MOMMENTARY |
|||
|
Saturday, January 01, 2005 ( 10:09 PM ) Elinor Dashwood Jeff at the Curt Jester mentions here the well-known quote from Chesterton, to the effect that "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." I'd love that observation as much as I love nearly everything else of Chesterton's, if people would take it in context. It comes, I believe, at the end of a chapter on women's education in What's Wrong With the World. I have so often heard it used to justify slapdash ineptitude, and I think it must be printed above the masthead of whatever hideous rag it is that parish choir members read. It doesn't mean that it's okay to do worthwhile things with a careless indifference to the quality of their performance. It does mean that a thing which is good to do, is good to do even if the doer thereof isn't an expert at it. It does mean that the world takes its flourishes far too seriously, possibly as a distraction from the lamentable fact that it takes its substance far too lightly. Thus it comes about that we have a country full of people who pay professionals to choose their drapes, and buy audiotape lectures about getting the most out of classical music, but who can't trace a link between easy divorce and the failure of marriage, and think that a mother's role in shaping her children's upbringing can be routinely and safely hired out on an hourly basis. And people wonder why I'm a recluse. # Saturday, December 25, 2004 ( 2:03 AM ) Elinor Dashwood What child is this, who, laid to rest On Mary's lap, is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet While shepherds watch are keeping? This, this is Christ the King Whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Haste, haste to bring him laud The Babe, the Son of Mary. Why lies He in such mean estate Where ox and ass are feeding? Good Christian, fear, for sinners here The silent Word is pleading. Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, The Cross be borne for me . . . for you. Hail, hail the Word-Made-Flesh The Babe, the Son of Mary. So bring Him incense, gold, and myrrh, Come, peasant, king, to own Him. The King of Kings salvation brings Let loving hearts enthrone Him. Raise, raise the song on high (the Virgin sings her lullaby) Joy, joy, for Christ is born! The Babe, the Son of Mary. # Friday, December 24, 2004 ( 10:16 AM ) Elinor Dashwood I can't believe how selfish I've been. For months I've been praying every night for JL's Marine career, for Marines in general, for my mother, my brothers and sisters, and my children, and it's never once occurred to me to pray for the soldiers in Iraq and the people who look after them. Well, that's easily remedied. # Wednesday, December 22, 2004 ( 2:03 PM ) Elinor Dashwood I've been blogging for two years today. Golly - it seems like yesterday. # Monday, December 20, 2004 ( 3:04 PM ) Elinor Dashwood Rats. I'm Richard I. The historical Richard was as dumb as a stump, and of an affectionate nature that was at any rate entirely free of any tendency toward sex discrimination, but I gather from the admiring description that the quizzer didn't know that. I'd so much rather be Richard III, but at least I'm not one of those crummy Tudors. Take the quiz and find out - What Monarch Are You? Link courtesy of Jonathan Lee, who is also Richard I. # Sunday, December 19, 2004 ( 10:47 PM ) Elinor Dashwood We've just been watching Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing, at Jonathan Lee's request. I love this film. Cacciaguida and I went to see it for our tenth wedding anniversary. It was the first time we'd been to the movies since the first summer we were married, and it blew us away. The scenery, the acting, the music - everything was sublime. The odd thing is how well it holds up after ten more years and many more viewings. I particularly like the way Hero is so palpably the pride and the darling of everyone who knows her, and how they are crushed by her disaster and revived by her vindication. I also like that the two principals do full justice to Beatrice and Benedick's backstory ("He lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one"). I've always admired both Branagh's and Thompson's performances in anything I've seen them in. What I can't pardon in the play is that Hero's father believes slander of her. Leonato knows his daughter as he knows his own heart: how could he believe a comparative stranger who spoke evil of her? Devil a bit I'd hear anyone utter foul lies about my Cacciadelia and meekly accept them as truth. When Leonato says, "Has no man's dagger here a point for me?" I always reply that to oblige him I'll do the best I can with my knitting needles. Another character who annoys me rather is Hero's betrothed, Claudio. Not once but twice does Captain Credulous fall victim to the villain's schemes, and all because he hasn't the sense of a babe newborn. Don John is practically strutting about in his Aragon Bad Guys team jersey, but Claudio just swallows everything he says as if he were the best friend and most dependable counsellor who ever lived. Cacciadelia suggested shooting Claudio during the wedding melee, and I can't say I'm against it. Everyone makes mistakes, but stupidity is terminal. # Friday, December 