Althouse: At the Sunday Café...

March 31, 2013

At the Sunday Café...

... find the joy.

24 comments:

YoungHegelian said...: So, I tried to go to noon solemn mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC. I get there a few minutes late and find that every parking space on the Catholic University campus within three blocks of the shrine is taken.

I find a space four blocks away, walk to the side door of the shrine, and when I open the door, there are bodies immediately on the other side. I walk down to the front door, open the door, and am usher is saying "Make way, make way" for a man carrying out his 11 (?) year old daughter who has fainted. The crowd is out to the inner hall of the church. I turn around and walk out.

If religion is collapsing in America, could it please happen before next Easter so I can find a parking space?

Thanks

As we used to say in Alabama:

Christos aneste ek nekron, y'all!; 3/31/13, 1:50 PM
Farmer said...: Gay!

*ducks*; 3/31/13, 2:10 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: We're hosting Easter this year.

There are infants and toddlers in the house.

The adults are manic and loud, as they compete with one another, as they beg for the children's approval.

There's an evolutionary explanation, I'm sure, but I don't know what it is.

In any event, I find it all very irritating and now I'm getting ripped, which is what's best right now for everybody concerned.

I like to listen to children. I like to watch children. I like to be with children and let them do what they want to do in their own way.

I very much do not like being with adults trying to act like children, trying to force the children to love them, especially when they are so very bad at it.

Merry fucking Easter, everyone.; 3/31/13, 2:13 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Mitch,

I very much do not like being with adults trying to act like children, trying to force the children to love them, especially when they are so very bad at it.

Oh, Lordy, Mitch I feel for ya. Crap like this is the reason we have banned parents from accompanying us when we take the nieces and nephews to VA Beach in the summer.

My wife & I were once picking blackberries and on the other side of the arbor was a mother of three kids who felt the need to comment on each & every blackberry picked by her kids! I thought, "Oh Lord, woman, be quiet & let your kids enjoy the peace & quiet of the farm!"; 3/31/13, 2:24 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Eggs have now been hunted.; 3/31/13, 2:37 PM
edutcher said...: Joy is a little tough on Easter, a lot of deaths around this time of year.

But you look forward to the coming Spring and the reaffirmation of life.

Farmer said...

Gay!

*ducks*

Ironically, the so-called Gay crowd is the antithesis of gaiety; quite joyless.; 3/31/13, 2:37 PM
Sydney said...: Cyclamen. From the Wiki page:
In many languages, cyclamen species are colloquially called by a name like the English sowbread, because they are said to be eaten by pigs: pain de pourceau in French, pan porcino in Italian, varkensbrood in Dutch, "pigs' manjū" in Japanese

Last night at Easter Vigil, the priest said that the pig gave a greater Easter sacrifice to become our ham than the chicken gave to provide our Easter eggs, so be a pig, not a chicken. On the way home, though, we were thinking the pig did not willingly make his sacrifice, so maybe not so good to be the pig.; 3/31/13, 2:46 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Today our six year old said, "When people get presents, at first they are really excited, but then it seems like they just want something else."

Good thing there are more than presents that we might have joy.

Happy Easter!; 3/31/13, 2:51 PM
Unknown said...: Easter with the grand kids, and it's grand in every way.; 3/31/13, 3:09 PM
harrogate said...: Gorgeous shot!; 3/31/13, 3:20 PM
Saint Croix said...: Happy Easter!

I've started an interesting academic book on the resurrection.

He's approaching it as a historian, so he's trying to make the argument that the resurrection actually happened. Not symbolic, in other words, or spiritual. He's taking on the Jesus Seminar, among others.

It's an 800-page book, kind of a heavy read. But interesting. He's written two other massive books (both 800 pages!), setting the stage for this one. His plan is to write 5 volumes.

He's taught at Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard. Smart guy, writes well. If you like history, it's definitely an interesting book.

