In one scene of Jackie, Natalie Portman, as Jackie Kennedy, seeks counsel from her priest played by the late Sir John Hurt. The setting is late November 1963, after her husband John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, but still in the midst of the funeral/ memorial/ national mourning period. Profoundly pained, Jackie shares her feelings of deep sadness, hurt and loneliness. The priest tells her the story of Jesus' healing of the blind man from John chapter 9:

1. As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.

 

...

The gang from "Trolls", from the Dreamworks site.

Admit it: At one point or another, you have probably said something unpleasant online that you later regretted—and that you wouldn’t have said in person. It might have seemed justified, but to someone else, it probably felt inappropriate, egregious or like a personal attack.

In other words, you were a troll.

 Ash Wednesday- actually the whole concept of Lent- jolts me. I grew up Holiness/Pentecostal, belonged to another such church during college, and then spent another five years as a member of a nondenominational Evangelical fellowship. So yeah, I always find myself shocked by the starkness of this day.

The verses read, including the one above, are blunt. We're going to die. All of us. And we, as in humanity, really stink. We are the worse. We oppress others, are selfish, and a quick skim through Isaiah 58 shows that even when we are supposed to be doing something holy, like fasting, we tend to get all self-righteous and conceited.

"Paolo de Matteis - The Annunciation" by Paolo de Matteis (Wiki Commons)

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. For those unfamiliar, from Wikipedia:

(Wiki Commons)

So I am totally being lazy in the Soren Kierkegaard class I'm taking. Assigned to read Plato's "Euthyphro", I haven't been able to read more than a few pages before having my brain scream "Nope" and start daydreaming of how cute K would look in a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. 

A drawing of Soren Kierkegaard I did yesterday.

I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights. My thoughts, during the day and night, are on my daddy, who's been on life support since last week. We- the family- know, but are still grappling with the reality that we are nearing the end.

(IMDB)

Have you heard about Robert Durst? There's a lot- and that's an understatement- to tell about the stranger-than-fiction-yet-very-real man at the center of multiple murders. From The New York Times:

Jay-Z in "On the Run" (Radio Lab)

It's been a long, long day. Rainy, gray and layered thickly with foreboding. A real walking in "the valley of the shadow of death". I'm not being dramatic, it's just really been that kind of day.

This morning I began "Søren Kierkegaard - Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity", an online University of Copenhagen class offered through Coursera. It's totally free, so if you're a nerd, and cheap, like me, you can still register if you like. In the "About" descriptor:

Drake (Billboard); cover art for his latest smash album (Time)

 From Forbes:

Photo taken by K.

Psalm 19 is an utter masterpiece. C.S. Lewis said "I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world." It was part of my devotional reading this morning, and in a month of arctic temps, icy sleet and far too many gray skies, it was like a lovely bit of Spring. 

The first few verses popped out at me (despite the fact I've read this chapter I don't know how many times in the past):

"No longer shall I paint interiors, and people reading, and women knitting. I shall paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love—I shall paint a number of pictures of this kind. People will understand the sacredness of it, and will take off their hats as though they were in church. I shouldn't like to be without suffering. How much of my art I owe to suffering!"

-Edvard Munch (as quoted in George Heard Hamilton, Painting and Sculpture, 1880-1940, 1967 and Joy Schaverien, The revealing image: analytical art psychotherapy in theory and practice, 2009)

Top, Chris Brown (source); Middle, Amber Rose (source); Bottom, Khloe Kardashian (source)

Another day, another stupid celebrity twitter tirade.

(Marie Claire)

Last week, as Kanye West's post-Grammy rant went viral, my brother Joe sent me a simple text:

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Those are the words typically spoken by the pastor, deacon or administrant while spreading ashes on the foreheads of the penitents gathered for Ash Wednesday services- at least at Episcopal Churches.