First day of the new school year here. A couple of recent comics capture some real contrasts between vacation/school and students/adults well.
Here’s a today’s classic Calvin and Hobbes. Such a great single-panel strip that moves wonderfully well from left to right.
And then here’s a recent WuMo that feels the opposite in almost every way.
There’s some good summer humor in the funny pages today. FoxTrot has an interesting take on real pools and the heat index, while Frazz sees Caulfield and Dr. Spaetzle having a philosophical talk about July turning into August.
But today’s classic Calvin and Hobbes showcases one of Watterson’s great “red wagon” conversations between Calvin and Hobbes that poses a great question about meaning in life.
Tuesday was a bit of an odd one for people in Hawaii. It started out normal enough for me: the final morning of our “spiritual emphasis” time before heading into more meetings and classroom prep for the new school year. The work day was mostly winding down, I was getting ready for a quick drive to Manoa to take care of a couple of quick errands when the first tsunami alert went off telling us about a probably 7:00 arrival of major waves to the island. I assumed I had enough time to make the quick trip, which I did. I probably could have headed back home a little earlier, as the backroads I took were pretty slow (but not as slow as the interstate). Still, I got home with over a couple of hours to wait. I responded to texts from family and friends, checked on my neighbors, and called some friends who live in various parts of the island. And, like most everyone else, I watched news on the television for most of the rest of the night.
Some random observations:
+ I had forgotten how necessary the television can be for making sense of an event like this. By the time the “false missile crisis” was over, there wasn’t much time for tv coverage. But storms and tsunamis are a different story. Lots of news reports with images of various beaches across the island chain. Lots of press conferences. A few live shots of people in Waikiki leaving their hotels to walk on the beach when they really shouldn’t have.
+ The leadership from the front (on the television) seemed pretty solid. They spoke confidently and consistently. They were able to relay a sense of calm, even as they reminded everyone that waves would likely wrap around each island and not just hit one or two places. It was impressive seeing the whole system roll out.
+ Not to sound flippant, but the whole experience felt like waiting for Godzilla to show up. Waves were tracked station by station, with the station on Midway Island being particularly vital. There was as much talk of energy moving as there was of waves, which was interesting. That something could travel so far (and all the way to the coast of California, where it still caused property damage) is sobering.
+ It was weird waking up Wednesday morning to very little on the television about the events of the night before (comparatively, at least). It was all back to normal. There was still a bit of caution until the final call was made Wednesday morning. The Starbucks where I’m writing this opened up an hour late (and they are close to water). And there wasn’t much talk about it at work today, as I suppose we had all moved on to other things.
There has been one interesting article about the event worth a read. This article talks about why such a strong earthquake didn’t produce what many thought it would. It’s good that such a reflection can happen; I’m grateful that things didn’t get anywhere near as bad as they could have.
(image from Spectrum News)
The folks over at Desert Fathers in a Year recently crossed the halfway point of their project. One of the highlights of the project has been the occasional interview with Bishop Erik Varden, who does the exposition of each episode (and answers interview questions quite well).
Varden recently posted a snippet of July’s interview. The snippet deals with the question of temptation and what to do when it happens in our lives. I really like Varden’s answer to the question: it includes some good anthropology as well as a pithy response characteristic of the Fathers. Definitely an internal disposition to aspire to.
With last week’s release of Fantastic Four: First Steps, the summer movie season has pretty much come to a close. There are still some potentially fun movies coming out over the next month, but they aren’t quite “tent pole” movies like those we’ve seen these last couple of months.
A few fun Superman bits.
First: James Gunn recently released full images of the characters present in the “Hall of Justice” mural found in the headquarters of the “Justice Gang.” It’s an interesting look at one version of the history of the DC universe. We know from the movie’s opening shot that metahumans have been around for three hundred years. Lots of interesting choices in the mural: lots of deep cuts that fans have been deciphering since Gunn released the images. Fun seeing Max Mercury in the mix, as he was a key part of Mark Waid’s Flash run back in the day.
Second: Only a handful of clips of the movie have been released outside the theater. Here’s one moment from the “kaiju” scene in the movie. Short, yes, but still a nice moment for the character.
And here’s one more clip from the New York Times, this time with director James Gunn talking through some of the dynamics between a fun-yet-fraught conversation between Lois and Clark.
