Understanding Spirituality and Culture through Christ
The new TV series "Penguin" delves into the psychological complexity of Oswald "Oz" Cobblepot, exploring whether he's truly a ruthless Gotham mobster or simply a desperate momma's boy. The plot is gritty but also deeply psychological exploring Oz’s relationship with his mom and how that shapes his drive to succeed.
Read MoreMaxim Gorky. He said, "We do not have time to pay attention to individual complaints. Our job is to overthrow the old regime and build a new society." What do we see here? We see here a lack of concern for the individual while being concerned about the masses. So the individual can fall through the cracks and that's okay. This is what Pyotr is doing here. He is concerned about these big revolutionary movements and ideas in Europe while he abandons the young man Dimitri who he took under his guardianship.
Read MoreEvery human being is broken in some ways. We all seek to healing. And love can be a powerful healing force at multiple levels - psychological, neurological and sociological. The problem is that when two broken people try to use each other's love to heal their wounds, it can create more brokenness - because two different people may need two different ways of feeling loved by the other, to feel healed. But the other may not be able to provide that particular way of being loved. This can create a lot of resentment in relationships.
Read MoreAs we all have lots of down time with cancelled events, to deal with anxiety one of the ways to take time as a time of Sabbath rest trusting that God is in control of things. Use the disciple of remembrance of death to create clarity of intention about what you value. Speak and connect with people you love, people who you have not had a chance to talk to for a while, above all approach this crisis from a place of hope that our eternal citizenship is secure and care for the other.
Read MoreJane Austen's lesson here is that when one is anguished with one's own personal life choice, instead of following Charolet in her pragmatic rationalism, or Lydia in her emotionalism, we can follow Elizabeth in aligning ourselves to our telos, our true end, for Christians this telos is the resurrected life. This telos is what C.S.Lewis refers to as he says that Christians of the ancient times were people who had a heavenward view of life, but in the transition to modernity we have become too focused on happenings of this earthly life. Given this context, it shouldn't be surprising why the existentialist philosophers of the 20th century, from Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, considered choice a burden than a gift of freedom! Perhaps, it shouldn't be surprising that we modern this-worldly neurotics stymied with limitless choices find Jane Austen's world quaintly attractive!
Read MoreIt is only with the heart that we can see rightly because most essential things in life are invisible to the purely rational mind. For example, the enchantment of love can only be perceived with the heart. It takes imagination to see with the heart. A a mind that is solely rational will be scared by the disruptive enchantment of falling in love.
Read MoreIt is the pain of deep but unfulfilled longing that keeps love potent. When Westley, the lover of the Princess Buttercup, in his disguise taunts her loss of first love, the Princess shouts at him, "Don't mock my love." Westley replies, "Life is pain... anyone who says differently is selling something."
Read MoreRowling's Harry Potter stories continues to delve on the theme of love being stronger than death in deep friendships, and so will continue to be perduring, in spite of the new formation not quite working. If there were ever to be a book 9, I do wish it would be a novel.
Read MoreLeo Tolstoy in analyzing Ivan Ilych's death, shows us how to really live in the modern society that lives by superficial values of "pleasantness" and "decorousness".
The opposite of obsessive desires is not to disavow desires, rather it is yielding to rightly ordered desires. Rightly ordered desires starts with loving people close to us, which is exactly what the mythic Sultan, Von Rumple, and the magicians Angier and Borden miss and end up as lonely angry men dead in their spirit.
Read MoreI did not quite understand the answer to this question until I was walking down the Jamaica beach in Galveston at 2:00 am on a Saturday morning. I realized that to love God with my soul is to be deeply moved by a sheer display of His brilliant majesty in a way that bypasses my heart and mind and reaches deep into my unconscious, my soul, to lift it up into an ecstasy (in the truest sense of that word) to a posture of absolute submission and worship of God.
Read MoreTick! Tick! Tick! goes Life
A perpetual loss
Of time
Of loved ones
Of precious moments
All is evanescence
All lost into oblivion
Is the ticket worth it, Alyosha?
Or can the earth be kissed, Ivan?
But oh wait!
Little buds becoming roses
Little babies becoming lovers
Time becoming blessedness
New Creation coming into Being.
Tick! Tick! Tick! goes Life.
Inside Out is a brilliantly written deeply moving story that shows why knowing how to grieve is important for healthy living. Inside Out takes an inside out view of the human psyche to show that if we do not know how to make grief into a shared loving experience, we will loose our ability to be human.
Read MoreWhen St. Augustine says "weight moving me is love", he means that if his love is heavy like earth then it will be stuck in the materialism of this world. On the other hand when one's love is light like the fire, it will raise up towards the Heavens where God resides.
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, Robin Williams was enough to make me happy and hopeful for more happiness. Now that I have grown and become more aware of the cynical hopeless of life, my need for wonder and hunger for hope to compensate for the 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short' life has grown such that I need more than a phenomenally talented Robin William, I need a powerful and loving, transcended and immanent God to make my happy.
Read MoreI could not have dreamt of a day when I would use a romantic Disney movie to exemplify the sort of 1 Corinthians 13 'real love' that St. Paul talks about - the real one that isn't about 'having it easy', but about moving mountains, albiet thorough pain and suffering.
Read MoreIf there isn't a big purpose that is captivating us, we will likely be lost in one of two realms. We would either be lost in a flurry of activity bouncing about from one whim to another or in the realm of inactivity callously slipping into a depression. Both of which makes man less human.
Read MoreWhat is lost on modernism, with declining marriage rates, is that even in singleness, Safety is Never Guaranteed. Christ wasn't safe even as he was single. Married or single our earthly Safety is Not Guaranteed. Thanks be to Christ, our heavenly security indeed is... for we are steadfastly loved!
Read MoreFor there to be true love, the one loved has to have freedom to chose. If there is no freedom, then there is no love. The movie at a very deep level brings out the desire that human beings have to be loved 'eternally' by the Creator, for if there is no eternal love then life becomes meaningless.
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