Joy

"Alone, even with all the wisdom in the world, we are powerless: castaways adrift in an impersonal ocean. You can't love a computer or a software program or even a book as you can love another person. Sometimes you just need a human." -Tim Sanders, Love Is The Killer App

My last post just after Thanksgiving focused in on 'hurt'. In it, I was approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives, from a sea of ambiguous faces all trying not to say what I really wanted to say. It was a bit maddening. I wanted to write within my current state of disappointment, darkness, and distressed anxiety, but it was difficult. After all, how do you articulate the hurt that so (unassumingly) creeps up on you? How do you put into workable words ideas so steeped in emotion, pain, suffering?

Sometimes, writing feels like a bi-polar, inner-self dance. A dance between the writer's insecurity and their own (failed) attempts to get out the right words, to speak the appropriate truth. The truth, that exists, just in that moment.

Since that day after Thanksgiving, when I wrote about the subject of 'hurt,' I've experienced--particularly in the past week--a grandiose amount of joy. From so many angles, it keeps piercing me, like an unexpected rush of good fortune, good cheer, goodness. Like the word 'Radiant' webbed by Charlotte to save her dear (pig) friend Wilbur, I feel--in some weird way--like the last 5 days have been a gift. A gift so undeserved, blessed, and profoundly overwhelming, I feel as though I can't take it. I'm speechless. In awe. So struck by the beauty and gift of the moment I have to scatter around on the floor in my head to catch my breath.

Blindsided by joy, if you will.

In the Psalms, the writer writes, "My heart leaps for joy, and I will give thanks to him in song." I like this image. Joy leaping up at us via song. One of the first songs that comes to mind after reading this line is the lovely Mac Davis tune, "I Believe In Music." The chorus to the song, says it all: I believe in music, I believe in love, I believe in music, I believe in love.

I think this is partly what I was getting at a few weeks ago when I wrote. My hurt was a loss of faith. A loss of love, in a way. Love for myself, love for my voice as a writer, for my humanness. We all have such a hard time loving ourselves, I think. We don't think we deserve it. We often choose people to love who don't love us well because we don't think we deserve a love worthy of who we really (truly) are. So we settle. Settle for lies over truths, productiveness over playfulness, criticism over kindness. But it's never too late to see it a different way.

Catholic priest Brennan Manning calls the lack of love for self, 'self-hatred'. He believes it is the antithesis of God. The ultimate slap-in-the-face to creation, humanity, and love. Author Donald Miller believes it's one of the most difficult concepts to grasp in life. The still-small-sinking-sick voice telling us we're not worthy, we're not good enough, we're not lovable, often drowns out the simple love-of-self voice within us.

Thankfully, people come into our lives sometimes who help us see the love we're too stingy to give ourselves. For me, this came in three forms (and then some) this past week: 1) a screenwriting professor, 2) a kindred spirit sharing a wonderful art piece with me courtesy of U.P.S., and 3) a new, breath-of-kind-and-fresh-air, friend, who loved on me in a way only a person who doesn't know you can. All seemed to come out of nowhere, yet, all (also) seemed to connect with me at just the right time, just the right moment. It's baffling to me now, even still. I feel joyful, but writing that seems so silly. So insignificant in capturing the rapturous feeling of ecstasy it has brought me.

I've come to realize (this feeling) is more than joy, really. Much more. It's a joy, transformed; transformed into utter gratitude. A gratitude that thanks God, karma, and all the other broken-people-humans out there who've been so gracious, so wise enough to love on me when I can't seem to love myself.

This is when one of Anne Lamott's two prayers is all that can be expressed, at the end of a week like I've had. I must simply close my eyes, sit and silence, and utter: "Thank you, thank you, thank you." That's all I feel now, too. My heart feels full, drunk on gratitude, spinning over too much love, too much grace, too much goodness, kindness, gentleness, happiness.

This is pure joy. What often comes after the hurt.

Hurt

It's hard to feel thankful when you're hurting. When you're grieving, it's even more difficult. Growing up in the church, I often heard people talk about 'giving thanks in all circumstances.' It's in the Bible, yes, it's the way many Christians say we're supposed to feel, supposed to act, supposed to supposed to supposed to.

Do you ever feel tired of living in the 'supposed to' world?

In screenwriting, everything moves because of conflict. Without it, no one would go to the movies. Yet, so many of us avoid conflict, dodge it, suppress it (within others, within ourselves) because we think it will make our life better. But what if the opposite was true? Not 'what if we just made people's lives hell'. Certainly not. But what if we didn't avoid conflict. What if we faced it. They say in movies, audiences are attracted to characters who do the things they only think of doing. For example, if someone cuts you off, gives you the finger in traffic, your inner self may scream out loud and imagine following this person to the nearest Whole Foods to confront them and tell them how 'unacceptable that was.' But who does this? Really? Who has the guts to put into action the thoughts of millions of scared little broken people?

People in the movies.

This is (partly) why we care so much about cinema, about story, about characters. This is why conflict isn't so bad after all.

In Nine Inch Nails' brutal, cut-to-the-core-of-humanity song, "Hurt", Trent Reznor sings: "I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel / I focus on the pain / The only thing that's real." Conversely, there's a line pictured at the end of the film Into The Wild wonderfully summarizing Christopher McCandles' self-realization at his journey's end: "Happiness only real when shared." This was McCandles final entry into his diary before he died.

