The Beauty of Being Indirect

"He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting." -from Oscar Wilde's short story, The Selfish Giant

There are a handful of people from history I would love to share a meal with; Oscar Wilde is one of them. When I first came across his short story The Selfish Giant, I did so because I heard he often read it to his children before bedtime. According to one of his sons, Oscar would always start to cry come the story's end. Once upon a night, his son Cyril asked his father why he always cried at the end of The Selfish Giant. Oscar replied, "Because really beautiful things often makes me cry."

Sometimes, these 'beautiful things' can only be approached through story, through metaphor, through a roundabout way. Maybe that's why a movie like The Passion of the Christ didn't affect me personally as much as the movie The Wrestler did. The first is a straight story of the cross. It's about what happened, it's about going through the 'facts' (or, at least, the facts we have come to know), and the lives of Jesus, Mary, and the disciples. The second, however, is a metaphorical story of the cross. It's about the emotional, spiritual undertones. Pain. Suffering. Exclusion. Isolation. All these play into the scenes of the ripped, torn (human) flesh. All of them are as much about the physical as they are about the emotional, the spiritual. Many would argue that The Passion of the Christ succeeded in being about this, too, but I would heartily disagree. The Passion of the Christ gave us torture, gave us violence, gave us torn flesh, but the context was so stooped in religious controversy (and in religious historical debate), the story failed to connect with many people. And why? Because it was too focused on the facts, rather than the spirit and the truth of Christ's lived experience.

In The Wrestler, we see how scared, how confused, how alone Christ must have felt. It's similar, in a cinematic sense, to what Nikos Kazantzakis did in his fantastic novel, The Last Temptation of Christ. In it, Kazantzakis understood what human beings were missing when they were reading the Gospels. They constantly sought out Christ's divinity without every giving much thought to his humanity, his finite nature. That's not wrong or anything, but I don't think it's much help to us in terms of how we live, how we feel, how we love, or how we forgive. Furthermore, there's a distance that's created from the former approach compared to the latter. When you watch The Passion of the Christ you rarely think, "I am like Jesus. He understands my pain." No. All you (can't help but) think is, "I'm sinful. I would have killed Jesus, too. I could never do what he did for me." But when you watch The Wrestler, one is eerily empathetic to "The Ram's" plight because, well, we've all felt like he's felt before. We've failed in relationships, we've let our family down, we've abused our bodies for the sake and pleasure of others and ourselves. The loneliness, the drugs, the wrinkles in our faces. They all reveal time's toll on us. They all reveal the fact that we will one day die.

To take the analogy one step further, it's as if The Passion of the Christ was all about overcoming death and looking towards eternity, and The Wrestler was mostly about facing death and accepting one's own fate, one's own path into eternity. And what does this have to do with Oscar Wilde and The Selfish Giant? Because in it's final sentences, I was reminded of this narrative, literary, metaphorical power. The way you can hear the same story a thousand times and then, hear it told indirectly and finally 'get it.'

I still don't think I've 'gotten it,' but I do think Wilde has helped me see the Passion story in a new light. In the spirit of hospitality, charity, and comforting the week, the lonely, the down-and-out, Wilde has crafted a simple, short, beautiful story that reminds us (through a different type of garden encounter), of how to be human.

And this, Wilde believes, is what makes us divine.

Harvard

"I spent my high-school years staring at the pine trees outside my classroom window and picturing myself on the campus of an Ivy League university, where my wealthy roommate Colgate would leave me notes reading, 'Meet me on the quad at five.' I wasn't sure what a quad was, but I knew that I wanted one desperately. My college friends would own horses and monogrammed shoehorns. I'd spend weekends at my roommate's estate, where his mother would say things like, 'I've instructed Helvetica to prepare those little pancakes you're so fond of, but she's had a devil of a time locating fresh cape gooseberries." This woman would have really big teeth that she'd reveal every time she threw back her head to laugh at one of my many witticisms. 'You're an absolute caution,' she'd bray. 'Tell me you'll at least consider joining us this Christmas at Bridle Haven; it just wouldn't be the same without you.' I fantasized with the nagging suspicion there was something missing, something I was forgetting. This something turned out to be grades. It was with profound disappointment I discovered it took more than a C average to attend Harvard. Average, that was the word that got to me. C and average, the two went hand in hand. I was sent instead to a state college in western North Carolina where the low brick buildings were marked with plaques reading ERECTED 1974, and my roommate left notes accusing me of stealing his puka shell necklace or remedial English book." -David Sedaris, from the chapter "The Incomplete Quad" from his book, Naked

If you haven't read this book, you should. Everyone needs to laugh a little more in life than they currently do. Including me. Including you.

