Good morning! Or if you read this later... good afternoon and good evening! (Truman Show reference).
I'm back at home in Florida (finally not feeling cold any more). While I was on the road, I re-read a great book. I'm mentoring a young adult who went through the Truth and Beauty immersion experience in Rome (more on that below). This student had chosen to read this book, on my recommendation, and so I read it again so that I will be able to discuss it.
The book is: Out of the Silent Planet - the first book in CS Lewis' "Space Trilogy."
Anything by CS Lewis is always worth reading more than once, but especially the ones that have allegory in them - you always get more out of it the second time around. In this case, I think that I read it the first time simply as a sci-fi story, and I DO love stories about space travel that were written before anyone had actually traveled in space, or before we knew what the surface of Mars looks like. There is so much more room for speculative description, and Lewis is THE master at that.
But of course this is one of his allegorical stories as well. And in that sense, the Space Trilogy is prophetic - the faith vs. science debate was already raging, of course, in the mid-twentieth century, and it was already apparent that many people were not only choosing to trust science over religion, they were making science into a religion that would replace religion.
And Lewis sees where all that was going, and the third book in the series could have been written as an insider's indictment of twenty-first century academia. In any case, I won't get into the details of the allegory, but Lewis can see that it's not just about science vs religion, it's science vs morality, and he calls out the hypocrisy of a supposed altruism of science (for the good of humanity) that allows for the willingness to sacrifice individual humans for the cause (and he didn't even have abortion in mind yet). In this way, Lewis anticipates the question posed in the Star Trek films - the needs of the one vs the needs of the many - and if you answer that question by saying that you can kill some for the greater good of the species (or the environment), you have sold the soul of collective humanity. It's all summed up in a comment made at the end of the book, where the tension between science and faith is referred to as a tension between space versus heaven.
So I highly recommend the Space Trilogy - the first two books are short, and actually make a great intro to CS Lewis if you haven't read anything by him (though of course so does the Narnia series).
Regarding the Truth and Beauty Project. This is an immersion experience for young adults, focusing on art as a way into spirituality, that is, spiritual growth by making the connection between truth and beauty. It takes place in Rome, and it's run by my friends John and Ashley Norohna. If you know of any young adults who might be interested in this program, they are accepting applications for the next session right now - check it out, or send your young adults to:
I'm back, up and running, and ready to go - I should have a new JOURNEY episode within the next week or so - and because you are my loyal peeps, here is an exclusive, just-for-you, behind the scenes SNEAK PEEK into my new office:
This was for March 24th, recorded for the Ascension App
Thanks for your patience - here is our next installment of The Journey - it's session # 96, but I'm also calling it PART 1 of a "miniseries" on John chapter 6.
Whoever watches it first, please let me know if it looks good or if there are any problems with it - I get through the first two sections of the text on the feeding of the 5,000.
Enjoy!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
I've seen some YouTube posts lately by some of the Catholic apologists, apparently talking about the best Bible translations (and/or offering rebuttals to Protestant videos on the same topic). I don't actually watch these videos, mind you, because I'm not interested in entering into any debates over it (and I suspect a lot of it has to do with the deuterocanonical books anyway, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a non-issue, since the Church fathers DID read them, and Jesus DID quote them), but as you know, I do have my favorite translations, and some that I feel pretty strongly are no good. In the early days of the Original Church videos, I did a video about this, and I talked about how I have certain test verses, that I use to check a translation. I'll post my video and my test verses later, in case you want to refresh your memory.
For now, those of you who have been following The Journey from the beginning know that when I started, I was using the NABRE as my starting point (and then ...
So here are the verses I look at to check whether a Bible translation is a good one:
These are mostly in the NT, but with regard to the OT, I don't want a Bible to minimize the phrase "Son of Man" so for me a Bible cannot render "son of man" or even "one like a son of man" in Daniel 7:13 as something like "human being" - that's a paraphrase and while it may convey the correct meaning for SOME OT passages, it does not convey the correct meaning for all of them, and you lose the connection to Jesus' own self-identification as the Son of Man in the NT, especially in Matthew 16:13-15.
Matthew 6:7 - better not say "vain repetition" or imply that repeated prayers are bad - Jesus was criticizing going on and on extemporaneously, not memorized prayers. The word "vain" is nowhere in the Greek!
1 Cor 11:2, and 2 Thess 2:15, 3:6 - better not render the word "teachings" just to avoid the positive connotation for tradition(s), especially if Col 2:8, which has a negative connotation (human traditions) is...
