's most popular and controversial.  It's also funny and grotesque.  If you read it in college you probably either loved it or hated it.

But did you understand it?

I recently reread it after 50 or so years.  This time I loved every word.   Did I understand it?  Not sure.  But I got some great insights.

First, the main character, Grandma, is a piece of work.  I'm a grandma but I sincerely hope that's all we have in common.  But is it?  Unlike "Grandma," the story has caused me to continue to self-evaluate before before somebody puts a gun to my head.

It's a simple tale of a family; mom, dad, the kids and grandma, taking a little trip.  They end up being at the mercy of three killers, who, under the direction of The Misfit, murder them one by one.

The whole family is unlikeable but grandma is the worst.  However, she, of course, sees herself as the best.

Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet.  In case of an accident anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

Grandma thinks appearances are everything.  It's important that you conduct yourself as if you come from the right kind of people.  Grandma loved the old days in Tennessee where people knew their place.

The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things are now.

I know that every word in this story is thick with meaning.  I'm sure the names of all the characters have significance.  The little boy is "John Wesley."  The cat, who causes the accident that eventually gets them all shot is "Pitty Sing."

Toward the end of the story, after all the other family members have been murdered, Grandma tries to talk her way out of her predicament.  She tries to bargain with The Misfit by telling him he is a "Good Man."  But then, gradually, the theology gets real, on both sides.  They discuss whether or not Jesus really raised the dead.  The Misfit says:

...if he didn't then it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can - by killing somebody or burning down his house...

In the end, Grandma and The Misfit both explore the concept of God's grace.  Grandma even sees how she and The Misfit have that in common.  Just before he shoots her in the head she says:

Why you're one of my babies.  You're one of my own children.

EPILOGUE

A couple of weeks ago Stephen Colbert had guest Conan O'Brien on The Late Show.  What do we know about Colbert and O'Brien besides being wealthy, crazy talented entertainers?  They're both crazy smart intellectuals.  And, Colbert is a devout Christian.  Flannery O'Connor's name came up in the conversation.  They both said she was one of their favorite writers.  And what O'Connor story did they agree was her best?

A Good Man is Hard to Find.


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The Senator

The Senator, 1930

This is the story of a beloved tree in Longwood, Florida.  The Senator was the oldest, biggest bald cypress in the world.  It was believed to be about 3,500 years old.  It was here before my ancestors or your ancestors, unless you are Native American.

The Seminole Indians used it as a landmark.  After civilization came to Florida, folks from everywhere came to see The Senator.

Winter Park Art Show art made from The General

And then, in 2012, a woman hopped over the fence you see in this photo from 1930, and crawled inside a hallow part of the base of the tree in order to hide while she smoked crystal meth.

In doing so she burned down The General.  If you lived in Florida at the time you are aware of what a tragedy it was.

This morning we went to the fall art show in Winter Park.  We didn't mean to.  We always go to Park Avenue on Saturday morning so we were just pleasantly surprised to see the park covered with white booths filled with art.  What a treat.

One of the booths surprised me by being filled exclusively with art sculptured from The General.  The artist told me that the state contacted artists about doing something creative with what little was left of the tree.  So there were the beautifully carved objects.  Somehow I found this healing.




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Our Souls at Night

I love stories about old people falling in love.  It happens more than you think.  In church, in assisted living, on vacation, in the hospital.  In other words, wherever older folks hang out.  And you'd think that it would be so easy at this time in our lives.  It's anything but!

Last week I read the award winning book by Kent Haruf, "Our Souls at Night."  I loved it.

Last night we saw the film on Netflix.  I liked it but, for me, the ending was very different from the book.

It's a simple story.  Addie, a widow in a little town in Colorado walks to her widowed neighbor Louis's house to offer him a proposition.  Would he like to come over some nights and sleep with her.

It's not about sex and it never will get to be about sex.  This is the part younger people don't understand.  The proposition is about loneliness .  It leads to love.

Later, Addie's troubled son, Gene, drops his seven year old son on Addie's doorstep.  Gene has no use for Louis. Addie and Louis both love the little boy.  But toward the end Gene makes Addie choose between her grandson and Louis.

Eventually, she falls and breaks her hip.  Gene has her taken by ambulance from the little town and the house she's lived in for 48 years and put in an assisted living facility in Denver.

