Year: 2017

Books

Lessons from Dune

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I got caught at lunch without the Churchill biography I’m currently reading, so I had to find something on my iPad to read. I happened to have Dune from a Kindle sale a few months ago, so I thought I’d re-read it again since it’s probably been 10–15 years since I last did so.1

I ran across this in the first few pages:

A world is supported by four things:
the learning of the wise,
the justice of the great,
the prayers of the righteous,
and the valor of the brave.”

That was thought-provoking enough. But then it was closed with this:

But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.

Movies / Music

Sound of (Movie) Music

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I bought a soundtrack to a fifty-year old movie this week.

Which, of course, got me thinking about my favorite movie soundtracks. (Why, doesn’t it you?) I’m going to exclude musical soundtracks; that’s kind of cheating, since the soundtrack essentially is the movie. Or a large portion of it. So, no Sound of Music (ugh), no Funny Lady (double-ugh), and most definitely no La-La Land.

Good movie soundtracks are usually unobtrusive; they make the movie better, but don’t take attention away from it. Great movie soundtracks, however, not only make the movie better, they become a character themselves, a character so good that you can’t help but notice them.

Family / Mission

Italian Invasion

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It’s pretty quiet around here.

That’s normally not that unusual1, but for the past couple of weeks it has been. Some of our kids were in town (no, not those kids, the Italy ones), and the kids have kids, and that makes for a much more exciting household. Where by “exciting” I mean “chaotic”.2

Since we spent a week in Portland with their LG replacements a couple of months ago, it’s fitting that we were able to see the Davidson’s this summer as well. When last I wrote about them, they were in the process of going back on mission to Italy; they have now been there for two years and are home on furlough for the summer, and we were fortunate to have them spend several days with us.

Current Events / Random

Because I Said So

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Someone I follow1 on Twitter posted something a couple of weeks ago along the lines of “The retail industry loses $16B a year to people wearing and then returning clothes.” I replied with something along the lines of “That’s a great Internet number, made up and completely unverifiable.”

This led to a couple of exchanges, ending with the other person saying, “there’s a lot of dumb stuff online, but a Duke & MIT study is research driven.”

I’m going to cover the specific issues first, but then we’ll get to the bigger issue, because it speaks to how we make our way through the land mine field that is the world of information today.

Music / Spiritual Journey

Caged

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Radio listeners in early 1971 were treated to something rare for that time — a song that dealt with adult relationships like an adult. The song began with just a piano and a woman’s almost wispy voice singing of her parent’s in-home estrangement and how it had impacted her. It was remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because the woman singing was only twenty-six.

My father sits at night with no lights on, his cigarette glows in the dark
The living room is still, I walk by, no remark
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where my mother reads her magazines
I hear her call sweet dreams, but I forgot how to dream

After a chorus of sounding less than thrilled at her boyfriend’s proposal, she goes on to sing of all her friends from college and their equally dismal married lives.

Bible Study

Lack of Assurance

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In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard followed in the footsteps of W.S. Gilbert1 before him and wrote a play in which two minor characters from Hamlet are the lead actors. Like much of Stoppard’s work, it is absurdist in nature, but is still pretty funny if one is familiar with the source play.

Today we’re taking a page from Mr. Stoppard and looking a little closer at one our minor characters from last time. This disciple uttered the line we examined in the second half of that post, but we know him for something quite different.