Another take on Martha and Mary

One of the stories in the New Testament that always niggles me is that of Martha and Mary, and the way Jesus speaks to Martha when she asks for help in the kitchen. It turns up in Luke's Gospel, chapter 10 and verses 38-42.

Luke is the most sympathetic of the Gospel writers when it comes to women, so perhaps in this story his sympathy is with Mary who is definitely doing something out of the ordinary. That may be why Martha seems to get the bum's rush.

However, while I appreciate what Mary does, I always feel for Martha: she's got a houseful of people on her hands, no one helping her in the kitchen, all the blokes sitting around being spiritual, and no one seeming to care that she's trying to get some food ready for when they stop being 'spiritual' and come down to earth, as it were. So the discovery of the poem ‘Unauthorised Version’ by U.A. Fanthorpe, (on Bosco Peter's Liturgy site) was a delight.

It's spoken from Mary's viewpoint, but the intriguing thing is that she doesn't take Jesus' side - she takes her sister's. She doesn't apologise for her own behaviour particularly, but she certainly understands where Martha is coming from, and reminds us that Martha is no slouch when it comes to the spiritual side of life - consider Martha's behaviour at her brother's tomb. She's the one who speaks the theology at that point; she's the one who's in Jesus' face asking why he'd left things too late. She's great!

You can find the poem on Bosco Peter's Liturgy site, and you can also find a sermon preached by Colin Gibson (of Mornington Methodist Church in Dunedin) on the subject. He included the poem in his sermon. (I don't always see eye to eye with Colin on theology, but in this instance I think he's pretty close to the mark.)

TV in Korea

Korean tv isn’t any better than tv anywhere else. Ads are just as mad or bad, game shows are as awful or as good, and soaps are soaps. But there was one difference: last night we watched the latter part of The Lion in Winter, with Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart. (It’s very well done, by the way, and Close is brilliant in an excellent role.) At one point there was an ad break, an ad break to end all ad breaks. It took the form of an infomercial, but don’t ask me what they were selling. There were two utterly enthusiastic presenters, as well as other bodies, and occasional ‘dramatised’ scenes. There was a great deal of banging and crashing of numbers on the screen, and little bell noises as numbers came up. Apparently whatever they were selling was only going to cost 21,000 won.
All this would have been okay if it had been presented once, but it was presented for some eight minutes. It wasn’t just the same thing repeated exactly, but the same material was shuffled and reshuffled until it all became terribly familiar - and mind-bogglingly awful.
On the other hand, this afternoon there’s been a children’s language program on - teaching English to Koreans, and doing it very well.

Movies in flight

We had our own screens on the back of the seats in front for the second leg of our trip to London. This has meant we could watch movies as we want, and to watch what we want. However, I tried to watch Road Hogs three times, and each time found the dialogue was in Korean, something that only became evident two or three minutes into the movie. I gave up on it in the end, (though Celia had no problem with it on her screen) and watched one of the half dozen classic movies that were available (Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Sound of Music and so on). I watched It’s a Wonderful Life again (I’ve got it on DVD at home) and thoroughly enjoyed it again. It’s a superb performance by James Stewart and he carries the movie from whoa to go. Frank Capra directs a large (and very talented cast of familiar faces) wonderfully: the film is full of scenes with thirty or forty people all being individuals. It’s surprisingly long - though Capra’s movies did tend to take their time - and even though it starts out as a kind of flashback, that side of the story takes over completely, and it’s more than three-quarters through the movie before the stuff about the angel surfaces again. But that works fine. The exuberance and energy of the movie is tops and another thing was noticeable: the soundtrack was exceptionally clear. One of the problems with listening to the modern films on the earphones provided by K Air is that you struggle to hear the dialogue. Sound effects, background noises, music are all much clearer. The dialogue, especially if it’s quiet, is hard to hear easily. Yet the dialogue throughout Capra’s movie is crystal clear. But then, of course, the scripts were also very literate!

Gearing up for it

I went to Kmart today to get some underpants (my brand was going at buy one, get one at 50% off, which isn’t bad), and some socks. I bought five pairs of sox recently at another superstore that likes to use red, and they had the days of the week listed on them – Monday to Friday, one day on one pair. (Still not sure if that’s making sense.) Anyway, each of these socks has developed holes in the toes very quickly. Very annoying. In fact, the annoyance level of having a big toe out in the cold while the rest of the toes are warm is up there with coming to the cookie jar and finding it empty, when you’d got all emotionally prepared to have one.
My wife had been earlier in the day – which is how I knew they had a sale on (I never pay attention to the fact that clothing shops have sales on). She’d bought a couple of blouses and some pyjamas for me – lightweight ones, since these days I can’t stand being in bed in the old style pyjamas. She’d also bought some sandals in preparation for arriving in England in the middle of summer.
If I’d looked on Coupon Chief first, I could have found coupon codes for Kmart for 75% off some items. Of course, unless those items were socks, sandals, pyjamas and underpants, the coupon might not have been much use to me. Seems at the moment, that Kmart in the US is offering things like jewellery at 70% off, and maternity gear, and Mom’s favourite movie on DVD. Lots of Martha Stewart stuff if going cheap too!
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