Two things are posited here as being real: pain and happiness. Like life, both cannot happen alone, in a vacuum. Pain often happens because of others, because of conflict, because of interactions and confrontations with the world. Happiness, according to McCandles, happens only with others. It means nothing to be happy if you're all alone. So why do so many of us avoid pain and believe happiness can happen when we do what we want to do, on our own terms, for the good of ourselves, for the good of what society, parents, friends say we're 'supposed to' do? So many people live lives married to the hope of pleasing others, of not letting our parents down, of being (in a deeply inner sense) found out. We don't want others to know how hurt we are or how much we need them. Of course, there's some good to this. I'm not expecting people walk around all day expressing their deepest hearts' desires to people with whom they don't have a relationship with. Yet, at the same time, it'd be nice to encounter a few more risk takers out there (myself, included). It'd be nice, just once in a very long while, to talk to a person who doesn't let what they're 'supposed to do' dictate what they really should be doing.

I think this is what the writer of that famous (overused) New Testament phrase 'give thanks in all circumstances' was getting at. Giving thanks the for hurt. Why? Because it's real. And because, happiness cannot be felt without it. Friedrich Nietszhe' words first pointed me to this truth, but I don't think I was ready to receive it then. No, I think before you can receive something like this (and when I say receive, I don't mean possess for I'll probably forget this truth in a few years and have to rediscover it in some other place, in some other person and learn it all, over and over again) you have to surrender to the hurt, to the pain, to the suffering inside your own head. It's similar to what John Carroll argued in The Existential Jesus. Like Christ, we all must face the pain of our own mortality, or own deserted, desperate (and painfully lonely) isolation, at times. If we don't, we will break.

Someday.

We will lose it. We can't fight it. We must surrender and accept, not run away and hide. For we won't be able to live with the power of denial and the refusal to see pain and suffering for what it is: real.

This is the water I'm treading in right now (and I have been for the past several months, I think). At times, it's exhausting. At night in bed, it can turn into a kind of all-consuming fear, a morbid sense of detached lifelessness. And then, there are moments (brief glimmers, really) where Joshua Radin's song lyrics struggle to the surface. Where I trust and hope and believe that one day (even though it's not today nor anytime in the foreseeable distance) "everything'll be alright." Where hurt morphs--in a surprise spark of illumination and transcendence--into happiness.

This is 'giving thanks in all circumstances'. When hurt is not marginalized and happiness is not exalted, but both--in all their mystery--are held together, closely. A kind of glorious song and dance of emotional conflict.

Some call this being crazy. I think it's just being.

A (Christian) Reality Check

"It is far easier to ask forgiveness of a god we can't see than from a person we can see." -Philip Gulley, If The Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus

I'm just finishing up Philip Gulley's new book, If The Church Were Christian, and it's been a breath (blast, at times) of fresh air. Sure, I disagree with some of what Gulley puts forth as 'the values of Jesus,' but for the most part, he's dead on. His latest book might make Matthew and Luke raise their eyebrows (I imagine Mark and John would be smiling all the way through, though). Why? Because this book has a Rabbinic flare to it, in that, it addresses what the Church has too often neglected: today's world, today's people, today's hurting souls. All too often, Christian orthodoxy focuses on future eschatology while leaving John's understanding of realized eschatology far, far behind. It's almost ironic the Left Behind series are called that; for that is exactly what they have done to millions of people. They've left behind an understanding of Jesus, an understanding of living life today, now, here, present in hopes of gaining some personal (eternal) security.

Years ago, I had a thought: "Doesn't heaven sound like the most selfish thing a Christian could ask for? Wouldn't the most sacrificial, love-act be (if love really is laying down one's life for a friend) to lay down one's afterlife, then, as well?" It seems counter-Christian to be so consumed with eternity, yet, this is the way of most church folk.

But that's getting me off track (this is the last chapter of the book, so perhaps that's why I jumped to talking about it because I just finished reading it). In essence, this book is a wake-up call for Christians who want to be real, who want to do good, who want to take life seriously, who want to not check their brain at the door in order to follow Jesus. Some people will tremble and go a little mad after reading some of what Gulley is questioning but this is to be expected. Throughout history, any re-imagining of what Christian Orthodoxy entails has always been met with a firm fist (and sometimes a sword). But Christians need to let go and let loose a bit, and stop thinking that the world rests on their mind's doctrinal stances.

One thing I really loved about the book? It reiterated (within me), why the topic of 'women in ministry' is so important (and still, so behind-the-Jesus-times in so many growing churches). Are we really still telling people that women can't lead--in those most high places--of churches? Are we really still saying their gender has to take a back seat as far as leadership ability goes when it comes to churches? If we are, shame on us. For if we can be so selective of what we will modify (and not modify) within scripture, God help us for what else we are capable of reading (or not reading) into. This book reminded me of the amazing nuances of scripture and how easily we brush over them in hopes of constructing a manageable, livable faith life. How sad it is when people say they're 'living by the good book,' while making slight changes and modifications to their interpretations along the way (and yet, still thinking in their mind what they've done is "absolutely scriptural").

Newsflash: it isn't. So please, don't kid yourself by telling yourself 'this is living like Jesus.' We could all use a lot more humanity, a lot more humility when following Christ. This is the way of Jesus. Additionally, as the book so refreshingly suggests, we need more people willing to follow Jesus and less people who simply want to 'worship him on a Sunday morning.' True discipleship is worship. Maybe that's what the Church has been lacking for so long.

