November 28, 2022

Reflection

ESCAPES

I watched a movie last night.

The title was Wetherby - a 1985 British film. 

The  only actresses or actors in it that I recognized were Vanessa Redgrave and Judy Dench.

The last scene in the movie took place in a bar [Cf. video above]. It's a British pub or restaurant. A guy is sitting at a wall seat. A little table is in front of him. Jean Travers - a schoolteacher - played by Vanessa Redgrave - is sitting next to him at the same table. Both are facing out from a wall.

A waitress is pouring wine. She's younger - much younger than Vanessa. He is looking at her - but it seems like he is thinking about something else.

Vanessa asks the man how his wife is doing. There is small talk.  

The movie is about loneliness - and small talk - and faking it - and the decisions we all make. It's about hurt and confusion and trying to figure out another's motives.

The plot centers around John Morgan -  a character who commits suicide - by shooting himself in front of Jean Travers. The police are investigating the why.

This meeting with the man who kills himself triggers all kind of memories in Jean [Vanessa Redgrave.]

Vanessa is living a life with the experience of the man she loved.  He had gone off to Mandalay for 7 years.  They went to get married when he gets back or was it if he can get an apartment there for them?

He is killed - when a buddy of his and he go to a place to gamble.   His throat is slit. You see the plane flying the body home.

The police detectives send a young girl - who was connected to John Morgan - but snubbed him - to see Vanessa who is an odd duck. The detectives are  trying to figure out the dynamics of what happened.

The line in the movie that grabbed me was right at the end when they toast each other and the guy says, "To all our escapes."

I wondered: What are mine?

 November  28. 2022

Thought for Today

"God Almighty first planted a garden."

Francis Bacon [1561-1626]

Of Gardens

November 27, 2022

Reflections

PROCRASTINATION

I put off what I don't like to do.

I put off what I don't really know how to do something  - usually.

I put off what I feel I'm being forced or manipulated to do.

I put off what I feel will hurt another - or trap another somewhere down the line.

I put off hard work because I'm lazy and I like my time and comfort.  Sorry if I caused you inconvenience.

I put off the big stuff.

I put off the little stuff

I put off a lot of stuff.

I put off having to tell someone "bad news" - so they can't do something the church won't allow - at present - or I'd like to be able to do it - but I just can't do it.

I put of making the decision or the practice of eating better.

I put off doing things - that if I did them - I wouldn't really know what I'm doing.

I put off doing difficult things.

I put off doing things for people whom I feel are simply using me.

I don't like  to address my procrastination habits.

 November 27, 2022

Thought for Today

"Philosophy is written in this grand book - I mean the universe - which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth."

Galileo Galilei [1564-1642]

Il Saggiatore [1643]

The Asssayer in The Controversy on the Comets of 1618 [1960], 

translated by Stillman Darke and C.D. O'Malley.

 November 26, 2022 

Reflection

COMPLAINTS   BEGET  COMPLAINTS

Yesterday was June 19, 2008.

We were a parish get together.

A lady read a section from the book The Marian Movement for Priests.  It was by a priest named Father Gobbi. Thousands and thousands were sent through the mail.  

It was fine - in my opinion - till he started to complain about sacrilegious communions.

The reader  finished.

Someone asked, "Any comments?"

A series of comments - complaints were voiced by different ladies at this meeting of this Parish Group. 

We were at Hank and Mary Lee's place.

First comment: "There are people who go to communion who are not Catholics."

Next comment: "There are people who go to communion who have no clue where they are."

"There is a priest in Georgetown who invites everyone to communion."

"There was a little kid who received communion - or went up and took communion and was walking away with the communion in the palm of his hand - and someone said to him, 'You have to eat it.'"

After a series of comments and complaints they asked  my thoughts about all this.

I paused and thought inwardly, "I'm not going here or there."

I said, "There are rules and regulations - guidelines - in the Missalette."

Afterwards - I'm an afterwards thinker - I got thinking, "This is not my experience in giving out communion."

There are pickers - picking communion right out of your hand - definitely different than those who receive Jesus in the palm of their hand - as if in a throne.

There are those who we joke about behind their back: "A few people who made their First Communion today. That might be at a wedding or a funeral."

Sorry to those who want rules announced right before communion!

It's my experience and desire to show respect, sacredness, calm - when receiving the Body of Christ - and I like to pray to and at every person receiving, "The Body of Christ!"

It hit me driving home from that meeting yesterday: Complaints beget complaints. Gripes beget gripes. Negativity brings forth negativity. Niceness begets niceness.

I'm glad I went where I went when I went there.

 November 26,  2022

Saturday Thought for Today

"When you send a clerk on business to  a distant  province, a man of rigid morals is not your best choice."

Ihara Saikaku  (1642-1693)

The Japanese Family Storehouse;

or Millionaires' Gospel, bk. II, chapter 5

 November 25, 2022

Reflection

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

I have been asked at various times about "Speaking in Tongues."

I usually pause when I hear this question.

I hesitate.

I don't use my tongue in answering some questions too quickly.

I wonder if the person asking about speaking in tongues is puzzled about this phenomenon - or whether they think it's funny - weird - crazy - or what have you.

Or maybe the person asking this thinks they have the gift or want this gift or someone they know has this gift.

Maybe they want me to try to praise God for what has happened.

Keep still my tongue.

When I hear about speaking in tongues - two personal experiences- show up in my memory.

The first happened years ago in a Bible Study Week in Mundelein Seminary - that I was at just outside of Chicago. One of the main speakers was Father Joseph Fitzmyer, a world famous expert on the Bible.  He was asked in a Q. and A. session about speaking and praying in tongues.

I didn't tape him - or what have you - but he didn't think what was going on here and there in the church back then - was what was happening today. He was that direct.  He simply said he didn't see what was happening in the Acts of the Apostles to be the same as what was happening in different charismatic groups and individuals today

He was not loud, but to me he was definitive.

The second experience happened in Long Island. Someone invited two of us to a prayer experience.  Someone started speaking in a language that I didn't get.  It was taped.  Then there was a short break. 

Then a man with a tape recorder played that speaking in tongues. He hit the stop button. Then he said, "The Holy Spirit is saying, 'So and so should break up with his wife and move on.'"

I thought to myself, "No way! Let's get out of here!"

We said nothing - but left as soon as this was over.

Surprise.

This morning I'm reading in the Prayer of Christians something from a sermon by St. Anthony of Padua. It went this way, "The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different  languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty,  patience and obedience;  we speak in those languages  when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words - let you words teach and your actions speak.[Page 1470, Volume III.]