A Few Small Items
First off, this book looks delightful! I’ll have to pick up a copy once I have the ready cash to do so.
“The story is set in the 17th century. It begins with a confession, written in 1692, by the simple-minded younger daughter of the man who was minister in Nell’s village more than 30 years before. We then move to 1645, and a story written in the present tense mainly from Nell’s point of view. The life of the village, its customs, inhabitants and especially the conflict between the old religion of paganism and a puritan Christianity is wonderfully evoked.” – Ad?le Geras, The Guardian on the novel “The Merrybegot”
Secondly I saw the movie “Million Dollar Baby” which I thought was extremly well-done, and not at all what you would think it is. I’ll have to give a detailed write-up at some other point, but for now I will share a very funny quote from the Catholic priest in the movie (played by Brian F. O’Byrne) who responded to the main character’s needling about Jesus being a “demi-god”.
“There are no demi-gods you fucking pagan!”
Finally the London Free Press defends it’s religious reporting from an irate reader (who feels that Christianity is getting shafted in coverage) by claiming that diversity makes it hard to get to everything in todays hectic world.
“She didn’t leave her name or number, so we didn’t have a chance to chat, but here is what I would have said: Ramadan is an important religious event for Muslims. Yom Kippur is an important event for Jews. Ash Wednesday is not as important as Christmas or Easter and it’s hard to imagine any religion gets more space in this newspaper than Christianity. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but many religions and cultural groups don’t get a word in this newspaper all year, and that is a bad thing. Still, we can’t do it all. …Last week, you might have seen something on Imbolc, a Wicca celebration; and Setsubun-sai, a Shinto celebration, if we covered every festival or religious celebration.” – Paul Berton, Editor-In-Chief
But don’t worry, I’ll never be too busy to cover the Pagans!
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