Sunday, December 28, 2008

Three Beautiful Things 12/28/08: Worship, Old Friends, Keener

1. I am making an increasingly earnest effort to attend church service on Sunday morning and now the newness of having returned is dropping away. My spirit is becoming attuned to the order of worship again, so I'm experiencing the order of worship the way that works best for me. It's not fresh. It's not new each week. It's not spontaneous. The more I attend services, the more I can slide easily and fully into the regularity, familiarity, and predictable rhythms of the service and within the framework of this repetition, I meditate, pray, contemplate; I feel the wonders of the Trinity more deeply.

2. Since some of my friends from high school are friends of mine on Facebook, I decided to create a photo album of pictures from over the last four or five years that feature friends we went to high school with.

3. I watched the 40 Year-Old Virgin tonight. I recognize how artfully Steve Carell played the role of Andy, but I didn't think he was the heart of the movie. He may have been its center, but he wasn't its heart. Catherine Keener (Trish) was. In contrast to all of Andy's friends and in contrast to the other women he tried to date, Trish moved through her world with maturity, wisdom, intelligence, and without pretension. She's quick to love, quick to smile and laugh, and wise to the ways of the world. She's experienced a lot. Keener played this role perfectly. Until she appeared and slowly began to be more prominent in the movie, I was growing tired of this story, its characters, and the redundant humor. Keener jolted the movie alive for me and her characters' generosity, understanding, insight, and playfulness had me, by the end of the movie, ready to throw on a tie dye (if I had one) and sing and dance to the "Age of Aquarius".

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