Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 6:41 pm

Eat. Pray? Love. Love?

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (2) |

 One of my best friends is a film critic here in Los Angeles. A perk of this particular job is that she sees movies a few days early and sometimes takes me along (this really is more of a perk for me than it is for her). Such was the case with Eat Pray Love. Having never read the book, everything I knew about the movie I had learned from the ever-present print ads, meaning I knew that Julia Roberts played a woman who wanted to eat gelato, marvel at something, and needed a champion instead of a man.

Turns out that was a pretty comprehensive understanding of the film. I walked out of the theater feeling as if I had just experienced a metaphysical vacuum, noticeable only for what wasn’t there.

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Friday, September 10, 2010 at 1:07 am

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 1:18 am

Why Jennifer Knapp Matters

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (1) |

 I’ve never related to the idea that Jesus is my homeboy. I’ve never been able to get comfortable with Christian t-shirts or bumper stickers, “praise” concerts that echo the latest variation of what U2 sounded like a few years ago, or radio stations that claim to be a ‘”positive” alternative to their secular counterparts. Basically, I have a hard time with Evangelical pop culture. It’s not that I think that it is, in all its various substantiations, wrong, it’s just plain…not enough. 

Despite what you may see on the back of many a jacked up truck, Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson never gave permission for his characters to be merchandized. He explains in the forward of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes that he didn’t want them turned into action figures, printed on underwear, or slapped on a bumper for one simple reason: there was no way such things could properly represent what his stories were about. And he’s completely right. His comic strips are interesting, nuanced, and thoughtful; to translate them to such insufficient mediums would be to erase their value. Seeing what’s happened with his unlicensed images, you can imagine how right he was to resist.

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 7:35 am

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Friday, April 2, 2010 at 12:53 am

On Lent and Hard Times: Death into Life

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (0) |

I taught the Palm Sunday lesson to all the preschool-aged children at my church last Sunday. It was difficult for me to speak truly about the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem while still communicating something they could understand. We ended up talking a little bit about how Jesus hadn’t met the people’s expectations. He hadn’t conquered their oppressors, healed their afflictions, or rescued them from poverty. He hadn’t even challenged Roman rule. And finally, we have him coming into the city, and he’s riding a donkey. What a let down. Despite the people’s praises, I can’t help but imagine their continued disappointment. After all, even the disciples didn’t understand what he was about to do. Everyone is still looking for the earthly king, and he’s not playing along.

The people wanted Jesus to fix them; He wanted to love them. They wanted him to take the city; He wanted to transform the world. In order to do one he would not do the other. He would lose the coming battle.

This weekend we remember that Christ conquered through his own condemnation. He ruled by becoming the suffering servant. He was made glorious through a shameful death. More than ever before, the end of his life demonstrated the distinction between worldly success and heavenly gain. It seems right, therefore, that we have laid aside worldly comforts in preparation for triumph. In some ways, our fasts are nothing but spiritual feasts, echoing the same paradox that Christ himself demonstrated. A battle is lost while a war is won. Death is made into Life. 

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 1:07 am

On Lent and Hard Times: For Those Who Walk Among Noise

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (2) |

Where shall the word be found, where will the word

Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

Not on the sea or on the islands, not

On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,

For those who walk in darkness

Both in the day time and in the night time

The right time and the right place are not here

No place of grace for those who avoid the face

No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice.

After service at our parish, a friend and I read T.S. Elliot’s Ash Wednesday. Though the entire poem is worth much time and thought, this particular stanza leapt at me. For those who walk among noise. Well, that’s me. That’s us.

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:02 pm

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 6:09 pm

On Lent and Hard Times: Seasonal Creatures

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (2) |

 There is a trick employed by many a horse owner that helps them keep their show horses looking sleek and shiny year round. When the days begin to shorten as winter approaches, horses will naturally grow longer, thicker, and courser coats to protect them from the coming cold. But leave the lights on in the barn just a few hours longer everyday, maintaining the long days of summer despite the weather outside, and a horse will keep his shiny summer coat, making it another’s responsibility to blanket him now that his body can no longer recognize the season. The same can be done to a chicken to keep her laying year round, if you don’t mind shortening her life and weakening her product.