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.

The Top Ten Films of 2008

Since this is the year of me graduating from Fuller Seminary---where I'm continually thinking and writing in theological language about films and music, art and culture---I decided to write this list in the spirit of a true seminary spirit suggesting that each film on my top ten list carries with it a true (serious and thought-provoking) kind of theology. So here we go. Here's the list, take it or leave it. (Thanks Nate for pushing me to finally publish this stupid thing---it feels good to have it done).

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10. MARLEY & ME: [THEOLOGY OF LIFE: AS SEEN THROUGH THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES, AND ONE SMALL NAUGHTY PUPPY]
The number 10 spot is always hard to pin down. I could’ve put a number of films here: the darkly subversive and sexy Woody Allen comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Wong Kar Wai’s lush (but uneven) ode to America My Blueberry Nights, or Oscar’s pick and American audiences surprise sensation favorite Slumdog Millionaire, that reminded me again just how pure and wonderful an audience is to the total experience of cinema watching. But I went with my gut and heart on the number 10 spot. I went for the Frank Capra lover in me (director of classics It’s A Wonderful Life, You Can’t Take It With You, Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and It Happened One Night). Frank Capra is one of my favorite “Golden Age of Cinema” directors. I know, I know, some people may call me a sentimentalist, a Carpri-corny film geek, but I don’t care. I love when films feel like an ode to life wrapped up in 2 hours of screen time and this is what Marley & Me is. At first glance, it looks like another Beethoven movie but it’s so far from this I feel like I’m insulting the filmmakers for even suggesting such a thought. Marley & Me is a pitch-perfect movie about life and its many messy details. It’s a cinematic ode to nostalgia, sure, but it’s a throwback convention film that’s worth going back for. There are good people in this very imperfect world and Marley & Me reminds us of this. Also, it’s Owen Wilson’s best film since The Royal Tenenbaums and Jennifer Aniston’s best work since The Good Girl. Both actors lend credibility to a story that feels so close to home, you’ll be in a bittersweet state of bliss after watching it. I was and in a strange way, still am.

9. UP THE YANGTZE: [THEOLOGY OF FINITUDE]
If anyone wants to know what I learned after living 2 years in China, see Up The Yangtze. This is one of those stories you wouldn’t believe if it were fiction. Its drama is that penetrating, its human subjects that real, its scope—epic, larger than Earth—is that wide. Through masterful direction, editing, and cinematography—where the seemingly insignificant and commonness captured in one single, sweeping shot takes your breath away—Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang has created the documentary of the year, and one of the best films of 2007 and 2008 (it was released in some countries in 2007, but screened first in the U.S. at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the year I attended). Up The Yangtze is a visual cross between Hiorkazu Koreeda’s beautiful Nobody Knows and Edward Burtynsky’s stunning photography in Jennifer Baichwal’s exceptional documentary, Manufactured Landscapes. But Up The Yangtze is better than both (or maybe that’s the China bias in me talking), for its story isn’t just about being displaced or living in manufactured factories and socialist-capitalist landscapes created for the good of the country rather than the good of the people. More than this, it addresses poverty, grief, home, faith and greed with gripping clarity and an ultimate sensitivity. This is the real China. Take it or leave it.

8. SILENT LIGHT: [THEOLOGY OF RESURRECTION]
It’s so appropriate to be posting this list on Easter Sunday when it comes to this unseen gem of a small film that is Silent Light. This slow, gorgeous, moving, and unbelievably unforgettable work of cinema does what few great movies do: it makes believers out of skeptics and (simply) surprises. Believers in what you may ask? I’m not going to ruin the surprise (and there are many) that this film has to offer. I’ll only say this: I really hope we haven’t heard the last of director Carlos Reygadas, a man who embarked into a Mennonite community in Mexico, filming non-actors, and non-manufactured landscapes, and came away with something of a miracle: a post-Easter film merging sound (silent) and sight (light) in an act of creative and narrative genius.

7. THE VISITOR: [THEOLOGY OF CLASS]
There were two great films in 2008 highlighting the subject of class in our world today. One was the Cannes recipient of the coveted Palme d’Or award and Oscar nominated Best Foreign Language Feature aptly titled, The Class; the other (and better film in my opinion) was Thomas McCarthy’s small wonder The Visitor. The movie is just about perfect. Hilarious. Touching. Tragic. It's about finding the beat and rhythm inside yourself and syncing that beat with the friends you grow to love, yes, but it’s also about answering that age old Genesis question, “Where is your brother?” God asked this of Cain and The Visitor asks this question of all of us. Where is our brother? Who is our brother? What are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of another human, in another class, from another country? The Visitor asks similar questions that McCarthy’s first feature, The Station Agent asked in 2003, but this is a much better film than that. It’s more complete, more universal, more personal, in every way. When I saw it at Sundance Film Festival 2008, it received an overwhelmingly unanimous standing ovation. With over 1200 people cheering and applauding after that haunting final shot, I knew right then that The Visitor would find its way onto my top ten list of 2008. So here, at number 7, it is.