There’s a fair amount of summer in today’s Sunday funnies. Roger has Jason mowing the yard over in FoxTrot (and Jason responding with some interesting payment metrics).
In the world of Calvin and Hobbes, the summertime explorers find themselves walking the fine line of curiosity and learning (and all because of a snake).
But Frazz has a fun and simple visual that reminds us of two joys of summer: the splish and the splash of time at the pond.
Let’s make it three-for-three on the topic of prayer for this week. On Wednesday I shared about about “The Grain of Prayer” from Fred Sanders. Yesterday’s post shared the “longer version” of the Serenity Prayer. Today’s post is about a prayer that I first discovered as a song.
This summer I spent a few days in a (mostly) silent retreat at an abbey in Oklahoma. In the one actual conversation I had there, a fellow guest told me about “the Litany of Humility,” a wonderfully constructed prayer that inspires humility even in the reading. You can read the whole thing here.
As soon as the fellow guest mentioned the content of the prayer, my memory turned to a song recorded by one of the Franciscan Friars. It’s a great rendition of the prayer, which you can listen to a read below.
Speaking of the summer stay at the abbey: I could go four-for-four on prayer this week, but I’m still reflecting on the time at the abbey and the prayer I wanted to guide my time there.
In yesterday’s post I shared something about prayer. I think it appropriate to do the same today.
The Poco a Poco friars are taking the summer off as a way of marking the year of Jubilee, so I’ve been listening to some of their older podcasts. This week I’ve been listening to their series from May 2022 on the spirituality of the recovery movement. Early in the first episode, one of the friars quotes the Serenity Prayer credited to Reinhold Niebuhr. Most of us know the opening lines of the prayer . . . most of us assume that’s all there is to the prayer. Turns out that there was an addition made to the prayer (many sources say it’s not from Niebuhr) that I think are really interesting. Here’s the “whole” thing (referred to as Niebuhr’s “poem”):
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen
If nothing else, it’s a really nice addition, memorable in its own way, especially the “reasonably happy . . . supremely happy” bit at the end. There’s something very real, down-to-earth about the whole thing (which is one reason why I think the recovery movement has a lot to offer the Church . . . or to help the Church see what it already has).
The folks over at Crossway recently posted an excerpt from The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders having to do with a Trinitarian approach to prayer. Like the rest of the book, it is an enjoyable and edifying read. He writes about “the grain of prayer” in a way that illustrates key things about God, people, and prayer. A quick excerpt:
Wood has a grain to it. The long fibers that make up a piece of wood all run in one direction, and a wise woodworker will always find the direction of that grain before starting to work. He can work along the grain or cut across it, but he avoids planing or sanding against that grain because that is to invite a clash with the directionality built into the piece of wood. Paper has a grain to it as well, which is why you can tear straight lines down the page but not across it. Cat fur has a grain, and if you stroke a cat against that grain, the results are not good for felines or humans. When you work with the grain of the wood, or the paper, or the cat, things go well. When you go against the grain, either because you are oblivious to the structural forces involved or because you consider them negligible, things do not go as well.
The act of prayer has, metaphorically speaking, a grain to it. Prayer has an underlying structure built into it, complete with a directionality that is worth observing. This grain is Trinitarian, running from the Spirit through the Son to the Father. It is a built-in logic of mediation, designed that way by God for reasons deeper than we are likely to fathom. But we do not need to understand it in order to benefit from its solid structural integrity. Nor do we need to take special lessons in praying in a properly Trinitarian fashion. The possibility of praying in a more Trinitarian way is all promise and no threat, all invitation and no danger. Christian prayer is already thoroughly, pervasively, structurally Trinitarian whether you have been noticing it or not. The only thing you have to add is your attention, to begin taking notice of what’s Trinitarian about prayer.
You can read the entire piece here.
It’s summertime in the Sunday funnies. Peppermint Patty and Marcie are spending the day out on a hike and run into something odd in nature.
The folks at WuMo bring out a tension that I’ve never understood: reading books at the beach. I know there are people who do it, but it’s something that’s just beyond me.
And over in FoxTrot? Well, Roger gives two of his kids a real summertime scare.
Space Enough, and Time 