Various and Sundry, Plus BBC

Hello again!  I looked at my blog today for the first time in awhile and realized I hadn’t posted anything since… last year…  That seems rather lax.  So, some updates:

1) My brother got married in January!

The little bro is all growed-up!                                 P.S. My cousin Shaun took this picture.  If you like what you see, visit top-shelf-photo.com.

2) I’m heading back to Rwanda in May!  Can’t wait!

3) I have not been very “productive” in the BBC project department, but I did read Cloud Atlas (Mitchell) and Swallows and Amazons (Ransom), and I’m making good progress with War and Peace.  I would probably never have read these three books if it weren’t for this project, which is what I love about it!  I particularly enjoyed Cloud Atlas (although I can’t imagine how they made it into a movie, which is probably why the movie didn’t get good reviews).  It was one of those books that was hard for me to put down — in part because of the style in which it’s written.  The book has layers of stories — a chiasm, if you’re familiar with biblical studies — so that the first half of each story is told first, then a whole story in the middle, then the concluding half of each story in reverse order.  Intriguing!

If you need a visual, as an example:
Story 1.1 – Story 2.1 – Story 3.1 – Story 4 entire – Story 3.2 – Story 2.2 – Story 1.2

Swallows and Amazons is a charming children’s book that takes place in England in the 1930s (I think).  It wasn’t my favorite — in part because I’m not fascinated by boats and pirates (you’ll have to read the book to figure out the connection).  It did, however, inspire me to draw an analogy in our church staff meeting that ended up inspiring the theme of our annual church celebration… 🙂

War and Peace… well, I’m still reserving judgement.  I have almost zero interest in the Napoleonic wars, which is a major handicap with this sucker…  but I’ll get there!

I took a break from serious reading earlier this year for some literary “candy” — it was glorious.  I’m sure you understand — unless you’re one of those people who lives on a steady diet of non-fiction…

4) I’m thankful to work where I work and serve where I serve, with the people that I serve and the people I work alongside.  And I’m thankful for resurrection.

Church of the Redeemer

Dracula

Bela Lugosi as Dracula

Dracula is one of those books I never, ever thought I would enjoy.  I’ve tried to read Frankenstein a couple of times and failed to finish it — I just couldn’t get into it.

But Dracula turned out to be one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in this project!  Yes, it is creepy at parts — but less creepy to read than to view in a movie, I imagine (I refuse to watch horror movies, even old ones).

So what did I like about Dracula?

• The narrative technique: the book is narrated by letters and journals written by the main characters, along with a few newspaper clippings.  Granted, all the characters write in the same style (e.g. no dialectical differences, except for the Professor for whom English is a second language).  I enjoyed having to piece together parts of the story for myself.
• The book is written a bit like a mystery: we have to figure out what in the world is going on with this Dracula guy, just like the protagonists do.  I’m curious how much Bram Stoker’s original audience would have known about vampires — in our own context, it seems all of us know the “basics” of vampires (aversion to garlic, can’t be seen in mirrors, killed with a stake, etc.), but I wonder whether that would have been the case in the 1800s?  It would have made the book much more suspenseful if I hadn’t known Dracula was a vampire from the very beginning.
• The theological themes that interweave throughout the book: good vs. evil, light vs. dark, human vs. not-quite-human.  The plot is wrapped up in these cosmic themes — the significance of the characters’ quest to vanquish Dracula is, in a sense, a quest to vanquish evil itself.

One of the interesting, and incredibly disturbing, facets of the book is the detail that victims of Dracula, even if they haven’t fully turned into vampires, are “outcast from God” (272, Kindle version).  This is the primary motivating factor for the characters — not just that their loved ones would be taken from them by Dracula’s bite, but that these victims would be forever separated from God’s presence.

One of the main characters, Mina, is bitten by the vampire later in the book.  When Professor Van Helsing tries to protect her against further attacks by touching a piece of the Host to her forehead [so interesting!], the Wafer burns her flesh “as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal,” and she cries out in pain, “Unclean!  Unclean!  Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh!  I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day.” (262)  And yet, at the same time, she is described as “that sweet, sweet, good, good woman,” with “loving kindness” and “tender faith” — “she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God.” (272)

That’s the detail of this book that makes me the most grateful it’s fiction — that the vampire’s bite separates the victim so completely from God.  She herself did nothing wrong — she slept, the Vampire came, she became accursed outside of her volition and knowledge.

In contrast to the curse the Vampire brings, read Paul’s words in Romans 8:

Christ Jesus who died–more than that, who was raised to life–is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons [nor vampires!], neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (8:34-39)

Thanks be to God!

Feast of John Donne

I am still an English major at heart. So, when I was skimming TitusOneNine today, I was delighted to discover that Anglicans celebrate the Feast of John Donne! Although the official day for this year’s celebration is past (March 31), in honor of a faithful churchman and excellent poet:

Holy Sonnet I

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me
That not one hour myself I can sustain.
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

~John Donne~