The film and book are slow moving (like the couple) and filled with symbolism.  Addie looks at her close friend, ten years her senior, and  sees herself.  In a heartbreaking scene at the end, Louis stands at his kitchen sink, washing one fork, one cup and one plate.

The film ends a bit differently than the book.  Gene is clearly furious with his mother Addie for the trauma he suffered as a child.  She is guilted into leaving Louis and devoting all of her limited energy to her son and grandson.

How realistic is this story line?  I think it happens often in real life.  How many people do you know in their 70s and 80s who are still cleaning up their kid's messes - including raising grandchildren?  How many grown children do you know who are completely disgusted with the concept of their parent having a love life?  Why do they feel that way?

On a lighter note, as I was reading the book I was having trouble picturing Addie and Louis as this doddering old couple when I knew they were being played in the film by ever sexy Jane Fonda and Robert Redford.  But I was happily surprised to see them last night.  They were softened up and looked reasonably old and doddering.  I thought Jane looked much softer as Addie in her frizzy white hair and old lady clothes.  Redford, on the other hand still had his disturbing (for an 81 year old) red hair and eyebrows.


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Our Bodies Ourselves

In 1969 a small group of women in Boston got together to talk and write about, among other things, women's bodies.  In 1971, mostly by word of mouth, 250,000 copies of this original version of  "Our Bodies Ourselves" were sold and helped start the women's movement.

It was extremely controversial.  Jerry Falwell called it "obscene trash."

 Hard to believe, but prior to that time there was very little information available to the average woman about our physical selves.  Then along comes this (eventually) almost 1,000 page book that lays it all out there - in detail.  With pictures.

Also known as The Boston Women's Health Book, it has provided clear, unbiased information about women's health for over 40 years.  It seemed subversive  early on - mainly because, at the time, it was.

My son speaks on many college campuses throughout the year.  This past week I was fortunate enough to be invited to go with him to Wabash College in Indiana.  It's a small, old, elite all men's college located in the tiny town of Crawfordsville.  My husband, Ken, was a graduate.  I had a moving trip down memory lane for which I will be forever grateful.  We were treated like royalty.

On the first day we toured the little bookstore which is mostly a souvenir shop.  However I found a few books in the corner that had been marked down to one dollar.  Among them was a copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves."  OK, what's up with this small, all men's college even having this book?  Why is it on sale for a dollar?  Yes, I bought it, thinking that I would reminisce and leave it when I left as I often do with books I buy on the road.

We were housed in a lovely old home that was the original president's residence.  It's furnished in the era in which it was built.  Elegant.  I lugged this book, along with a couple of others all the way back across campus and up a flight of stairs.

Over the next couple of days I read through it.  It turns out the last revision was in 2011 so I saw parts I'd never read.  And I had totally forgotten how explicit the book was.  After all, it's about women's body parts - and feelings - with photos.

When we were packing I wondered about leaving the book in the room.  But, realizing where I was and its contents, that would not do.  I went downstairs to the home's library.  All the books were about old Wabash, a 200 year old all male college.  Nothing about the women's movement.

So, with a lot of reorganization, I jammed it into my little suitcase.  When my son hefted the bag into the plane's overhead  compartment he must have been thinking about how much heavier it was than when we started the trip.

Three pounds heavier to be exact.


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Columbus - The Movie

Is architecture healing?

Yesterday we went to our little gem of a theater, the Enzian, to see the film, "Columbus."  Being in this cozy theater, whether sitting at tables or, in our case, on a couch, is always fun - and calming.  This starts as soon as you drive into the wooded lot, park the car, and then walk through the lovely outdoor Eden bar.

And the film "Columbus" was excellent - and also calming.  Let me give you a little background.

There is a town in Indiana (of all places) that has a plethora of structures designed by famous modern architects, like I. M. Pei, Eero Saarinen and Richard Meier.    Many years ago, J. Irwin Miller, president of Cummins Engine, based in Columbus, established a foundation and commissioned renowned architects to design scores of magnificent buildings, including his own home.


This film celebrates these structures while also asking the question,  is architecture healing?  The story line involves a young woman who is in pain, her heroin addicted mother, a Korean man who is in pain - and the buildings.

This film is very sloooow mooooving.  My advice to you is to sit back and enjoy every scene.  If you do I think you'll find that, yes, architecture is healing.  For us as well as the characters in the film.

As you know I'm from Indiana and will be in Indianapolis later this week.  I hope I find that my fellow Hoosiers are excited about "Columbus" the movie.


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