6. DOUBT: [THEOLOGY OF DOUBT]
Doubt is practically flawless. The cast is dynamite, the cinematography fantastic, the direction strong, and the story is timely and yet, timeless. It's a fantastic meditation on the Church, as a whole—hierarchy, holiness, and the hell we often experience between them—that will surely spark discussion as to what this story (and the church) is all about. But one of the things I loved most about it (after seeing it three times in theaters with different people each time) was how varied the interpretation on the film was. Kudos to stage writer/director John Patrick Shanley for his acute attention to detail in every scene; he shows us (in nearly every frame) the two sides to the power/importance of doubt in faith. It can enhance and mature us while serving as the catalyst to divide a community, and tear down unity in the body of Christ. Perhaps this is what a double-edged sword looks like. For this really is a total theology of doubt—from the beginning sermon to the final closing one.

5. MILK: [THEOLOGY OF HOPE]
Milk came at the perfect time (especially when it comes to California, and its heated October/November 2008 post-election protests over Proposition 8—doubly titled, Prop. H8TE, by many of its opposers). In a way, it’s a reminder of how a film is as much about the now as it is about the story it’s telling (or in this case, re-telling). For me, it took two viewings of Milk before I was able to see it for what it really was: a pivotal, turning point movie for America, highlighting not only the new Obama administration, but a new depression era, a new era for the Church to redefine itself from the inside out. Harvey Milk as seen through Gus Van Sant’s lens, is in-your-face and humble, in one unrelentlesss breath. It will undoubtedly be remembered as a turning point; a time when people really re-think what it means to be human and to be homosexual in this world. As Milk (the movie and the man) reminds us, hope is a movement. And as the late Harvey Milk would say, he’s here to recruit us to join in that movement. So will we join? Will we step up and enter into the real discussion? It matters little what side you come into the discussion/movement on; what matters is that you simply join the movement.

4. IN BRUGES: [THEOLOGY OF HELL]
As my professor Barry Taylor posited, In Bruges is a meditation on hell. Bruges is a place, and as the title suggests, both two main characters (who are hit men) are stuck in it. Stuck in hell, so to speak, and can’t seem to find there way out. But as one character indirectly asks, how do you find your way out of hell? What can possibly resurrect you out of this dark dream, this unending nightmare? How do you, simply, get out? Atonement is one of In Bruges answers, and its fascinating to see where this conversation goes in a film that (on the surface) looks like just another revenge thriller, just another buddy-bad-guy-shoot-em-kill-em-caper flick. But writer/director Martin McDonagh isn’t interested in staying within the traditional film genre. In his Oscar nominated screenplay, he entertains a world where most stereotypes are true, where most people are more evil than good, and where life (really and truly) can only be redeemed in and through death.

3. WALL-E: [THEOLOGY OF ESCHATOLOGY VIA ECOLOGY]
Andrew Stanton’s dark and somber feature (his best since Finding Nemo) plays off like added pages to the book of Revelation. The strangest feeling one gets while watching WALL-E is a sense of possibility. Seeing a future not too removed from our present age is unsettling, to say the least. Graciously, though, Stanton uses Earth’s inevitable apocalypse premise to recall a sense of wonder, beauty and messiness in life. Rather than simply attacking sterility, security, and shopping (which WALL-E does do), it moves into a homage to cinema, an ode to the great comic geniuses (Charlie Chaplin) and visionary filmmakers (Stanley Kubrick). It’s a movie about the love of movies, a movie about the love of earth, and a movie about the special (wonder) of chemistry and connection. Is it ironic that the new Earth is ushered into existence through two characters who aren’t even human?

2. THE DARK KNIGHT: [THEOLOGY OF EVIL]
Not much more needs to be said about Christopher Nolan’s disturbing, motorcycle ride into-the-abyss-of-what-it-means-to-be-human film that is The Dark Knight. Like every masterful work of cinema, it’s best just to experience it for yourself. Evil has rarely been this clever, this well thought out, this insightful into our own psyche, our own minds and hearts as human beings.

1.THE WRESTLER: [BODY THEOLOGY]
“It’s all about the sacrifice of the body. Everything in life is about the sacrificial lamb.” These two sentences haunt Randy “The Ram” Robinson’s character in Darren Aronofsky’s deeply moving and poignant The Wrestler. From the first time I saw this film, something about it haunted me. It stayed with me. Something about it would not escape my mind. This is what movies you love do, isn’t it? Refuse to leave your mind no matter how hard you try to force them out of it. In this case, part of this is because of its two characters, Robin and Pam, struggling to find their name, their place, their title in life. Stripper? Mother? Butcher? Father? Failure? Lover? Hater? Wrestler? Notice “The Ram” has many names he’s called in this film (Robin Radnzinski, Randy, “The Ram,”), none of which he’s comfortable with. But this is exactly the point. Labels aren’t too helpful, but this beautiful film helps us see something special beyond this: that behind every label, every name, every act of marginalization, is one very lonely person. Not since 2002’s Talk To Her have I felt such a powerful take on the subject of loneliness. This is my favorite (and the best, I think) film from 2008. It’s the perfect reflection of the state of our country, here and now; a country filled with lonely people filling up lonely bodies, looking for their name, their place, their calling.