Angels

"Through the open door I could see a sliver of carolers, some faces peering inside at the scattered tatters of money, some faces turned to the sky and the snow, now beginning to fall. And there, in front of them, in the room with us, stood the family, their outlines barely visible within the weight of the room's light. It was a light so brilliant and white it could have been beamed from heaven, and Brian and I could have been angels, basking in it. But it wasn't, and we weren't." -Neil McCormick in Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim

I know this quote probably means nothing to people who haven't read this book (or seen the film adaptation), but it's amazing to me how sometimes, a film can capture the very essence of the written word. It can enhance, enlighten and illuminate the words so brightly, so pitch-perfectly, you feel as though what you're seeing is exactly as you imagined it would be. The tragedy of this scene--in film and written form--is so overwhelming it (almost always) takes my breath away. Brian and Neil, two of the literary world's deeply wounded characters, emerge like angels from heaven, clinging to one another as if their life depended on it.

Something tells me it does. Maybe that's why this scene is so powerful to me. It's where I want to live. Where I want to be. Where I feel safe, inside my own (and some other wounded soul's) mysterious skin.

Existentialism

"Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could've been yesterday." -Albert Camus, The Stranger

Albert Camus' existential literary masterpiece begins with these (haunting) words. On today, Mother's Day, this quote came to mind. I thought, 'how could someone be so detached from life, from family, from reality to be so nonchalant about his or her mother's death? To not remember the day, the hour, the moment? Obviously, this is a bit of a stretch in the writer's world of this novel as it serves to engage with the reader's thinking, questions, ideas about reality and humanity and life. I know this. But I still find it interesting (and haunting).

It's not just an existential question or problem. It's a human one. And we really should be asking more questions like this, about ourselves (if we want to be really honest) more often.

Dying

"The first step to eternal life is you have to die." -Tyler Durden in Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk

I like the idea of death being linked to eternity. I especially like the idea of this as it relates to reality and our present-day-existence (and living fully in that brief present-day-existence).

I was talking to a friend last night about death as it relates to churches and how funny it is that so many churches (and Christians) fear death as a sort of closing chapter or finality to a life and world in which they have little control over. We talked about how things--and people, and institutions, and ideas--need to die, how it's part of the natural process and a natural (evolving) world. It must happen before anything new can sprout up in its place. Sometimes, before anything good can grow, too.

But for some reason, many of us are surprised, aghast, and even offended when death comes in various forms to ourselves and our ideas and old ways of living our lives (as if we didn't think it was possible to ever end). My friend was telling me how he would go to Catholic church with his parents and how so much of it was just rigid, unchanging, elderly people--a sea of white heads clenching tight to the old ways of living (which are not to be confused with the ways of Scripture, for they are completely different than this). "They mean well," he said. "I know they do...but..." It's not going to last forever. Sooner or later, that physical building, that physical space, that relentless refusal to adapt and learn from life's new lessons (and God's new and ever-changing world) finally caves in and collapses. No more structures. No more budgets. No more people. At least, not in this particular place anymore.

Many Christians are afraid of these days (and claim it's a sign of the apocalypse). Me? I think it's just a sign that we've been doing church wrong for way too long and that our forms of spirituality are not connecting (at all) with the creative surge of life and humanity. And I think it's a good thing, I think it's what needs to happen before this world will be made anew. Before the so-called New Jerusalem will be a place right here, right now, on Earth. Theologians call this a realized eschatology; I call it living life, eternally. Dead, but really, alive.

