Optima Meme
Carmen optimum: "Morning Has Broken" (this video can't be embedded, annoyingly) is my favorite song. If you were listening closely, you may have heard the melody while my beautiful wife walked down the aisle. According to Hymns & History by Forrest McCann, the poem was written by Eleanor Farjeon in 1922, but the song was popularized in the early 1970's by Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam). The lyrics are delightfully simple and beautiful. They powerfully convey the sublime and incomprehensible gift that life and the world is, which we seldom think about because the awe of them can be almost crippling.
Liber optimus: The Confessions by St. Aurelius Augustine is my favorite book, specifically the first eleven books of it (the last few books of it are the beginning of a commentary on Genesis). Written roughly fifteen centuries ago, The Confessions is the first Western biography and one of the most enduring books of all time for good reason. Somehow, though it seems an impossible feat, St. Augustine managed to write a book that seems to transcend time and space. In analyzing his own life, St. Augustine analyzes life itself with incredible clarity and perception. Two passages in particular stand out to me, when he reflects on the forbidden pleasure he took in stealing some pears as a child and, towards the end, when he reflects on the death of his beloved mother. If at all possible, it is a book that every Christian should read, and I think even people of other religions or no religion would also be moved by it. The Confessions are not a book that should only be read in college. I look forward to the day when I will be able to read it in the original Latin.
Pellicula(e) optima(e): I'm cheating and choosing two movies: Contact and Gattaca, both powerful science-fiction movies from 1997.
Over the years I've come to prefer the latter because its plot and message are confined to the known world and because I love the dark, cool-colored tone. Every scene is a sheer delight to watch. For some reason, in my mind, the best time for watching Gattaca is at about 2 at night, when your rested mind is open to deeper thoughts. To me it epitomizes what science-fiction is and does best. I am also delighted by the subtle positive reference to Catholicism: as Vincent is being born, a "faith birth," his mother has a rosary in her hand.
Contact, of course, also has its many strengths. It's one of the only movies I know of that deals with contact with aliens in a plausible way. There are so many breath-holding scenes: when young Ellie is racing for her father's heart medication, when Hadden reveals that he has cracked the aliens' code, when the Machine is destroyed by a religious terrorist, when Hadden reveals (again!) that he has built a secret, second Machine, when Ellie takes the time-bending journey through the Einstein-Rosen bridge (aka wormhole)! Moreso than Gattaca, Contact also explores religious themes, having some poignant things to say about faith in the unprovable. It also has some religious quirks, notably when Matthew McConaughey's character describes himself as "a man of the cloth without the cloth" (who says "man of the cloth" anymore, anyway?) and when he says that some theologians have been chosen to be on the international Machine committee. Right. I wish.
25Optimum in vita: "There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him * who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" (Eccl. 2:24-25 NRSV)
Liber optimus: The Confessions by St. Aurelius Augustine is my favorite book, specifically the first eleven books of it (the last few books of it are the beginning of a commentary on Genesis). Written roughly fifteen centuries ago, The Confessions is the first Western biography and one of the most enduring books of all time for good reason. Somehow, though it seems an impossible feat, St. Augustine managed to write a book that seems to transcend time and space. In analyzing his own life, St. Augustine analyzes life itself with incredible clarity and perception. Two passages in particular stand out to me, when he reflects on the forbidden pleasure he took in stealing some pears as a child and, towards the end, when he reflects on the death of his beloved mother. If at all possible, it is a book that every Christian should read, and I think even people of other religions or no religion would also be moved by it. The Confessions are not a book that should only be read in college. I look forward to the day when I will be able to read it in the original Latin.
Pellicula(e) optima(e): I'm cheating and choosing two movies: Contact and Gattaca, both powerful science-fiction movies from 1997.
Over the years I've come to prefer the latter because its plot and message are confined to the known world and because I love the dark, cool-colored tone. Every scene is a sheer delight to watch. For some reason, in my mind, the best time for watching Gattaca is at about 2 at night, when your rested mind is open to deeper thoughts. To me it epitomizes what science-fiction is and does best. I am also delighted by the subtle positive reference to Catholicism: as Vincent is being born, a "faith birth," his mother has a rosary in her hand.
Contact, of course, also has its many strengths. It's one of the only movies I know of that deals with contact with aliens in a plausible way. There are so many breath-holding scenes: when young Ellie is racing for her father's heart medication, when Hadden reveals that he has cracked the aliens' code, when the Machine is destroyed by a religious terrorist, when Hadden reveals (again!) that he has built a secret, second Machine, when Ellie takes the time-bending journey through the Einstein-Rosen bridge (aka wormhole)! Moreso than Gattaca, Contact also explores religious themes, having some poignant things to say about faith in the unprovable. It also has some religious quirks, notably when Matthew McConaughey's character describes himself as "a man of the cloth without the cloth" (who says "man of the cloth" anymore, anyway?) and when he says that some theologians have been chosen to be on the international Machine committee. Right. I wish.
25Optimum in vita: "There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him * who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" (Eccl. 2:24-25 NRSV)