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P.S.THE 2008 ODE-TO-CINEMA AWARD:
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
It's an import from Sweden and it's a damn good one. A vampire story like no other, Let The Right One In explores love and sacrifice in a way that my favorite film of the year also did. And I'm sorry to disappoint all you Twilight fans out there, but this movie is the real deal--a serious and thought-provoking (and beautiful) expose on vampires, first loves, and the dangers of letting too much light into hospital rooms. And why is this film worthy of this yearly award (one I started years back with Three Times)? Because it reimagines a film genre, it reinspires the traditional horror movie with wit, class and a scary sophistication. Maybe that's why Newsweek magazine named it "The best film of 2008." It isn't just another vampire movie; this movie has bite and you don't need fangs to see that.

Imagination (Part 1)

Thank you, God, for giving us minds.
Thank you, God, for giving us ears.
Thank you, God, for giving us love.
Thank you, God, for giving us tears.

Jesus is the Incarnate One. The one who we turn to when we're depressed, lonely, down and out. Sometimes all we feel we must do is get out. Get out of all our boxes, as Lauryn Hill would say. Jesus, like 2Pac, was a rebel from the underground, a Savior so completely different than what the majority of Christians accepted, he was hung for upsetting people's perception of his reputation. When people, particularly in the majority, are convinced something is 'wrong,' it takes a pretty huge leap to overturn that line of logic/thinking. It takes generations really. It took over a hundred years for people to even consider the idea that slavery (as America practiced it) was wrong. Inhumane. Disrespectful. Wrong. And we're still reaping what we sowed. We still are in the process of unlearning.

Sometimes I wonder how much imagination it will take for us to unlearn all the misinterpretations we've been fed from Scripture. From the practical to the academic level, there are lies floating around everywhere (sure) but there are also lies being masked as lies, yet, they are really true. Can we spot these? Can we see the Bible as Whole enough to see these sections of Scripture illuminated only by the Holy Spirit?

I think I'm more in agreement with the Gospel of Mark and Nick Cave on Jesus' redemption for our lives, really. I think he did come to save us, yes, but he also came to give us back our imagination. He came to ignite in his a passion to look out for the poor, the needy, the broken, the tired, the weary. I don't know about you but I haven't been doing too much of that lately. I've been saying I should, but I haven't.

I talk, yet don't walk.
Speak, yet don't listen.
Law, yet don't love.

How do I begin to unlearn this? With the help of Christ, yes...but what does that look like? How does God see me? How do I think God sees me? These are some of the most telling questions we can answer if we want to truly know who we are (and if we want to catch a glimpse, of who God is).

The Lonely, Isolated, Creatively Imaginative Christ

Here's a selection from Nick Cave's introduction to the Book of Mark. Our professor read it today and it gave me chills. This is the last part of it. For the full quote, search online on google and you'll find it.

"...The rite of baptism - the dying of one's old self to be born anew - like so many of the events in Christ's life is already flavoured metaphorically by Christ's death and it is His death on the cross that is such a powerful and haunting force, especially in Mark. His preoccupation with it is all the more obvious, if only because of the brevity with which Mark deals with the events of His life. It seems that virtually everything that Christ does in Mark's narrative is in some way a preparation for His death - His frustration with His disciples and His fear that they have not comprehended the full significance of His actions; the constant taunting of the church officials; the stirring up of the crowds; His miracle-making so that witnesses will remember the extent of His divine power. Clearly, Mark is concerned primarily with the death of Christ to such an extent that Christ appears consumed by His imminent demise, thoroughly shaped by His death.

The Christ that emerges from Mark, tramping through the haphazard events of His life, had a ringing intensity about him that I could not resist. Christ spoke to me through His isolation, through the burden of His death, through His rage at the mundane, through His sorrow. Christ, it seemed to me was the victim of humanity's lack of imagination, was hammered to the cross with the nails of creative vapidity.

The Gospel According to Mark has continued to inform my life as the root source of my spirituality, my religiousness. The Christ that the Church offers us, the bloodless, placid 'Saviour' - the man smiling benignly at a group of children or serenely hanging from the cross - denies Christ His potent, creative sorrow or His boiling anger that confronts us so forcibly in Mark. Thus the Church denies Christ His humanity, offering up a figure that we can perhaps 'praise' but never relate to. The essential humanness of Mark's Christ provides us with a blueprint for our own lives so that we have something we can aspire to rather than revere, that can lift us free of the mundanity of our existences rather than affirming the notion that we are lowly and unworthy.

Merely to praise Christ in His Perfectness keeps us on our knees, with our heads pitifully bent. Clearly, this is not what Christ had in mind. Christ came as a liberator. Christ understood that we as humans were for ever held to the ground by the pull of gravity - our ordinariness, our mediocrity - and it was through His example that He gave our imaginations the freedom to fly. In short, to be Christ-like.” -NICK CAVE

My Musical Autobiography

My final project for my THEOLOGY & POP MUSIC class is exciting: "write out (in some way, shape or form) your musical biography and hand in a life mix tape/CD to go with it." I found a used record at a store the other day that I cut up because its cover had bands and singers from the 20th century (mostly from the 60s and 70s) typed in tiny font all over the front in pink and blue and yellow and red and purple writing. In big, bold, funky white letters on the front the name of the record was aptly titled I BELIEVE IN MUSIC.

This is where I'm beginning. Let the process begin.

