![]() That, in itself, gave me a new appreciation of the environment I managed to be born into and a renewed love for each and every relative of mine (17!) who had come to my house and sat at my Thanksgiving tables (Note: Nothing Orange was served). They don’t hold back with the truth yet they spoon feed it out to us with just enough gloss, blood and archetypal fantasy behavior that we can escape and appreciate every awful moment we’ve ever experienced in our own families and cling to them in selfish glee. Not only are these perfect movies, or as close to perfect as the movies can get for me, they are inspiring lessons in filmic storytelling done in our lifetimes. That’s what I did this week when on Turner Classic Movies I happened to flip channels and come in almost at the beginning of The Godfather and Godfather II – now renamed The Godfather Saga (NOTE: Who knew?). Besides managing to give you ridiculously unfulfilling dreams, they can spur you on to fantasize bigger – or more BIGLY – than you could have ever imagined. When bad things happen to good people #Razzies #ManyRazzies #ManyManyManyRazziesīut movies and TV do cut both ways. Sure, I may die – but I’ll die with a clear head. Amid gloating that if the world blows up, it won’t be on my watch or conscience. And I, for one, look forward to being called a “bigot” against working class people by many more people on Facebook because it gives ME an excuse to remind them they supported an openly racist sociopath with a very bad temper to control the nuclear codes for the next 48 months or more. We will not be re-running or reanalyzing the presidential election here because…do we need to one more time? We now have Jill Stein recounts, our personal attempts at activism and four years of arguments, discussions and commiserations with friends, relatives and enemies from which to do that. Scared, of course, about so many other things too, but particularly nervous that we blew our ONE shot. Frustrated, disappointed, powerless and scared we’ll never get the moment back again. There is a lifetime of lectio in there.I know this is a metaphor for how Hillary & other non-Trump supporters feel about the election and our future President-Elect-Who-Lost-The-Popular-Vote-By-More-Than-2 Million-People-And-Still-Counting. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.” “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien’s mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. It’s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” That might be why you don’t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. Acceptance is just awareness.” He smiled in anticipation of the callback: “ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Which does not mean being defeated by suffering. “It was a very healthy reciprocal acceptance of suffering,” he said. What is this in the light of eternity? Imagine being a parent so filled with your own pain, and yet still being able to pass that on to your son. He has said this before-that even in those days of unremitting grief, she drew on her faith that the only way to not be swallowed by sorrow, to in fact recognize that our sorrow is inseparable from our joy, is to always understand our suffering, ourselves, in the light of eternity. Bitter, no.” Maybe, he said, she had to be that for him. And it was just me and Mom for a long time,” he said. “I was left alone a lot after Dad and the boys died…. He was tracing an arc on the table with his fingers and speaking with such deliberation and care. That’s my context for my existence, is that I am here to know God, love God, serve God, that we might be happy with each other in this world and with Him in the next-the catechism. “And so that act, that impulse to be grateful, wants an object. It is what he has always felt: grateful to be alive. It’s not “the Gospel tells us” and therefore we give thanks. ![]() Catholic undertones in every Colbert answer.”Ĭheck it out: The urge to be grateful, he said, is not a function of his faith. When was the last time you heard a famous late night comic talk like this? Luke Russert even tweeted about this yesterday, noting: “Fantastic piece. The funnyman is about to unveil “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS, and he gets profiled in the latest issue of GQ, wherein he offers some personal theology that is as beautiful as it is unexpected. Would you consider donating just $10, so we can continue creating free, uplifting content? Make a Lenten donation here
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