Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I had to re-watch the latest "Angel" (5.08 "Destiny") a few more times today, just for sheer enjoyment, as well as to pause the VCR and write down bits of dialogue for future reference as I went along. Here are some of my thoughts about this and the previous two episodes. ( Read more... )

As a final thought (in case anyone is still with me, at this point), here are a couple of quotes that came to mind when I was thinking about Spike's emphasis on DOING and never giving up (the writer of the letter of James would have LOVED Spike, I think . . . eventually!), Angel's search for hope and faith, their changing family dynamics (growing up being an eternity-long process, apparently, at least for en-souled vampires), their mutual mirroring (with all the conflicted emotions this inspires), and the capacity for love (in many forms) which characterizes BOTH these champions:

James 1:22-25 (NRSV): "But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing."

I Corinthians 13:8-13 (NRSV): "Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."