I called my childhood best friend Emiline and asked her to the lyrics of a song our 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Rexford taught us and she remembered. She began to sing it as if no time had passed, rhyming lyrics and all. I couldn't believe it. Music, I'm constantly reminded, is the substance running underneath my love and near obsession with cinema. If it weren't for music, I wonder if I would've ever even been attracted to writing stories or watching movies or making them or anything. Music is the reason I want to dance. It's the reason I exercise. I know I know I should do it because I want to be healthy and live healthily and sure, that's part of it, but I doubt my running would be consistent if I wasn't able to listen to "That's Just What You Are" by Aimee Mann, "All Mine" by Portishead, "Unison" by Bjork, or "All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufjan Stevens. If these artists didn't share their talent, their gift to the world, think of how different people would be. Think of how boring our world would be.

I was reminded of this yesterday when my iPod went dead just before I began a nice bike ride around Pasadena. I stopped, looked down at the display screen and felt disgruntled and upset and threw my hands up asking, "what's the point of riding a bike now!?" Maybe that was more internally, but whatever it was, I walked my bike back to my apartment complex, parked it, locked it up and went to go charge my iPod.

I'll ride tomorrow maybe, I thought.

This is what music does to me.

And then there's the end of 1998, when my first car (I bought) Nissan's radio deck, cassette tape deck, whatever you wanna call it, was dead. I thought it wouldn't be so bad. I thought, "now I can drive peacefully and enjoy nature and meditate on being still and knowing God is God and become a more serene, responsible teenage driver."

That thought didn't last long.

I think it took 2 days for me to bring my yellow Sony half-sports boom box (battery operated) into my Nissan, wedging it between the driver and passenger seat with the speakers pointing up toward heaven. Every classmate or youth group friend or sibling that would drive with me was now blasted with music from the bottom of my car up, the sound waves bouncing up against their left ear lobe and quickly rushing up into their eardrum. And the sound, in all honesty, wasn't so bad. It was music and music makes driving worth it too. Even while driving across the country, the scenery may get old but the car's soundtrack (as long as it's playing) will make the ride worth it. It will make 32 hours driving from Michigan to California feel like a few seconds from a dream. This is another reason why music is so important. This is another area of our lives it pervades, most of the time, without us even recognizing it.

In 2004, this realization really took form inside me and it came in the form of a Leonard Sweet book on leadership called, "Summoned To Lead." In this book, Sweet writes of leaders being called, hearing the sound so intently so persuasively that they envision a future (first through sound, through hearing and then through seeing and looking) they can lead people into. This kind of blew my mind.

I always answered the childhood question, "would you rather be blind or deaf" with a resounding, "DEAF!!" But now, I'm amazed. As sure as I was when I was 7 years old, who would believe I could change my mind and change it so certainly. Now, the same question gets answered with a resounding, "BLIND! Of course! That's easy. No question." Some people still disagree with this, but that's because they've never thought about how much they depend on sound, on noise, on music to color the days of their lives. They don't see the dozens of way music faces them daily and they also don't see how much they enjoy it. They take music for granted and I am included in this group.

So this project is helping me not take music for granted. It's helping me realize that my life biography, really could also be synonymous with my musical autobiography. Music is there greeting me in every area, every (st)age of my life. At age 2, it's old records playing "Santa Lucia" and "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" as I dance in a euphoric, chubby state. At age 6, it morphs into VBS spelling songs such as "I Am A C...I Am A CH...I Am A C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N" or "O-B-E-D-IENCE." At age 8, my dad lets me listen to music from his days and "What The World Needs Now Is Love" and "Alley Oop" spring into my mind. At age 9, Paul Overstreet's "Pick Up The Shovel" and "All The Fun" blast through my dad's maroon 2-Door Buick Somerset on the 7 minute trip to school every morning. How I got to one day listening to Regina Spektor and Sigur Ros and The Roots and Eels is beyond me, but that story is now being told--in my head and onto the written page.

This is another picture of Grace, I think. That despite my upbringing, despite my conservative Christian school, despite some legalism in the church here and there, my ears would one day still come to hear beauty in music that went beyond a Disney theme song key change. Not by my own accord but by people around me, (and God, too I think) constantly showing me the way.

And this is one reason why I love, why I Believe In Music.

If I Am Alive This Time Next Year

My life is all about movie moments. I am defined not by the years I’ve been alive but by the movies that defined me while the years passed quickly by. For example...

1999 is not 1999 but the year that Magnolia and Fight Club were both seriously overlooked in the Oscar ceremony.

1997 is Titanic, period.

1994 was when I became incredibly sick of the phrase, “Life is like a box of chocolates-you never know what you’re gonna get,” thanks to Forrest Gump.

1993 is not 1993 but the year that Philadelphiabrought the issue of AIDS and homosexuality, and more importantly acceptance of homosexuality (too bad they had to use a dying gay man as the catalyst for acceptance but at the time, that was culturally where we were at I guess).

1992 is not 1992 but the year I first wept while actually in a movie theater. That movie was of course, My Girl.

And 1991 isn’t just 1991 but the year, for me especially, where I experienced celluloid salvation, thanks to a dollar theater viewing of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

Ever since 1991, movies have defined me and this presents a theological problem for many people in my life, I think.

