I didn't scroll down far enough on Avdat's site!  He also tagged me for this. 

1. One movie that made you laugh
Forty Year Old Virgin

2. One movie that made you cry
E.T. (me too, Marvin)

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
The Empire Strikes Back (still love it too, Marvin!)

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Breakfast at Tiffany's

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
Titanic.  (Now as the mother of a daughter, the ending appalls me.  Faking your death!  Horrid.)

6. One movie you hated
L.A. Confidential

7. One movie that scared you
The Silence of the Lambs

8. One movie that bored you
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

9. One movie that made you happy
Swingers (guys are as insecure as girls re: dating - who knew?)

10. One movie that made you miserable
The Departed.  (I love the movie, the ending just makes me miserable)

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
The Exorcist

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Han Solo

13. The last movie you saw
Atonement

14. The next movie you hope to see
Sex and the City

Avdat tagged me.

1. One book that changed your life:
The Peaceable Kingdom, by Stanley Hauerwas

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
I read almost all of the fiction I own more than once.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
How to Survive on This Not So Deserted Island by the Survivors of Oceanic Flight 815

4. One book that made you laugh:
Emma Who Saved My Life, by Wilton Barnhardt.

5. One book that made you cry:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Your Definitive Guide to Raising Brigid Collins by her Creator

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
anything by Bishop Spong.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Clockers by Richard Price (well, I finished it two days ago and haven't started anything else yet)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

I had a dream about Idris Elba the other night, who played Stringer Bell on The Wire, which led me to peruse the Television Without Pity forum for any interesting post-Wire news, and I was momentarily baffled by all the 90210 talk in The Wire's section.  But lo and behold, it turns out that Tristan Wilds is starring in the new 90210 spinoff (basically in the Jason Priestly/Brandon Walsh role).  Very exciting.  I just might have to catch an episode.  There's some discussion in the TWP forums about whether he's the token minority on the show, with some saying yes and others no because he's the male lead, not just the sidekick.  Interesting issues to think about, but I do hope it's good for his career.  He's a fine actor. 

 

This Protestant finds herself wishing she could have seen the Pope.  Amy Welborn did excellent coverage.  I like this from his sermon to the youth gathering.

"At times, however, we are tempted to close in on ourselves, to doubt the strength of Christ’s radiance, to limit the horizon of hope. Take courage! Fix your gaze on our saints. The diversity of their experience of God’s presence prompts us to discover anew the breadth and depth of Christianity. Let your imaginations soar freely along the limitless expanse of the horizons of Christian discipleship. Sometimes we are looked upon as people who speak only of prohibitions. Nothing could be further from the truth! Authentic Christian discipleship is marked by a sense of wonder. We stand before the God we know and love as a friend, the vastness of his creation, and the beauty of our Christian faith."

"But our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth not Him to love us. Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love." - Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 39.

I thought I was doing well with something I was struggling with, but last week I had the chance to show it and failed spectacularly by being cruel to someone.

Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not always in peace and love.

I have not been to church since Easter.  My circumstances are making it difficult to get to my new church (meets at 5pm on Sunday) and I don't really want to go back to my old church.  So I'm not sure what to do.  At this point I probably just need to get myself to any church.

It's the thinking I was doing well part that got me - that spiritual pride.  It'll get ya every time.

On a lighter note, my parents kept Brigid (who is 2 1/2 years old) overnight on Saturday and took her to their church on Sunday morning.  When I picked her up I asked her what she did that morning.  "Went to church and saw boys!"  Oh my. 

"Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day. But these are not enough without the great hope, which must surpass everything else. This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us. His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life."

Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi 

This, from my new church which I have not been able to attend for the past few weeks, is so good it makes me weep.  It is truly speaking to all the questions and struggles I have right now.  To me, this is exactly what I need in a church (besides weekly Eucharist, which they have) - sound, thoughtful theology that wrestles with our own experience and speaks the Word.  I don't need theology that takes resurrection and twists it to mean exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to mean.  I need hope in the Risen One. 

David Simon said, "We are a culture without the will to seriously examine our own problems. We eschew that which is complex, contradictory or confusing. As a culture, we seek simple solutions. We enjoy being provoked and titillated, but resist the rigorous, painstaking examination of issues that might, in the end, bring us to the point of recognizing our problems, which is the essential first step to solving any of them..."

There is a lot of news coverage* here in Chicago about the murder rate among children and teenagers.  WBEZ, our public radio station, is doing a series on one young man's story.  Part One and Part Two.

