Beautiful Господи помилуй Lord Have Mercy

by Andrea Elizabeth

 

The video is borrowed from the movie Ostrov

here’s the translation

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Peterson, Pageau et co.

by Andrea Elizabeth

I loved this panel q&a with Peterson, Pageau et co.; especially the parts about the pleasure pool vs the marriage pool since the pill from the lady doctor, and Peterson’s talk about forgiveness.

Donnie Darko and determinism

by Andrea Elizabeth

in my last post has been edited for clarity for those who know the story, which is summarized in the links.

Donnie Darko 2

by Andrea Elizabeth

Spoiler alert

***

There is an interesting conversation about determinism in the middle of the movie between Donnie and his science teacher. The teacher talks about free will and Donnie talks about God’s channel, which turns out to be a series of unfortunate events to be executed to save the world.

Pro God’s channel: all things work together for good.

Con: Donnie compromises himself to please a scary rabbit. He tells his psychologist it’s because the rabbit saved his life, and so that he won’t be alone. The latter in particular sounds like a reason people talk to demons. But at the end he turns on the rabbit, either because he’s fated/being obedient, or because the rabbit accidentally killed his gf? It seems like killing the rabbit is a crime of passion, but one he regrets.

I just read that Donnie had a previous history of arson (don’t remember this from the movie) so maybe he had already compromised himself and he really didn’t mind didn’t doing crimes.

Pro God’s lab rats: A lot of people are unaware how their actions contribute to the bigger picture, and do operate out of primitive impulses, which God eventually orchestrates for the greater good.

Con: Awareness brings a whole nother level of free will. At the end, for the first time Donnie is a willing, knowledgeable participant. Wait, he had figured out the time travel before then so maybe he killed Frank just to randomly obey the Channel. I have a problem with that Machiavellian view.

Conclusion: Perhaps eventually, some sooner, some later, everyone is given a choice to be a willing selfless uncompromised participant in God’s will, or to continue in the opposite type participant. I do think God motivates and demotivates people like Pharaoh to do things within their own natures (personal state of habits, not general human nature) to unwittingly contribute to the greater good. But Moses didn’t make criminally mischievous plagues as a seemingly random acts like the rabbit instructed Donnie to do. Moses was aware and instructive, and Pharaoh ignored him.

Donnie’s willing, aware choice to die and save everyone else at the end redeems the God channel plot. If the other deaths hadn’t been reversed it would have given killers an excuse. Like Cromwell saying it was God’s will that he killed them (not that there’s no such thing as a just war. I don’t believe Cromwell’s was though. At all.). But like Paul says to the notion: so that grace may abound? God forbid!

And like Jesus said, it is inevitable that there be stumbling blocks, but woe to him through whom they come!

gotcha?

by Andrea Elizabeth

Do you pray because you are good, or because you are bad?

but then it is good for bad people to pray, so…

Donnie Darko

by Andrea Elizabeth

I’m trying to sort this movie out after going 17 years of hearing nothing about it till my daughter’s recent recommendation from her boyfriend. It was interesting seeing young Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. So far I’ve read this explanation. Rated R for language and a scary bunny.

Holy Week

by Andrea Elizabeth

3/4 time

winter and spring (beat) art thine (3 beats) with thy birth (2 beats) and (beat) thy rising (4 beats).

summer and fall (beat) we wait.

Lambert and the fish (book 2, part 3)

by Andrea Elizabeth

Before Yvaine could completely cool down, Lambert caught a fish in a nearby stream and plopped it down on a flower.

Lambert!!!

It’s good fertilizer.

Why won’t you even act like you’re listening to me!!!

This was too much, and her eyes blazed at the fish on the flower. Before she knew it, the fish was nicely blackened.

There.

Lambert picked up the fish with his claw and handed her half of it.

Yvaine took a bite and forgot all about her anger.

someone on facebook was wrong

by Andrea Elizabeth

The English Civil War was from 1642 – 1651, which was pretty early in the American colonial period, not afterward, which someone erroneously claimed when I said a lot of my English ancestors came over during this period. I was vindicated today upon viewing Netflix’s Paradise Lost, The Life and Times of John Milton. I could only get through a bit of Paradise Lost a while back because of the misogyny. Not only was Milton hard on women, he was a supporter of King Charles I’s regicide by his admired friend, the iconoclastic Oliver Cromwell. Milton survived Charles II’s reprisals because he had friends in high places, and he was so poetic. Another case of form over content that I do not agree with.

Lambert and Yvaine and the flowers (book 2, part 2)

by Andrea Elizabeth

As Lambert and Yvaine passed on, they came to a lovely field of fresh spring flowers.

Y: You’re stepping on the flowers.

L: It releases their delicious fragrance.

Y: And kills them.

L: But there’s lots.

Y: Lambert!! You were oblivious, and now you’re pretending it’s on purpose and doesn’t matter!

L: Oh, look at that lovely outcropping over there!

Y: Grrrr! (with fire coming out of her eyes)

Lambert nonchalantly proceeds to choose steps between the flowers as Yvaine’s eyes begin to cool and turn to the lovely outcropping over there.