dual personalities

December is here and Advent with it. Katiebelle is playing with her new nativity set which was handmade by daughter #3. I have always contended (like my mother before me) that children should have their own creche and unbreakable nativity figurines to play with. When they are a little older, they can have their own little tree and their own ornaments. Start those collections early!

Paul Zahl is back with a roundup of good movies to watch on TCM in December. He is, as always, right on target and this made me laugh regarding The Bishop’s Wife: “Nathan’s novel is more detached than the film, and perhaps a little cynical concerning the long-term spiritual prospects of the bishop. But, hey, when it comes to most bishops, I’ve come to feel about the same way Nathan did. Wish I didn’t.”

If you have an hour to spare, this is a great conversation with Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr., filmed back in 1995, about a year before Ben died. Those two old-timers have some wonderful stories to tell from their movie-making days.

As I mentioned earlier, I have been catching up on Michael Caine movies and the other night I watched Alfie (1966). It was quite risqué for its day and the amoral womanizing of the anti-hero Alfie was considered rather scandalous even by swinging ’60s sophisticates. “Live for yourself, like I do” is Alfie’s motto. “I never want to hurt anybody,” he says, but, of course, he does. Ultimately, he hurts no one so much as himself.

I couldn’t help thinking as I watched the movie that what has obviously changed in our society in the 55 years since its debut is that today everyone (and specifically women) is encouraged to “live for yourself.” In fact, since the feminist “revolution,” woman feel free, even entitled, to act just like Alfie. Such bad behavior as Alfie demonstrates is no longer judged to be “wicked”–at least when women act that way. And the climactic abortion scene would be considered no big deal today. In the film, the seriousness of the event even shocks selfish Alfie into realizing that a perfect little life has been ended without its having had a say in the matter. Gosh, what old-fashioned thinking!

While I didn’t find this “comedy” to be very funny, I will say that the movie is a must-see as social commentary and Michael Caine is sensational. It was a break-through part indeed.

I also will note that I watched Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979) which I had not seen since 1979. It seemed very dated–all those jazz hands.

Well, watching such movies is a good reminder of what Sinclair Ferguson says: “The mortification of sin is indeed vital. [John] Owen was right: if we are not killing sin, it will be killing us. His memorable one-liner comes as a shock to much modern Christianity: ‘Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts.'” I mean, sin literally kills the Bob Fosse character in All That Jazz–not that this thought is ever actually expressed overtly. But c’mon.

“God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.” — CS Lewis

Amen, brother.

*Billy Collins–read the poem here.