Gilliam

"The first movie that really got me was Paths of Glory, which I saw when I was sixteen at a Saturday matinee in Panorama City, with kids running up and down the aisle. Suddenly, with Paths of Glory, there was a movie that was about something--about injustice--with themes and ideas, and the good guys didn't win in the end. That film completely changed me and I went around trying to get everybody I knew to see it." -Terry Gilliam (director of Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) in Gilliam on Gilliam, edited by Ian Christie

I just recently saw Paths of Glory, and still, there are scenes I can't shake away. Like most of Stanely Kubrick's films, the last act just blows you away. Everything comes together. Everything starts to set in, sink in, and simmer from within. From the story's inside-out perspective, Kubrick's direction allows the words (from soldiers who are sentenced to be killed for not following orders, for not respecting authority, by their own generals) and the actions of his characters to bleed a kind of naked vulnerability. I think this may be what Gilliam is talking about. And I think, this is partly why, I enjoy his films (and Kubrick's films) so much. There's an electricity to the dialogue. It feels real, yet it doesn't, all at once. Like a Wong Kar-Wai film, it transcends the space inside the cinematic frame and moves beyond it. Into the audience. Into the living room. Wherever you may be viewing it. And then, out of nowhere, it hits you. And you know you're watching something important and not just another Saturday matinee special.

Silence

"Time is life's fundamental necessity but has become the ultimate luxury--the most expensive and extravagant thing we have. We're in a time famine; we don't need more free time as much as we need more time that is free from desires and demands. No matter what we may think, technology doesn't so much give us more time as enable us to do many more things in the time that we have. In addition, technology makes us more enslaved to work, not less. You don't have to walk far on a crowded beach to find somebody busy at a laptop. What we need is more sabbaticals--time to learn and explore the secrets of the soul. I am not talking about the 'year-off-for-research-and-study' type of sabbatical. I am talking about mini-sabbaticals that are skinny-dips in the fountain of youth. There are three important s's for sabbaticals: stillness, silence, and saying no. Music encompasses and embraces silence though it is made of sound. The rests are what make notes possible. It's the same with life. We need lots of time with nothing to do. Souls are drawn to stillness the way objects are drawn to the ground, the way sounds are drawn to silence." -Leonard Sweet, Summoned To Lead

I've struggled for years with saying, 'no.' At first, it was difficult and then gradually--when my self began reaping the benefits of what saying 'no' meant for it--it got much easier. I think people, in general, are on a continuum when it comes to saying 'no' to others with respect to their own time for silence and solitude: there are those who risk being overly isolated and those who fear isolation at any cost. I think years ago, I was in the latter category. I didn't know how to appreciate alone time, silence, even. As Madeleine L'Engle would say, 'I knew how to be a human doing, but not a human being.'

In today's technological boom-of-an-age, I can't help but think how more interaction through technology and social networking sites doesn't give us more time to be with people, or relate socially, but less. This is not a slam at today's world, only a minor critique of it (and of myself). In a way, we're so connected (and are determined to stay so connected) to our phones, our emails, our computers, we forget what to do (or rather, how to be and live life, in silence, in conversation, in the company of others), when we're away from these devices.

How many times have you been sitting on your couch and for no apparent (pressing) reason, you've thought, "I should check my email." Even though you've been checking it all day long, there still is that need, that urgency, to stay connected, to stay in touch. Ironically, I wonder how out-of-touch this is making us. Not just as people but as societies.

Maybe that's why I like the line in Sweet's book, "We need lots of time with nothing to do" so much. It speaks to everyone of us and is something to remember the next time we're sitting in front of a TV not knowing what we're watching or we're reading Wikipedia on our iPhone trying to find out what "pumice" is, or we're simply scanning through emails and spamming the ones we don't want to read. All of these acts maybe something but they turn to nothing at the end of the day. Whereas, Sweet argues, nothing (or stillness and silence), is something that wouldn't turn to nothing by the day's end.

