In My Life

Recent Terrence Malick movies have been non-linear, often mystifying, non-narratives – much to the disapproval of those who loved his earlier films like Badlands and The Thin Red Line.  But this time, with A Hidden Life he tells the true story of an Austrian conscientious objector at the time when his country was under the sway of Nazism. New on DVD. 

Don’t be daunted by the prospect of watching for three hours, for, as well as being a triumph of storytelling, it is a stunningly beautiful masterpiece of filmmaking.  There is so much to take in that, when it’s finished, you want to go back to the beginning to dwell on the scenery, the architecture, the food, the farming, the music, and the seasons of a simple life in the country.

A creation observation – shade and shadows

I’ve always been fascinated by shade and shadows – and especially in winter.  At this time of the year, when shade is not so welcomed, its starkness highlights the lightness (the greenness) of all around.  It seems denser and darker than in summer time, when it is relished for its coolness, not its density. 

As for shadows in winter, the play of dark upon light creates starker images – more like positive negatives (speaking photographically). 

On a scorching day have you given thanks for shade?  Have you ever marvelled at the wonder of shadows caused by the light of a lamp, the sun, or even the moon?  Have a look and you’ll see what I mean. 

The Milk Carton Kids

Every now and again I hanker to hear the music of two guys who call themselves The Milk Carton Kids.  Usually they perform with just their two guitars and their harmonised voices, but a couple of years ago they made a fleshed-out album with a full band.  In my opinion All the Things I Did and All the Things I Didn’t Do is the best they’ve ever sounded.  To celebrate, they took that band on the road and one of those concerts has been preserved on YouTube.  It’s worth viewing.  https://youtu.be/oStsWteq95U

Another clip to watch is Mourning in America.  https://youtu.be/YFfpScjKo7M

Glenys

Here’s a recent photo of my wife responding to music at the nursing home. After another ‘cerebral event’ two weeks ago, it seems she’s back again.  Hallelujah!

Quotable quote

The Holy Spirit, we might say, is the Matchmaker, the celestial marriage broker, whose role is to bring us and Christ together and to ensure we stay together.

J. I. Packer

It was my daughter who reminded me that sometimes, in real life, things just keep going wrong and getting worse – as was the case in A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.  It’s not just sometimes for some people, but nearly always. 

Paul Simon makes the same observation in one of his songs…

Some folks’ lives roll easy as a breeze…

Some folks’ lives never roll at all…

But most folks’ lives

Oh, they stumble, Lord, they fall…

We live in a fallen world, a world not in balance, a world not given to fairness.  I had forgotten that at the end of A Fine Balance.  My feelings were too raw to make sense of what I had just read.  Now, I can understand Maneck’s reason for doing what he did.  There was a time in my life when nothing made sense – life seemed pointless.  And, my bitter disappointment made me anything but fun to be with.  I saw myself as a millstone of negativity around the neck of my family.  The only solution was to swim out to sea and not come back.  That way, nobody could know for sure if I had done it on purpose or drowned accidentally, and I would have spared my wife and my two little boys a lifetime of guilt and shame.

But it never came to that because someone started talking to me about Jesus.  Oh, yes, I scoffed, “Not another Jesus freak!”  It took a fortnight of influenza, a secular book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and a movie made in Hollywood, Ben-Hur, to bring me to my knees.  Maneck, however, never got to hear what I heard or to see what I saw.  No one threw him a lifeline.  Seeing his tailor friends reduced to begging was so unfair, that, for him, life no longer made sense.  Like the kids in The Sound of Music, singing DoReMi, he was confused and thinking, “But it doesn’t mean anything!”  I understand him now, and I can forgive Rohinton Mistry for the bleakness of his story and the tragedy of its conclusion.  I only wish I had been there to grab him before he fell.    