I was talking to one of my best friends tonight on the phone and was reminded of how much I ache for movies that depress me, I thrive on exploring the madness, the sadness, and the helplessness so many (usually independent) movies offer nowadays. I only need a shred of hope; please save the happy-happy sports/hero/man-triumphs-over-adversity-yet-again for someone else. This is not to say I'm above this story structure or even that I'm tired of watching movies that follow such a story structure, I'm simply saying I like movies like About Schmidt, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days. Why does that make me such an "other." A "them," even, in so many "Christian" circles? I'm not sure. I guess I'm beginning to care less and less how I'm seen in those circles anyway so maybe asking such a question is futile (even to begin with).

Perhaps I'm viewed weird because Christians follow a person who's own life ended so happily. Perhaps the way Jesus triumphed over torture on the cross is how people justify their strange glances toward me. Because when his mother Mary was beside him on that hill, I'm sure she was just waiting for the applause to happen and for God to wink and say, "Just kidding! Everything's gonna be alright!" That's probably why people look at me funny sometimes. Because "their" Savior was just so damn happy all the time. Wasn't he?

Was he?

I don't think I want a Savior who puts Gladiator as his favorite film, or who sees his own life timeline of movie moments being captured in scenes from Radio or The Game Plan or Big Mamma's House.

I want a Savior who's comfortable with poop. Not just poop in the toilet but poop in people's lives. In our tragedies, depression and tears.

I thought that's who Jesus (the Savior of the Church) really is. But looking around in today's churches, and looking around at how they treat the gospel, how they see movies, how they look for the happiness around every corner, I wonder. I doubt. Over and over again.

I doubt.

Free Tibet? Free China!

The Western politics and media have once again persuaded American nationalism and patriotism into swallowing "freedom" rhetoric yet again. Now, I'm not trying to undermine the people who are actually being discriminated against in China or Tibet, but I am getting a little tired of violent protests going on (in Tibet by Tibetans, mostly Tibetan Buddhists) and our media calling them "peaceful protests" (see Los Angeles Times for repeated skewed-to-the-West articles on the matter).

In the past two months, Chinese embassies have been attacked in Austria, Germany, France, Hungary...and many more. Yes, these so-called "peaceful protests" fueled by "Free Tibet" thinking Tibetans and Westerners, resulted in beatings, rocks thrown, and burning and desecration of the Chinese flag, just outside the embassies. Imagine if this had happened to U.S. embassies worldwide. Imagine the outcry on Fox News by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Imagine how many times George W. Bush would've named this as "terrorists at work." Yet, this happens to China and we in America don't try and speak against these acts...no...instead, we encourage them. We encourage Tibet to be free from China. We encourage Tibetans to protest (violently) and call it peace and justice and liberation.

Ironic that it was the Chinese government that actually saved/freed Tibet (socially and economically) in 1951 from the agonizing effects of Feudalism, Imperialism and corrupt religious officials who were more concerned with hording riches, keeping poor people enslaved and widening the gap between the rich and poor. Is history repeating itself or what? Is the West really being fooled into thinking that Tibet was really so wonderful and peaceful and serene before 1951?

It's always easier to blame the government. For Westerners, when the government is Communist, this is even more reason to blame the government. As we all know, the U.S. (well, George W. Bush as representing the U.S.) is much more concerned with every country converting to a democracy instead of actually understanding a country's history. We think democracy will work everywhere because it works (well, for the most part it does) in the West. This is proving to be fatal for American political foreign policy leaders and heads of state.

So of course, it's easy to reduce the history of Tibet, fueled by slavery, wars, and disgusting displays of torture for anyone who challenged religious authorities...or basically anyone who wanted religious freedom, to a political statement by Mr. W himself. In the Los Angeles Times, George W. Bush is quoted as saying, "If they [China] ever were to reach out to the Dalai Lama, they'd find him to be a really fine man, a peaceful man, a man who is anti-violence."

Wake up Mr. American President! This "really fine" and "peaceful man" is part of a history of Dalai Lamas that oppressed its people. But I guess as long as its done in the name of religion, it's okay.

The reality is this: China is becoming more powerful and let's face it, 1.5 billion people is threatening to other world leaders. It's much easier to attack, to point out the plank in another country's eye, rather than attempting to address our own problems. So please America, stop jumping on the FREE TIBET bandwagon unless you've actually studied the history of Tibet, the history of Tibet and China before and after 1951 and consider what exactly the U.S. would do if "peaceful protesters" in Los Angeles set innocent civilians on fire (what some Tibetans did recently to Han/Chinese civilians) and claimed to be doing so in search for freedom and independence? How would the U.S. government respond? Would we allow these people of Los Angeles to secede from the U.S.? Would we honestly grant them independence from our country since they're so, supposedly, "peaceful?"

What's going on in Tibet is not peaceful and what's going on in other countries against Chinese embassies is not peaceful either. It is a push towards anarchy. Yet, the Western media doesn't report those incidences. We don't seem to believe much of what's done against China and its nation (and people) is worth reporting.

My question is: why? Or I guess my real question should be: why not?