Branded

"Marketers have convinced these kids that they need a specific set of physical attributes, and that their own qualities must be obviated. For the large subcultures of teens who self-brand into look-alikes with tiny waistlines, bulging biceps, deracinated noses, and copious breasts, the supposed freedom of self-creation is not a freedom at all. What they have is consumer choice, no substitute for free will. Imagine the dark day for marketers when kids look for things that are neither bought nor sold." -Alissa Quart, Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers

Some may read this quote and lament: "Oh, isn't it horrible how hard teens have it these days?" or "Life was much simpler way back when I was young...," and so on. But in reality, this isn't productive thinking or helpful, in my opinion. Perhaps Alissa Quart oversimplifies (and over-blames) marketers' control over teen's free will, but I think the general observation is accurate. Teens aren't left with the freedom to self-create who they desire to be, but rather, they're left with consumer-controlled choices that are carefully constructed to encourage a greater appetite for consumer culture bent self-creation. But what if teens longed for things neither 'bought nor sold?' What if a world such as this, was possible? Will we reach this world in 20 years time, 50 years, 100?

The experiential, the spiritual, the ecstasy of emotions, are all attributes/descriptions that, in and of themselves, are 'not for sale' things in our world. The only problem is they're almost always tied to contexts (and services) that cost something (e.g., concerts, gaming, and plastic surgery, to name just three). But what, in today's branded society, isn't up for sale? I would challenge Alissa Quart's thesis and say that once teens go that route, marketers (and many others) will find away to charge what cannot be 'bought or sold.' This is the underlying problem. French philosopher Jacques Derrida once wrote, "I think, therefore I am." In today's cultural marketplace, it's shifted to "I shop, therefore I am," where are actual identity is so intertwined with an identity of consumption, it's nearly impossible to separate/sever one from the other. Until we recognize the power of living within a culture of consumption (and its affect on our shaped/evolving identities), we'll never move beyond the branded and buying and selling of teenagers (and ourselves).

Unity

"I doubt whether justice, which is a forerunner of peace, will ever be pulled out of a hat, as some suppose. Justice will find a home where there is a synthesis of liberty and unity in a framework of government. And when justice appears on any scene, on any level of society, man's problems enjoy a sort of automatic solution, because they enjoy the means of solution. Unity is no mirage. It is the distant shore. I believe we should at least head for that good shore, though most of us will not reach it in this life." -E.B. White, from the essay, "Unity," in Essays of E.B. White

Jesus' words, 'A kingdom divided against itself will surely fall,' is probably the one sentence that gets me through debates and divisions within the church. Sometimes I feel like we're all getting pushed out towards the fringes, to disagree for Disagreement's sake. Other times it seems there's nothing more we want than to not get along.

In Sara Miles recently published book, Jesus Freak and her earlier memoir, Take This Bread, she talked about how all are welcome at the table. A similar analogy was used by author Bruce Bawer some years ago, as it pertains to gay individuals in modern society. In his book, A Place At The Table: The Gay Individual in American Society, he asks the heterosexual readers if they've ever wondered how it feels to be gay when it comes to showing affection in public. From showcasing photos in office cubicles to going for a walk hand-in-hand with your loved one some cool, summer evening, Bawer argued that it was out of fear of exclusion from society that gay individuals couldn't express love to one another (at least, not in public).

Maybe things are a bit different now, but the principle still remains the same. But I think Jesus and E.B. White's quote is talking about something beyond simply protecting people from exclusion; he's writing about bringing peace through reconciliation and inclusiveness. We can't merely think that the solution--in any social context--is for our position to win out or the majority (or minority) we belong to, to triumph. This is not on the road to that 'good shore.' The way to reach that shore, I think, is by telling ourselves, 'it's not about finding one solution, but about liberty and unity,' and, like the Pledge of Allegiance ends, 'justice for all.'