"O’CONNOR: Addolfo Davis? Any time you’re talking about a juvenile who started a criminal career at the age of 8 and had an armed robbery under his belt by the age of 10, and then at the age of 14 commits a double murder? Ummm, I think that says quite a bit about that juvenile…   

David O’Connor was a prosecutor at Addolfo Davis’s trial. Addolfo was 5 feet tall, 100 pounds and had barely turned 14 when he and two others were arrested for a brutal crime: home invasion, double murder and attempted double murder.  A man they abducted testified that he heard them talk about who would die and who would be allowed to live.

O'CONNOR: That, I think, is indicative of a certain mentality that the vast majority of the public has just NEVER encountered.

In fact, O’Connor says, Addolfo was the worst of the worst…the kind of street-smart, violent kid who adults couldn’t reach."

Addolfo committed his first robbery at the age of nine because he was hungry and wanted money to buy something to eat.  His mother was an addict.  He was happy in juvenile detention center because "I ate on time 3 times a day. I got snacks. I had clothes. I had my OWN room."  He ran the streets because his home was too chaotic and was recruited by a gang. 

"By the time he was about 13, his rap sheet included armed robbery and several counts of automobile theft. Gang members had taught him to hot-wire cars.

DAVIS: Everything that I did was basically to get money so I can take care myself. I ain’t just go stealin’ no car, just to be stealin’ no car. Cuz I didn’t even know how to drive that good.  So I just stole the car, drove it a few blocks and took off what they want it for..

It often happens to kids like Addolfo that older gang members want more.  Pretty soon Addolfo was selling drugs and pulling down some big money.

DAVIS:  Yeah,  $250 a week? I was like, man, I was THE MAN. You know I had brand new clothes, I had food. I wasn’t riding no car, I had a brand new bike…"

DCFS removes him from his mother's home and places him with his grandmother, but her home is "more like a cellar than an apartment. There were no separate bedrooms and no designated kitchen, just a refrigerator against the wall. The electricity they had came from an extension cord that snaked up the stairs to the landlord’s apartment." 

"Addolfo’s probation officer had more problems with him. He’s no longer alive, but in testimony he described Addolfo as an uncooperative and emotionally troubled youth who showed no remorse and took no responsibility for his actions. Eight months before the crime took place this probation officer recommended to DCFS that Addolfo be removed from his home. He never heard back from the agency.

A clinical evaluation done 7 months before the crime, paints an alarming picture:  Addolfo reportedly banged his head  against the wall, occasionally burned himself with cigarettes, and was seen jumping from one high building to another. Both Cassandra Jackson, the social worker and Addolfo’s probation officer agreed that Addolfo needed more adult help.

JACKSON:  He was adamant that Addolfo should have been removed from his home. We may have had different reasons, but he was adamant about that.. I can’t speak to if he really saw Addolfo as dangerous. He saw him as needing structure, and needing supervision, for sure.  

Shortly after his 14th birthday, Addolfo Davis was made a ward of the state. The probation officer specifically asked the state not  to put Addolfo in a temporary shelter because he was concerned that Addolfo would run away. If no residential setting could be found, he said, Addolfo whould be placed temporarily in a psychiatric facility. In spite of the warning, DCFS did exactly what it was asked not to do. Addolfo was put in a temporary shelter that some experts have described as a “human warehouse.”

As predicted, he ran away. The murders took place 5 days later."

My co-worker's son was murdered about six years ago when he was fourteen by a stray bullet while sitting on his own front porch.  Addolfo's story is painful to hear, and so are the stories of the victims.  We tolerate this state of affairs in our cities.  I'm not sure what it would mean to not tolerate it.  Look at all the factors in this story.   Gangs.  Poverty.  Addiction.  Institutions such as DCFS, the justice system, the police.  What are the answers? 

*I googled some terms and came up with the Baltimore Sun for some reason, but it has a good listing of Chicago stories.

I was in NJ for Easter visiting family.  My grandfather's church was half empty (or half full, depending on how you look at it) for Easter, and I was stunned.  I don't know what to think about that right now, and I don't feel like blogging about it either.

So.  I was in the middle of The Echo Maker and I left it at an oil change place an hour away, so there's no chance of getting it back.  Bummer.  Anyone read it and know what happens?  I know, I could go to the library, but I am incapable of returning books on time and rack up ridiculous fines so I avoid the library now.  It's cheaper for me to just buy it. 

Next on my reading list: Wuthering Heights.  Awesome.   "In fact, books without literal sex in them were even more exciting because the filthy-minded then has all this fun work to do, reading sex into the undescribed corners of the narrative. Yum! Why else does anyone become an English major? My religious students seem to understand."  I was an English and Religious Studies double major.  But God, I hated Tess of the d'Urbervilles. 

I didn't know Steve Long had a new book out!  Here's a review from The Other Journal.

And lest we forget about it, here's the awesome review by Tony Asure posted on amazon.com about The Goodness of God.  I am proud to say I was the one who told him about it during coffee hour at church long ago.