23 | January | 2025 | Bob Schwartz

Hundreds of Beavers

I am not going to try to explain the movie Hundreds of Beavers, available on Prime and elsewhere.

There are plenty of positive reviews online and it made plenty of best of lists, as possibly the funniest and funnest movie of the year. I read one of those praise-filled reviews. It included a description, which barely made sense, which is why I was compelled to actually watch it.

Now that I have watched it, I cannot describe it, as I said, but I can recommend it. Bigly.

It is imagination that is going to help save us.

This movie, by creators Mike Cheslik and Ryland Tews, is bursting, overflowing with imagination.

Therefore, this movie is going to help save us. And help save you, should you agree.

Here is the very brief description from the movie’s official website, which description tells you little about the actual movie:

In this 19th century, supernatural winter epic, a drunken applejack salesman must go from zero to hero and become North America’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers.

Yeah, well, kind of. As I said, you just gotta see it for yourself.

Religious traditions struggle with handling “politics”. They make a category error.

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 21: Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde (L) arrives as U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Tuesday marks Trump’s first full day of his second term in the White House. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Rt. Rev. Marian Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, presided over the National Prayer Breakfast, giving the sermon at the National Cathedral on Tuesday. Trump and many officials were in attendance.

In the sermon, she pled with Trump to show mercy and compassion toward scared individuals, including immigrants, those fleeing war and persecution, and gay, lesbian and transgender children. After the service, Trump and others attacked her, including some within her own church who believe that “politics” does not belong at the pulpit or in the pews.

This opposition may come from a category error. If this is purely and solely about “politics”—who you vote for and who you support for election—then the category applies. But it isn’t, and never has been. In many cases, and particularly in the current environment, the more fitting categories are ideology and philosophy.

Ideology and philosophy are the siblings of belief, if not identical twins. As for the religious traditions, belief is the central and essential element.

If the ideology and philosophy reflected in political support—the beliefs—are different, contrasting, contradictory to the beliefs of those religious traditions, how can it not be an issue for discussion by those traditions?

This is in no way to question the good faith and conscientiousness of those in the traditions who see politics as a categorical red line. It is just, at this moment and many moments past, the wrong category. The faithful may and sometimes do hold ideologies, philosophies and beliefs that are anathema to the core of traditions.

Which is exactly what Bishop Budde was saying, for which she now says she has nothing to apologize for. Others may say that she was not doing her job, touching on politics. She wasn’t touching on politics. She was affirming the very soul of her faith. That is her job.

Bob Schwartz

January 23, 2025

Hundreds of Beavers

January 23, 2025

Religious traditions struggle with handling “politics”. They make a category error.