Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 8:00AM | by Otter I took an hour or two today to watch Lee Strobel’s “The Case For Faith.”
The Amazon reviews are typically full-throated exultations of the video’s power.
I found it weirdly lacking in substance.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 6:16AM | by Otter I have Christian friends who insist that death is not an occasion for grief because nothing is lost in God. I have atheist friends who insist the same thing but for the opposite reason, because no form is substantial in nature.
My answer to both is of two syllables, beginning and ending with fricatives.
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 8:10AM | by Otter The National Book Critics Circle (they’re too toney for an “Association” and too hip for a “Guild”) has issued its recommendations.
I confess that with one thing and another I’ve rather fallen behind in my reading.
We’re off this morning to bury my mother’s ashes next to my grandfather and grandmother, so I’ve re-stocked my Kindle with some of the critics’ recommendations.
(I’d ask, “What is it with poets not embracing the Kindle? They need all the help they can get with sales,” but you can’t really write good poetry without being a little highly strung, I guess unless you’re Wallace Stevens. The thought of words not existing on the stable, flimy permafrost of paper makes poets crazy.)
First up: The Marriage Plot. I frankly can’t take another novel set in New York City: I was ruined for that by Winter’s Tale.
Books, Reading in Culture, Literature 
Friday, January 20, 2012 at 5:47PM | by Otter “…’The nirvana would be if the questions raised by Oprah Winfrey would be answered by the faculty at Harvard.’ The questions she asks are the most central – how do we live with other people, how do we cope with our ambitions, how do we survive as a society – though she fails to answer them with anything like seriousness.”
Otter
From the Mailbag:
Do you think de Botton is right about religions having their fingers on the buttons of what makes people better?
I’ve argued extensively in this blog that myth and imagination have a far stronger hold on people than do “rational ethics.” You might argue somebody out of breaking a shop window, but it’s his imaginative apprehension of his place in the universe that will restrain him when nobody is watching.
That might be (and most ordinarily is) in the form of envisioning a God who represents all rightness and who has the power of rewards and punishments when nobody else is there.
But there are other, more important and more subtle features in religion: one’s understanding of one’s place in the world, for instance, and one’s relationship to others. When that’s used for aggression and blind self-love, we get terrorism and fundamentalism. When it’s used for love, we get self-sacrificial people who believe that it really does matter (whatever the rational arguments might conclude) that one should give up one’s life for one’s friends.
Faith, Philosophy, Religion, imagination, myth in Culture, Religion
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 4:03AM | by Otter The process of dying, and going through that process with somebody you love, changes you.
I mean apart from the thirty extra pounds it put on me because of the tightened schedule, the lack of free time, the strange eating habits, and the worry.
When death finally comes, it’s a bit of a relief.
Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 7:40AM | by Otter These are the three poems I’ve written that my mother loved best: Jesus, Hosea: A Theology of Love, and Instructions Before Leaving.
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A digression: you too will pocket your key
a last time. When the house is filled with
dreams and you come to the end,
you will pull on your best skirt and go out…
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Book of Otter, Death, Poetry in Cancer, Personal Reflection, Poetry, Suffering
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 8:24PM | by Otter Reflections on the final stage of terminal cancer.
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 9:10AM | by Otter During much of my mother’s illness the neighbors have run drills and saws to renovate their pool-deck. Progress does not respect suffering.
— Riparian Church (@RiparianChurch) January 12, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 7:09AM | by Otter
Updated on Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 8:36AM by
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Updated on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 10:35AM by
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Updated on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 8:10PM by
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It’s time for the Tuesday mail-call:Is God involved in sports?
Saints or San Francisco 49’ers?
Drew Brees, Football, New Orleans Saints, Sports in Sports
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 10:25AM | by Otter 
Calvin Johnson: The wide receiver, who was hurled by the gods from Olympus two seasons ago to wander among mortals performing heroic feats, has gone missing. New Orleans Saints officials call the apparent abduction “A damn shame,” and speculate about motive and method.
Drew Brees at press conference demonstrates to reporters how a powerful sedative might be administered from behind to render the Mighty Calvin Johnson powerless to resist abductors, who might then keep him in captivity until his contract could be renegotiated.