In Psalm 73 we read of a man who had almost stumbled when he observed the prosperity of the wicked and was envious.  They seemed to live trouble-free lives, to grow rich and fat, even while they strutted and scoffed, threatened oppression, and shook their fists at God; while his life was a struggle.  It wasn’t until the writer came into the presence of God that he learned how to interpret the situation.  It’s not until he ‘saw’ the end of their story that he became thankful not to be in their slippery place, heading for ruin.  Better to have God as your refuge than to be bitter and twisted with ignorance and envy.

Quotable quote

Augustine suggests a test for why you might consider the Bible as a guide: Does it provide guidance you couldn’t get elsewhere?  Even if the way it delineates is difficult, does it look like a way out, a way home?  If every other map has left you lost, what’s to lose trying out this one?  In Augustine’s experience, the Word was like an enchanted map.  It not only told him, “You Are Here” and pointed him toward home; it also gave him legs to run. 

From On the Road with Saint Augustine –James K. A. Smith

Creation observation

From the soundtrack of my life

I came to the Beatles’ after their pop became serious with Revolver and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  I played A Day in the Life over and over.  But it was the songs of George Harrison that had the biggest impact, for example:  Long, Long, Long on The White Album.  After they split up, his triple vinyl album All Things Must Pass became a guide to my spiritual life.  He had embraced Krishna whom he called My Sweet Lord.  Even though I wasn’t believer at that time, when I sang it I had Jesus in mind.  When he urged us to call on the Lord, and sang, with great longing, “Hear me, Lord,” I unwittingly stored up those words so that, when I was in dire need of help, I took them and prayed them to the One I still didn’t know.  To my surprise God heard me and led me in the path I was to take.  It’s almost 50 years ago, but I am still grateful that God can take the words of an unbeliever and make them a prayer for a soon-to-be believer. 

          

I’ve just spent 626 pages, 25 hours of listening, in the company of a widow, two tailors, and a college student, thrown together in a one bedroom flat during the 1975 Emergency in India. I’m feeling wasted, heartbroken, and stalled. What can I read next? Rohinton Mistry writes like a modern day Charles Dickens. He is just as prone to coincidences as Dickens, just as deft at tieing up loose ends, but hopeless when it comes to “and they lived happily ever after”. The epilogue, set in 1984, left me stunned and sent me searching for something positive to take from their lives. I found two things to hang on to.

I wish I could recommend it because the writing is wonderful, the story is engrossing, the characters are revealed in rich detail (including a dozen or more part-players), the imagery is evocative and unique, and we are so rapt that we keep expecting better things just around the bend. I know that this book will be a yardstick for whatever I read from now on. If you dare to delve into it, you’ll meet people you’ll never forget, and be forever wondering how we got to be so blessed.

From the soundtrack of my life

One of my favourite quirky comedies is Local Hero – the story of an American mining magnate wanting to buy a whole Scottish village so that he can extract the oil reserves in that region.  The negotiator sent to make the deal falls in love with the place and the people and is surprised when they all want to sell.   It stars Peter Capaldi, Burt Lancaster, and Denis Lawson and was the winner of many awards.  I’ve watched the movie a half-dozen times, and I’ve listened to the soundtrack (or parts thereof) a hundred times or more.  It’s music composed by Mark Knofler (formerly of Dire Straits).  He captures the moods and beauty of the village, and the awesome aurora borealis which appears in the Scottish night sky.  My favourite track is the finale: Going Home – which never ceases to lift my spirits and renew my determination to press on.  It’s a great movie with a wonderful soundtrack!  Have a look!  Have a listen!     

Lines from Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

It’s interesting how, when revisiting an old hymn, you can suddenly be struck by a phrase or a line that previously never caught your attention.  Such was the case when I came across this old hymn from Joachim Neader.  I always thought it was ponder anew what the Almighty can do, but, in fact, it’s… Ponder anew what the Almighty will do/ if with his love he befriend you.  So that’s what I did – especially when I came to the last chapter of Revelation and ended my, maybe, fiftieth reading through the whole New Testament.  There, too, I discovered something new to ponder. 

Blessed are those who wash their robes so they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.  (Revelation 22:14).

