AnthonyFosterPhD

What we have in the latest adaptation of True Grit is a film that keeps in cadence with the tone and pace of the original Charles Portis book. The film stays true, to some degree, to the Biblical overtones of the novel, which portrayed Mattie almost as the avenging angel of a wrathful God. In my opinion, however, this somewhat pedantic adherence to the text stifles the cinematic interpretation. What reads well on the page does not make great dialog. The movie mirrors the same flaws as the original text, so this is no surprise. It is a tale of vengeance, not justice. The result is plodding and sometime boring exercise. More than too much attention is paid to the archaic English that sidesteps contractions so obviously that it seems strained. My main complaint is for the weakness of the villains in the film. They are neither well-developed or particularly interesting. This might have been alleviated by a scene showing the murder of Frank Ross. The drivenness of Mattie is fueled b...

We have been going through the Tozer classic again as part of our nightly devotions. Tozer's prayers have been resounding in my heart as I have been drawn to meditate on God as our portion. Here are some words that flowed from the readings... Follow Hard O God, I taste and see that You are good At your table I am satisfied to feed I thirst anew and hunger for your food So painfully conscious of my need I am desperate for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. Oh Lord my God I seek Your face Your presence is what I require. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing for You I thirst to be made more thirsty still. And want to quench this thirst anew Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, That so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love Within me plant Your holy seed. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, My fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise above And fly from this misty lowland I pray. I would follow up and fol...

We will weep with those who weep And laugh with those who laugh This is deep calling unto deep The paradox of compassion’s path Rejoice with those who rejoice And mourn with those who mourn This is the consecrated choice The blessing to which we are born To enter in with empathy Longsuffering with sympathy Where deep despair and joy sublime In tension make a perfect rhyme We will ache with those who ache And be blessed with the blessed This dust shall die for love’s own sake For this is our trust and test. Anthony Foster January 9, 2010

The link is at http://www.typotex.hu/index.php?page=en/content&content_id=2288 so you can copy paste into browser in case the one below does not work...

From Typotex: "We found that social networks have clusters of happy and unhappy people within them that reach out to three degrees of separation. A person's happiness is related to the happiness of their friends, their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends-that is, to people well beyond their social horizon. We found that happy people tend to be located in the center of their social networks and to be located in large clusters of other happy people. And we found that each additional happy friend increases a person's probability of being happy by about 9%. For comparison, having an extra $5,000 in income (in 1984 dollars) increased the probability of being happy by about 2%. This premise holds that happiness, in short, is not merely a function of personal experience, but also is a property of groups. Emotions are a collective phenomenon.This is worth thinking about in light of Scripture...