I learned this early on in my many years as an equestrian and have thought about it quite a bit since. I was a plague to my college roommates, insisting on dim lighting after sundown, convinced that so much artificial light could not be good for us if it was such a powerful force in nature. Now, I have no idea if that particular extrapolation is true, but of one thing I am convinced: we are all meant to live in seasons.

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 4:05 pm

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Monday, February 8, 2010 at 11:27 pm

On Lent and Hard Times: Part 1

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (0) |

February 17^th is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. Around this time last year I wrote a reflection on fasting as it is portrayed in Isaiah, wondering at the nature of a true fast. I think it’s sort of funny that I end up writing about this stuff, because fasting (like most spiritual disciplines) has never, until very recently, been a big part of my life, and I am not very good at it. I’ve not grown up in churches that observed the church year, nor do I attend one now, so my reflections on the ancient practices such as Lent are usually entirely my own, for better or for worse, written as a newcomer. I say this as a sort of caveat since, in the coming weeks, I will be posting four or five personal and observed reasons why Lent’s extended period of fasting and willing deprivation is good for you, Oh Evangelical Protestant (and of course by you, I mean me and hopefully you).

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Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 8:21 pm

On the Soul

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (0) |

Does it ever give thee pause, that men used to have a soul - not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth that they knew and acted upon. Verily it was another world then... but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls... we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse in all ways shall befall us. ~ Thomas Carlyle 

How might you live differently if you were well aware of the tidings of your soul?

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 12:29 pm

New Year, New You, If Only

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (0) |

New Year's day has come and gone and with it a culture wide battery of resolutions. This is the year we will all be thinner, watch less TV, learn a new skill, read that one book everyone is talking about, go on more dates, give up on dating, cook for ourselves, or spend less.

If you're anything like me, the hope of the new you that seemed so promising on January 1st is already looking a lot like the you that celebrated December 31st. If only actual growth was as easy as resolving to change.

I was wavering with the direction I would take this post, wondering if I should encourage contentment and self-acceptance or remind you to hope and work towards what you want your life, heart, and mind to be. I was undecided until I finished a Harry Potter book this weekend. An unusual source of inspiration for me, I was struck by the wisdom that crept from a mostly silly story. There is a moment at the end of the second book where Harry is worried that he was meant for evil, that his talents and tendencies will betray him and he will sink into the power of the Dark Side (or whatever they call it. I get my modern mythologies confused). Anyways, wise Professor Dumbledore tells him that it is not his talents but his choices that determine what he will be and what impact he will have on his world.

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Monday, December 7, 2009 at 12:21 am

Backyard Character Redeux

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (0) |

I posted the following a few months ago on a theology and culture blog I write for:

Backyards are private affairs in suburban Southern California. With high fences, cement walls and locked gates, they belong exclusively to the inhabitants of the house. I was thinking about this while watering my tomatoes and as I surveyed my surroundings I began to view the condition of my backyard as a test of my character. Mine was a disaster.

I read a morning devotional once about the significance of cleanliness to the life of the soul. The author (Elizabeth Elliot, I believe it was) told a story about a former head mistress she had at boarding school. She was known for randomly checking the rooms for made beds and folded clothes, telling the girls she “would have no pious talk coming from messy rooms.” They had a hall in the old boarding house containing a series of small oriental rugs. It was known as Character Hall because an individual’s character was tested each time she accidentally disturbed one of the rugs. Would she turn back and straighten it, or would she leave it for someone else to correct? The seemingly insignificant and everyday tasks of maintaining one’s home were viewed as a window to the state of the soul.

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Monday, November 30, 2009 at 1:19 am

Simple Lessons and Character Formation

Posted by Cate MacDonald | Comments (2) |

Every Sunday I teach a group of three year olds about Jesus. At least I try. It can take months for them to internalize and remember even the most simple of lessons. Last time this year I spent a month and a half simply trying to get them to remember Mary’s name. I got nowhere. Come December 26^th they neither knew nor cared who Jesus’ mother was. A few months before that we spent a whole day learning about Balaam’s donkey. We acted out the story, we read it from the Bible, we drew pictures, and we acted it out again. During snack I asked what kind of animal Balaam was riding when the angel stopped him. After a period of silence and confused glances, one bright young scholar suggested that he was riding a kangaroo. When I objected to this idea (to their great surprise), another proudly and definitively answered that he was atop a jaguar at the fateful meeting. Thus ended our lesson. I am not making this up.

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:42 pm

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