Unearned Luck

Photo by  Pietro Rancan  on  Unsplash Then came Am′alek and fought with Israel at Reph′idim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Am′alek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” -Exodus 17:8-9 Rightly, we think of God as all-powerful, but then we draw a false conclusion: God, therefore, should eradicate all evil or, at least, the evil we see in our own lives. Sacred Scripture, though, has a different understanding of the way in which God exercises His omnipotence. The battle of Amalek against Israel recorded in Exodus 17:8-13 provides a good understanding of how God wants us to fight evil. Amalek marches on Israel with the intention of killing every last one of them. The Israelites prayed for deliverance, but God did not snap His fingers and make Amalek and his army disappear. No. God fully expected the Israelite army to march out of their camp and fight Amalek's army to t...

Photo by Alina Miroshnichenko on Unsplash But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing. -James 1:22-25 I finished reading Dennis Lehane's Gone Baby Gone this week. I wanted to compare it to the movie version, which my son had recommended to me a few months back. I was surprised by what I took to be the Catholic perspective of the movie, although others argue with me about that interpretation. From the opening quote of something Patrick Kenzie's pastor had said to him years previously to his deciding to watch Amanda, while her mother, Helene, resumes her old ways in the final scene of the movie, P...

Kurt Wallander, an inspector with the Ystad Police Department, is the protagonist in a series of crime novels written by Swedish novelist, Henning Mankell. Nine of the novels were dramatized and presented on the BBC in 2008, 2010, and 2012. Starring Kenneth Branaugh as Wallander, the BBC production, according to critics, did a very good job of presenting the novels and Branaugh did an equally good job of portraying the police inspector. Wallander, tortured by the evils and horrors that confront him in his job, has become detached, depressed, and cynical. In the first story in the BBC series, his wife has already left him and found another man. His daughter seems to have little respect for him and is not at all sympathetic with the sorrow he feels in losing his wife. Having no faith of any kind, trusting no one, and unable to form any friendships, Wallander's only solution to the pain, confusion, and frustration in his life is to spend every night drinking until he passes out, the...