What can historians in the twenty-first century say about Easter on the basis of the historical evidence? I shall argue that far and away the best explanation of the early Christian mutation within Jewish resurrection-belief is that two things had happened. First, Jesus' tomb was found to be empty. Second, several people, including at least one, and perhaps more, who had not previously been followers of Jesus, claimed to have seen him alive in a way for which the readily available language of ghosts, spirts and the like was inappropriate, and for which their previous beliefs about life after death, and resurrection in particular, had not prepared them.; 3/31/13, 3:32 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: For me it was find sad first so as to find joy later.

My sister roped me in... she texted "I would like to take you to this retreat I am doing Saturday and sunday. Would you go if I pay for you?"

Very sneaky my sister...

So I went on a spiritual cleansing/liberation, men with the men/women with the women, thing were we were lectured (I counted 15) about bad behavior, most of which, or so it was claimed, were probably inherited as a consequence of the bad behaviors of our ancestors... a domino effect (not all my fault)

A bad behavior vortex... if you will.

I don't know that I've been liberated... since the first thing I did on the car ride back was to check in the Althouse vortex.

We were on a remote area, were there was no signal... and we also were on a vow of silence... so even if by a remote chance somebody got a signal, we were not suppose to contact it, unless it was the heavenly kind... if you know what I mean.

So, there was some crying the first day, yesterday... Don't know if it was because they couldn't get a signal or the signal was contacted at a higher plane or something... but when we came back to church today, the crying turned to joy.

Many confessed to things, joyfully crying... I just posed for the pictures with my liberation issued t shirt... and vowed to myself to be more careful next time.; 3/31/13, 4:07 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: That's one smart kid you got there Freeman.

How are the piano lessons going?; 3/31/13, 4:20 PM
Farmer said...: @Saint Croix - that NT Wright book interested me but I wasn't willing to invest that much time in it. I ended up reading William Lane Craig's The Son Rises, which was very good, and much, much shorter.; 3/31/13, 4:26 PM
caplight45 said...: I'm here in Milwaukee's western suburbs with my daughter and her family. Her church had their first day in their first building, having previously led a mobile existence in a theater and some schools. Their church is a renovated Wal Mart and has received a lot of buzz in the local news media. What an incredibly joyous celebration as over 1200 people came to share in the glory of the Resurrection.; 3/31/13, 4:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Today our six year old said, "When people get presents, at first they are really excited, but then it seems like they just want something else." Good thing there are more than presents that we might have joy. Happy Easter!"

We speak of gifted children, but not of presented children.; 3/31/13, 5:15 PM
Saint Croix said...: I ended up reading William Lane Craig's The Son Rises, which was very good, and much, much shorter.

Short is good! My favorite book on Christianity is this one. I've read it several times, and I'm always finding new stuff in it. And boy is it a fun book to discuss with other people.

John Cleese did the audiobook. Awesome fun.

The only other Lewis book I dig (so far, anyway) is this one. Only read it once, but it's really sad and so honest.

Last year I read Timothy Keller. A bit of a liberal weenie, I think, but also brilliant and provocative. I wrote a lot in the margins. He wrote an entire book about one parable, which is really cool.

I'm afraid Wright's going to be a slog to get through. Glad I own it, though. Makes me feel smarter to have it on my shelf.; 3/31/13, 5:28 PM
Farmer said...: I'll check out that Keller book. The Screwtape Letters is great as is A Grief Observed. Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain are both very good too.; 3/31/13, 6:00 PM
caplight45 said...: We don't say "presented children." We do say that children are a gift to their parents.; 3/31/13, 6:58 PM
JAL said...: Saint Croix -- If you get a chance watch the DVD of Keller doing the Prodigal Father. Intriguing.

Funny to see Keller labeled liberal (though as I think about it I kind of understand). He has an interesting church (PCA -- a "conservative " denomination) in NYC where the makeup of the congregation is massively single New Yorkers.; 3/31/13, 7:11 PM
JAL said...: Lem -- apologies for whatever.

Hope you were otherwise blessed this Resurrection Day.

God loves Red Sox fans.; 3/31/13, 7:12 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Gift has an exalted quality; 3/31/13, 7:46 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: A froend of mine went to Germany for a year. I sent her a package marked "gift"--that's what the postman suggested for the contents on the customs form. Mistake.; 3/31/13, 9:04 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Piano going well, Lem. He likes it,; 3/31/13, 9:05 PM