17, 2004 ( 8:47 AM ) Elinor Dashwood While paying a long-overdue visit to Kari's blog, I read that the first time she ever flew was on her way home for Thanksgiving last month. My first flight wasn't until I was twenty-one. Unfortunately, I had already taken physics by that time. If you've ever done a science lab course, you've probably observed that fine-sounding theories seldom quite work out for you in practice, and you end up having to take them largely on faith. So I was five miles above the surface of the earth and knew that my life was in the hands of something known as Bernoulli's Principle. According to Bernoulli, the air moving over the curved top of the wing was going faster than the air flowing under the flat bottom surface of the wing, and somehow this was supposed to hoist many, many tons of machinery and humanity high into the air and keep it there. Mm-hmm. Right. It was more comforting, on the whole, to keep my nose in a book and pretend I was on a train. # ( 1:30 AM ) Elinor Dashwood Ring out those joybells - Jonathan Lee is home! He has leave until after Christmas Day. Now we can go get a tree and put it up, and decorate the gingerbread house, and wrap presents, and compound bishop, and make all those Christmassy preparations which it would be too dreary to find already completed when one arrived home. (My first term at college ended with an afternoon exam on the 22nd of December. I fought my way home through the crowds next day, and never really did get up to speed with regard to the season.) I'm so happy! # Sunday, December 12, 2004 ( 8:19 PM ) Elinor Dashwood Follow-up to the fan fiction alluded to below: today we had the Nativity from the point of view of the innkeeper's wife. She further told us all about her livestock and her religious views and her kitchen organization and the way business is booming since the census was called. I've told Cacciaguida that if somebody starts channeling the donkey next week, I'm going to lead a strike. This has gone far enough. # Thursday, December 09, 2004 ( 2:39 PM ) Elinor Dashwood Check out this interesting site, all about the Star of Bethlehem. I don't know much about astronomy, so I can't tell how good is the evidence for this or any other explanation of the Star's appearance, but it's intriguing all the same. # Wednesday, December 08, 2004 ( 2:36 PM ) Elinor Dashwood By the way, while we're on the subject of feast days, it's time to annoy people about the Santa Claus fairy tale. Virginia, and everybody else, there is no Santa Claus. Christmas is about the birth of our Lord and Savior, who came into the world to conquer sin and death. That's worth all the merrymaking, feasting, presents, carols, tinsel, wreaths, trees, wassail, and general glorious joy that human beings are capable of. It's about Love Incarnate, folks, not the Elf, or reindeer, or snowmen, or any other fictional composition. If Santa makes you happier than the Christ Child, your priorities are screwed up. To this effect, Henry has a post on Plumbline that rocks. We told our children about the historical St. Nicholas, and read them the Clement Moore poem, but made it plain that Santa Claus was a charming story but not true. What I can't understand is telling one's children about Santa and the reindeer and expecting them to believe it as fact. As we say in the South, if that ain't a lie, it'll do till a lie comes along. As a rule I avoid quoting myself on the blog, but I'll repeat what I wrote here two years ago: At Christmas we celebrate the beginning of our Redemption, when God's own Son came into a cold and exhausted world to work our salvation. If you want wonder and specialness, try this: go somewhere alone - in church, perhaps, or anywhere quiet - and try to understand what was done for you, and at what cost; how the history of all Heaven and the fate of all Earth were changed, so that God might not lose you to the fire. I'm inclined to think that if that isn't enough wonder for you, a guy in a red suit jumping down the chimney won't be a satisfactory substitute. # ( 1:29 PM ) Elinor Dashwood Happy Feast day! I suppose this means I really can't give them macaroni and cheese tonight. All right, we'll have something better. Owing to a problem with the van, we couldn't all go to Mass at the same time. Son #1 and I hit the 8:30 at our parish, only to find that it was the school Mass. Oh, well. At least the readings were done by people who didn't stumble and stare at the lectionary as if they'd often heard writing described, but had never actually seen any. One word, elementary school lectors: practice. They don't keep these readings a secret and then suddenly spring them on you at the last moment. We also had "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus," which was very nice, although we got only a mean little snippet of "O Come Emmanuel" after Communion, when the glee club had finished some silly thing about "Be A Beacon". The recessional was another interminable me-fest called "We Will Prepare". Who writes this stuff? And wouldn't you think that the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary might just possibly suggest to the organist a suitable hymn for the occasion? Sheesh. # |
|
||
