Three Beautiful Things 07/14/13: The Good Samaritan, The Movie "Hannah Arendt", Half Baked

1.  It was an intriguing perspective Rev. Betsy Tesi developed in her sermon on the story of the Good Samaritan:  what the story looks like from the victim's point of view, a victim who was stupid to be on the road to Jericho alone, who, no doubt, was embarrassed by his situation -- so much so that he might have been relieved when the priest and the Levite passed him by.  The story raises the question as to whether we are ready to allow ourselves to he helped.

2.  I go to movies primarily to be provoked, to think more fully and deeply about the things that matter in my life and in life itself.  Summertime is usually a crummy time for me to go to the movies, but thank goodness for the Bijou and the Bijou Metro in Eugene.  This afternoon I sat down with about a half a dozen other viewers in a theater that holds sixteen people and watched "Hannah Arendt" and my mind went into overdrive thinking about the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, and Arendt's famous insight into the banality of evil.  It's a more corporate (as opposed to individual) way of looking at evil that has made good sense to me for years, but it is so indicting of the evil we all are a part of as participants in any number of systems, systems which seem to relieve us of moral deliberation, systems which do our thinking for us.  It's unsettling.  We revere many of these systems and to be critical of them is often regarded as unAmerican.  Arendt's is a highly unpopular view.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie and the challenges Arendt confronted her readers with when Eichmann in Jerusalem was published in 1963 and the challenges her thinking confronted me with in 2013. 

3.  I'm slowly losing a bit more weight.  I've lost at least fifteen pounds since December 26, 2012, when my nephrologist recorded my weight at over 250 pounds.  I'm around, and often under, 235 now.  I want to keep moving in this direction and so it was with great deliberation that I resolved to go ahead and buy myself a pint of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked ice cream this evening.  I hadn't had ice cream for months and while the ice cream might compromise my efforts to lose weight, it made a hell of a contribution to my morale and my overall sense that life can be pretty tasty and refreshing at times.