Fern-seed and Elephants, by C. S. Lewis, is yet another collection of Christian essays from Lewis.#

Membership#

This essay is about what it means to be a member of the church as opposed to a member in the modern sense of a nation, company, or club.#

An interesting quote on the relation between governance and the Fall:#

I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe that authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple, to have been asm uch a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I beleive that if we had not fallen Filmer would be right, and patriarchial monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that 'all powers corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' The only remedy has been to take away the powers and substitute a legal fiction of equality. The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authiority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin) but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. [p. 19]

Learning in War-time#

In this essay, Lewis wonders about how scholars can justify themselves in continuing to study and learn during war time. In this pondering, he discusses the reasons why we concern ourselves with war and show how they are inferior to the care we should give to the war that is constantly going on: the war over the destination of our eternal souls.#

The question of how one can study when there are more important things going about leads to the question of how one can do anything but be devout when our salvation hangs on such a thin string. This leads Lewis to explain how a Christian is a man who devotes the entirety of his natural abilities and occupations to the glorification of God, whatever those abilities and occupations may be. It is not noble actions that make Men noble, but noble Men that make actions noble.#

On Forgiveness#

In this essay, Lewis discusses the differences between and the confusion about forgiveness versus excusing. Forgiveness is recognizing the error, not denying it, and assuring that the person in err will be treated as if it never happened. Excusing, on the other, is defending the action and claiming that there was no trespass.#

Lewis remarks that often we ask God to excuse us when we ask for forgiveness, and in doing so ignore the part of actions that is truly without excuse. He then talks about how we must give others forgiveness and not hold grudges after the hearing and honouring excuses.#

Historicism#

This essay is about the problem of trying to read a `greater' meaning to God's story. Lewis discusses the assumptions about history that such a meaning would entail and shows how it is incredibly arrogant and foolish to presume that we can read a meaning from the tiny section of life that we can experience and read about.#

The World's Last Night#

This essay discusses the abrupt end of days that is predicated in Jesus Christ's teachings, and how it is unpredictable. Given that it is unpredictable, we must always be ready and not allow temptation to risk today what cannot be re-earned tomorrow.#

Religion and Rocketry#

A commentary on what meaning alien life would give to gospel and how to interpret the Bible on this subject. Odd, but interesting.#

The Efficacy of Prayer#

A discussion of the obvious topic from the title. Some of the ideas seem reminiscent from the inquiry into Miracles.#

Fern-seed and Elephants#

The title essay, about Biblical criticism and interpretation and how if modern critics cannot understand modern authors, it is unlikely that we can get anything but confused from trying the methodology on ancient texts.#

Corpse Bridge, from Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carte, and Emily Watson.#

This movie was interesting and kind of cute. It was definitely more accessible than past odd Tim Burton movies. When I left, I remarked to myself how appropriate it would be for children despite the oddness of the characters.#

Recommendation: Probably the best thing this week, definitly rose above my expectations.#

Lord of War stars Nicholas Cage, Bridget Moynahan, and Jared Leto. Ethan Hawke cameos.#

This was probably the best movie I've seen all year. Highly recommended.#

Just Like Heaven stars Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. It was very cute and you'd like it if you like romantic comedies.#

The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey stars Aamir Khan and Toby Stephens. Cameo by Rani Mukherjee.#

Recommendation: I thought this movie was made well, except that the period was not exploited to have beautiful dance scenes... the movie found itself too serious to have great songs. I disliked the movie, however, due to the source material. I tend to take the British side on the history of the incident and the life of this one person is quite obviously exaggerated. You can read more on Wikipedia: Sepoy Mutiny.#

Salaam Namaste is the latest Yash Raj release. It stars Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta; for backup is Arshad Warsi and Tania Zaetta. There is a surprise appearance by a Bachchan, and it is great.#

Saif and Preity have great chemistry in this movie. And by herself, Preity is slowly becoming one of my favourite actresses. She's been more diverse than my previous third, Kareena. (The first is, of course, Aish.) (The second is Rani.)#

The story of this movie is very cute and like my favourite kind of Bollywood movie, it uses the additional hour to have a wider emotional range, rather than more songs or montages. The only ``problem'' with the story is that it is very untraditional, but does not exploit this as much for commentary.#

Overrall the songs are nothing special, but the title track has quality in both the sound and the dance at the time. The ``What's Goin' On?'' song has a very cute dance sequence to it.#

Recommendation: Medium to high.#