As I pondered those words, I wondered and marvelled that, one day, I will pass through one of those gates into the very presence of the Lord our God.  How amazing!  For a brief moment, I could picture being part of an endless procession of believers, from every tribe and tongue and nation, entering into the heavenly city. The thought of it was overwhelming.  We, who believe and have been redeemed, are part of a much bigger and better story than we have ever imagined!  I hope you’re one of them.

A creation observation – omniscience

As I watch the countless falling autumn leaves on the trees next door, I am reminded of lyrics from Bob Dylan’s song:  That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand… and every sparrow falling like every grain of sand.   

They say the number of grains of sand on Planet Earth is equivalent to 10²³ which is equivalent to the number of stars in the universe – so huge a number you could round it off to infinity.  That equivalence is noted and recorded in Hebrews 11:12 in speaking of Abraham and his wife Sarah, who had been childless until she was 90 and he was 100.  There we read, Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.  Jesus tells us that God knows even the number of hairs on our heads (Matthew 10:30) and the death of every bird that ever lived.  Elsewhere we’re told that he has given names to every star.  I guess you’d call this omniscience.    

It may not be a pretty picture, but this is my best ever loaf of sourdough bread – light and airy – made from white and rye flour, flecked with caraway seeds.  After so many mediocre attempts, success at last. The recipe for my new starter came from an Italian guy on You Tube.  All I have from his lesson are memories and a few scribbles that I jotted down as I watched.  Still, it was enough for me to learn a new way of doing it with less precision than before – more intuition and more by sight rather than by weight.  One day, when I’m more experienced, I’ll write a recipe for how it’s done.  

Breakthrough #2

Ever since we moved to Moorooka, we have struggled with a very heavy, dragging Crim-Safe screen-door; even the repairman failed to make it slide smoothly.  Now it glides so well it almost falls off the other end when I open it.  All it took was a few frustrating hours with screwdrivers and pliers, and new runners.  Getting it down was the easy part, putting it up was a long and arduous task. Fearing I might never get it back on the rails and align its locking mechanism, I phoned for help from one of my sons.  Then, while waiting for him, I worked it out.  Before he arrived the job was done. I can’t believe how good it is and only wished I had fixed it long ago. So, if you’re about to throw in the towel with some unresolved issue, give it another go.  

Breakthrough #3

When I was re-reading Luke’s account of Christ’s crucifixion, I noticed a link between the thief on the cross and the Roman centurion who was keeping watch of the execution.  Neither of them know Jesus’ name, so they referred to him as “this man“.  Here’s what they came to see and believe.  The thief: “This man has done nothing wrong.”  The centurion: “Certainly this man was innocent.”  And, in Mark’s account of the same scene, the Roman executioner concluded, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”  (References: Luke 2:41, 47 and Mark 15:39)

A quotable quote

If you are not sure what I am saying and have doubts about whether it is true, at least be sure that you have no doubt about your having doubts about this. Sometimes doubting your doubts is the beginning of wisdom.  Saint Augustine  

From a favourite hymn

You fearful saints , fresh courage take/ the clouds you so much dread/ are big with mercy, and shall break with blessings on your head.  

From William Cowper’s God Moves in a Mysterious Way.

A creation observation

The moon is full again.  What a wonder it is as it waxes and wanes, month after month, serving as a timepiece for people all over the earth.  By it, those without access to weather stations and medical centres, know when to plant their crops and when to expect the birth of a baby.  It’s a teller of seasons and signs, just as we are told in Genesis 1:14-19.  

From the soundtrack of my life

Chariots of Fire was one of the first films I saw after my conversion.  What I surprise it was to see such a positive portrayal of a Christian – standing strong in the face of opposition to his faith and principles!  As well as being a great story, it had an Oscar-winning soundtrack from the Greek musician Vangelis.  His music was an integral part of the whole experience and one I have relived many times ever after. If it’s unknown to you, catch the movie and the music on SBS On Demand, and you’ll discover why it is still so lauded. (You Tube clip: https://youtu.be/CSav51fVlKU)