Yes, I read it - after much pressure. Now I'm posting my thoughts here where I doubt those who recommended the book so highly will find them. To them I may present my opinions more tactfully:)
Overall, I think it's simply drivel, and not worth a long post here. There are thousands of good books to read that will provide more satisfying romance and suspense in a healthier atmosphere. However, there is one distinction I'd like to make.
Edward is widely esteemed, even adored by young women for possessing "unearthly self-control". He does, in one respect. He can control his desire for Bella's blood, but this should not be confused with his self-discipline where Bella herself is concerned. Their relationship is marked by a stereotypical impetuosity and ignorance that can only harm those involved. Ladies, before placing him on a par with Edward Ferrars, take a caveat from the character of his other namesake, Edward Rochester, noteworthy for his weaknesses.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Something someone fowarded to me
From Magnificat magazine. It struck me as very Chestertonian, and an excellent reminder of what Advent allows time for.
WHY THE FATHER REVEALS THINGS TO THE CHILDLIKE
It becomes very evident why our Lord tells us to become as little children (MT 18:3) and what is involved in it; we can see how it is related to the theme of 'vacate', taking a break from being God, to let Him be God. Little children do not have piles of important correspondence on their desks, nor rows of shiny telephones to handle all their important business transactions. Becoming as a little child means unlearning the false solemnity of adolescence, unlearning the false maturity and self-importance of ideology and Puritanism. It means forgetting to run the world, forgetting to run one another's lives. It means forgetting even to run our own lives. This sheds light also on Saint Paul's words that we must not be conformed to this world. If we would learn the true sense in which God is a God of order, we must first unlearn that kind of order which we try to impose on the world and on ourselves and on one another, simply to subject everything to ourselves, to protect us from the wideness and freedom of God's world. The mystics leave us in no doubt that any real growth in prayer, in communion with God, leads us into the desert, into the place of wild wide wastes, where we can get no bearings. We must come out from behind the security of our homemade identity, our self-appointed responsibilities, into the spaciousness of God's world, a spaciousness whose dimensions and orientation we shall only gradually learn to recognize as freedom, within which we shall only gradually discover our true responsibilities.
Fr. Simon Tugwell, O.P.
WHY THE FATHER REVEALS THINGS TO THE CHILDLIKE
It becomes very evident why our Lord tells us to become as little children (MT 18:3) and what is involved in it; we can see how it is related to the theme of 'vacate', taking a break from being God, to let Him be God. Little children do not have piles of important correspondence on their desks, nor rows of shiny telephones to handle all their important business transactions. Becoming as a little child means unlearning the false solemnity of adolescence, unlearning the false maturity and self-importance of ideology and Puritanism. It means forgetting to run the world, forgetting to run one another's lives. It means forgetting even to run our own lives. This sheds light also on Saint Paul's words that we must not be conformed to this world. If we would learn the true sense in which God is a God of order, we must first unlearn that kind of order which we try to impose on the world and on ourselves and on one another, simply to subject everything to ourselves, to protect us from the wideness and freedom of God's world. The mystics leave us in no doubt that any real growth in prayer, in communion with God, leads us into the desert, into the place of wild wide wastes, where we can get no bearings. We must come out from behind the security of our homemade identity, our self-appointed responsibilities, into the spaciousness of God's world, a spaciousness whose dimensions and orientation we shall only gradually learn to recognize as freedom, within which we shall only gradually discover our true responsibilities.
Fr. Simon Tugwell, O.P.
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