Penguins

"'I want you to know how much I appreciate your offer of putting my birds in the movies. But I am afraid I have to refuse. I do not believe the life in Hollywood would be good for penguins.' Then Mr. Popper turned to Admiral Drake. 'Admiral Drake, I am going to give you the birds. In doing this, I am considering the birds first of all. I know that they have been comfortable and happy with me. Lately, though, with the excitement and the warm weather, I've been worried about them. The birds have done so much for me that I have to do what is best for them. After all, they belong in a cold climate. And then I can't help being sorry for those men up at the North Pole, without any penguins to help them pass the time.'" -Mr. Popper from Mr Popper's Penguins, by Richard & Florence Atwater

I first heard this story read aloud to me in 2nd grade by Mrs. Rexford. Then, it was a tale of loss with the an undercurrent of love streaming all the way through it. In a sense, I think I loved (but just didn't know it yet) this story because it so resembles the story of King Kong, as well. Despite a different ending, the film is ultimately about society trying to turn a profit on nature, on beauty. In Mr. Popper's Penguin's, it is similar. But the difference is, the penguins are let free and Kong is held captive and dies. Thus, the story becomes a charming, graceful, and lovely little picture of how true beauty needs to stay true to its source, its inherent, creative life. When humans abuse beauty in such a way that it disrupts or degrades its source, humans lose out while the object of affection loses the greatest. Even death, at times.

But not so in Mr. Popper's Penguins. No, in this story, we're given hope that one's admiration for something (in this case, some talented little penguins) doesn't have to turn into mere profit, mere exploitation, mere entertainment. It can--and should--be a catalyst for love. Maybe I wasn't getting all this at the age of 7--when Mrs. Rexford flipped through the pages, her face animated and joyful, her expressions real and empowering--but I'm starting to get it more now. I'm constantly in awe of how beauty (and the subject of beauty) is so instrumental in our daily life. So instrumental in pushing us forward to do good, to give love. It just all depends on what we do with the beauty we're given.

The great Russian writer and essayist Fyodor Dostoevsky once uttered, "Beauty will save the world." I think Mr. Popper, and Mrs. Rexford, might just agree.

Work/Art

"The aim of 'work' in modernity was to produce materials necessary for modern life: food, clothes, homes, cars. In modernity, there was a sharp dichotomy between the puritan work ethic and the hedonistic 'leisure ethic' of self-expression and self-improvement which only a very few could afford to pursue. Society reaches a postmodern condition when 'work' turns into art, that is, when more and more areas of life are assimilated into the logic of the marketplace, when the economy is increasingly geared to providing entertainment, and when the business of America is leisure. In a post-industrialist postmodern economy, goods are produced not to supply pre-existent needs, but to supply needs that are themselves created by advertising and marketing strategies. What gets marketed is not an object so much as an image or lifestyle." Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology

This makes me excited to be alive today.

Nature

"Nature is never constrained to change, and that which is once formed cannot simply will to reverse itself wrongly, since desire is not nature. Desire can alter the character of something already formed, but it cannot remake its nature." -John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

One of the most fascinating things about people is their capacity for adaptability. In the film Boogie Nights, director P.T. Anderson explored this and the extent to which one would alter and adapt him/herself to fleshy abuse in order to gain a sense of belonging, a sense of being accepted. I wonder how much this is true for the history of homosexuality and the Church (or rather, churches). How often have we marginalized, compromised, or idolized the very nature of the self the Church declares is imago dei? In what areas (besides homosexuality) can we see people mistakenly seeing nature as being synonymous with desire? All too often, it seems the discussion of nature--as it relates to our violent propensities--quickly moves into carnal desire-talk territory because of how we assume that it's in our nature. But what if it wasn't in our true nature? What if that was only mere desire?

As the Church continues to dialogue, debate and argue over the issues of nature with respect to homosexuality, I wish we'd also spend similar energy toward healthy conversation over our views of war and violence, and how this relates to our true nature. It seems, to use Boswell's analogy, we've spent far too many centuries trying to remake nature through our desires (and presupposed ideas of who a person is and what is their purpose) rather than critically looking at the varied nature (and natures) of the human species, and separating what is mere desire (what can be slightly altered) and what is fixed (what cannot be altered). The latter, I think, is the most difficult to articulate and accept because behind our desire (in this) is a growing need to be autonomous and self-sustaining rather than limited and interdependent. The former is our desire, the latter is our nature. Or at least, that's the way I see it.