Quote of the Week

God did not wrap himself up in flesh, humbling himself to the point of birth in a stable and death on a cross, eating, laughing, weeping, and suffering as one of us, so that I can complain to management when a barista at Starbucks wishes me "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." The incarnation isn’t about desperately grasping at the threads of power and privilege. It’s not about making some civic holiday "bigger and better." It’s about surrendering power, setting aside privilege, and finding God in the smallness and vulnerability of a baby in a womb.
--Rachel Held Evans, "Mary, the Magnificat, and an Unsentimental Advent," Rachel Held Evans' Blog, December 05, 2017

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Joan of Arcadia: “The Uncertainty Principle”

This had the potential to become the stupidest episode in the entire series -- but somehow the last five minutes managed to redeem it when we the audience were given a glimpse of what terrible things could have happened had it not been for Joan's actions earlier in the episode. Granted, I can think of many reasons why this episode should not work as well as it did. After all, we have seen far too many episodes of senseless violence in the real world to believe that one individual --even a fictional one -- can stop all such acts of evil.

And yet even God himself was not suggesting in this episode that it was possible for one person to stop all such terrible deeds. Just one.

And I would like to believe -- nay, I need to believe -- that sometimes stopping just one is enough.

And if you can stop one, you can stop two. And so on and so on...

Anyway, it's a lot better than believing the exact opposite.

Movie Quote of the Week

Caesar had his legions, Napoleon had his armies, I have my divisions. TV, news, magazines. And by midnight I'll have reached and influenced more people than anyone in the history of this planet, save God Himself. And the best He ever managed was the Sermon on the Mount.
--Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Quote of the Week

A universe more complicated than one can imagine fits with a God who is greater than we can imagine.
--Bruce Bawer, Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity

Movie Quote of the Week

God made men. Men made slaves.
--John Derek, The Ten Commandments (1956)

TV Quote of the Week

Where my heart is concerned, I am God.
--Louise Sorel, Night Gallery, “Pickman’s Model”

Hey, I Remember This Show: Joan of Arcadia

Wow! William Shakespeare, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Neil Armstrong and Harold Lloyd? That's some company.

I really wanted to find out what happens in this show's third season but, alas, I'll never know.

Pop Song of the Week: “One of Us”

It's one of the most spiritually ambiguous songs of our time. Is Ms. Osborne mocking the idea of a Supreme Deity? Is she arguing on Its behalf? You can find evidence in this video to support both points of view.

Maybe it's a Catholic thing but I always preferred to give Ms. Osborne the benefit of a doubt. After all, they used this song as the theme song for Joan of Arcadia so it can't be that bad, right? Right?

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Joan of Arcadia: “Pilot”

I found Joan of Arcadia to be a surprisingly good series, at least for the first twelve episodes after which it started being a bit uneven. When it was good, it was very good, but all too often, it settled for being just okay.

Ironically, the one factor that made me reluctant to start watching the show was not the premise (teenage girl talks to God) but the casting of Joe Mantegna as the family patriarch. Mantegna has played so many bad guys in movies like House of Games and The Godfather: Part III that I initially found it hard to believe he could play such a benign character. But he won me over eventually and so did Mary Steenburgen (who plays his wife) and Amber Tamblyn (who plays his daughter -- the title character). In fact, the whole cast was better than I expected and I am sorry that the show did not last longer than two seasons.

The plot of the first episode revolves around the title character's discovery that she could talk to God and how she eventually adjusts to it. God does not just appear to her as a disembodied voice or as some old guy with a beard but in a variety of guises, no doubt intended to symbolize the various roles God plays in our lives. Each episode he gives her some vague advice that she reluctantly acts upon. Sometimes she sees the final results. Sometimes she does not.

It eventually turns out that the reason she could talk to God -- or at least, the reason she is given for being able to talk to God -- involves a prayer she made on behalf on an older brother who was injured in a car crash. Apparently the boy was near death at the time Joan prayed and now Joan feels obliged to make up for his recovery by following God's advice.

What happens to Joan as a result of said advice? That remains to be seen in future episodes.

Possible Responses to Joan Osborne’s Song Lyric “What If God Was One of Us”

1. What is this “If”? How do you know God wasn’t one of us?

2. What is this “One”? I happen to believe in a triform deity myself. I just don’t believe in this newfangled monotheism.

3. What is this “Us”?