The Top Ten Films of 2007

It's that time of year again. Just before Oscar Sunday and I've been putting it off long enough. So many films this year deserve to be in a top ten list--someone's list anyways--but I had to decide a few weeks ago that making a list should be about movies I loved, not necessarily about those that critics loved. It should be filled with ones that shocked or surprised me or made me fall in love with cinema all over again. It shouldn't just be filled with a list of the truly "great films" of the year. As I look at the list I made for this year, one thing is common to them all: the music (or deliberate lack thereof) colors the emotional core of the movie. From number 10 to number 1, the music plays a significant role in the story, the mood, and the character's struggle. So even though I'm leaving off a few films I thought for sure would make it on my top ten list and some also ruled by great music ("The Savages," "Juno," "The Namesake," "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," "American Gangster," "Knocked Up," "The Orphanage," "The Devil Came On Horseback," "Waitress," "Dan In Real Life," "3:10 To Yuma," "No Country For Old Men" and one of my favorite summer flicks "Hairspray") the list must only be ten, that's the beauty of it. So here we go, like it or not:

10. Eternal Summer: What does it look like in a country where same-sex friendship, for centuries, has been more valuable, more precious, and more lifelong-lasting than opposite sex romances? More importantly, what does it look like when the Western world of romantic ideals clashes with the Eastern world of honor and friendship? Eternal Summer is that dilemma. Far from perfect, but consistently engaging in its simplicity, there’s a visual wonder present here that once again reinforces how and why Asian cinema simply is, the master of mood and atmosphere. With the three characters in the film all symbolizing particular objects in space—Jonathan (the sun), Shane (the earth), and Carrie (the comet)—the film uses this “space” to explore sexuality and the friendship that often muddles up, down and in between. It also uses this as a metaphor for the transition from childhood to adulthood. In a sense, Eternal Summer is as reserved as Chinese culture itself, evoking in its simplicity a raw brand of melodrama unparalleled in big-budget American films. In the end, Director Leste Chan suggests a final scene far more ambiguous, complex and ironically dreamlike (despite its element of tragedy) than a handful of American independent films. We the audience are cast out into the cosmos, and asked to wonder where the fate of these three friends—and people in the world like them—will be at life’s end. Haunting, heartbreaking and a much needed love letter to the people of Asia who live lives with similar complexities.

9. The Host:Welcome to my new obsession with Asian cinema. Some movies on a film lover’s list simply have to be on there for a sarcastic slap in the face of our world today. For me, South Korea’s mega blockbuster The Host is that film. Blending the dysfunctional family comedy of Little Miss Sunshine, the thrills of Jaws, the human nature values of King Kong and the contemporary circus politics of the Fox News Channel, director Joon-Ho Bong has crafted a relevant, scary, and funny cultural indictment on the political superpower known as America. Based on the real life events of an American scientist who ordered toxic chemical waste to be emptied into Seoul’s vast Han River, causing an outbreak of South Korean riots and protests, The Host begins with a simulated scene displaying this very act (set in the year it actually happened). After that, something freaky has morphed underneath the waters of the Han River and as expected, it’s attacking people, hopping along beaches and underneath bridges slurping and snapping up its prey as fast as it can. Essentially, The Host is a film showcasing an excellence in editing. It juxtaposes mass hysteria against our “everyday fear-driven evening news” in a way that asks, “Are we mere consumers, being controlled by the democracies we elect?” What’s fascinating about The Host is how it manages to be completely cultural—showing how ancient old society values of its senior citizens starkly contrast the bachelor’s-degree-holding mass of educated, yet dissatisfied youth—and yet, completely, universally now. When a monster movie can be this smart, this exciting, this culturally critiquing, how can it not be one of the year’s best?

8. Superbad: “Tell your story, no matter how bad it is.” This mantra could be the vision for the evangelical world, couldn’t it? I recall once in youth group in high school a sponsor commented that when people come to give a testimony, they spend entirely too much time focusing on the “sin part” of the story. That is, it all seems to be about how horrible this person was before they found Jesus. Their story was about their dirty deeds (had sex a lot before marriage, did every drug imaginable, cursed profusely). To myself, a kid born and raised in the church, this part always intrigued me. I looked forward to this part of the story. It fascinated me. In all honesty, this is why I loved to listen to these stories: to hear all the bad that I was told I could never do. This is the difference between the evangelical world and the rest of the world: the latter embraces the “badness” of every story; the former usually doesn’t. The evangelical world tries to theologically tell us it’s not apart of the whole person who we really are. But they can’t seem to come to grips with the reality that this is and was part of a person’s past. They are only one person and you can’t split a person into halves (as much as we’d like to think we can). This is why I loved Superbad so much. It effortlessly merges today’s raunchy youth with Ecclesiastes 4:9, figuratively and literally. In an age where most people suspect intimacy between two people of the same sex on film as almost always “homo-erotic” it’s refreshing to watch Superbad and see it’s not about the sex, but about the friendship. Masked as another raunchy high school comedy, it’s actually an elitist comedy really, with most of the jokes hitting high above the heads of everyday adolescents. And I know I’ll get a lot of crap for putting it there on my top ten list, but I’m sorry. Here’s a film that got me. It shocked me by how much I loved its irreverence and appreciated its blend of high/low cinematic art. Farting is still funny but it’s never been this well-written, I swear.

7. There Will Be Blood:There’s always one film on my top ten list that deserves to be there and I can’t even explain why. But when you’ve been wrong about a certain director for so long (with Boogie Nights and Magnolia I missed the point when I first watched them—probably due to my age—and only later realized they were both top ten material, for sure) you begin to change from your old ways. Initially, after I saw There Will Be Blood I saw no hope. There only was a very desperate man who was very, in a sense, soulless. But after some good conversations I’m already learning how wrong that assumption of the film was: this isn’t just a film about how bad one man is, but about a complex figure in American history: the oilman. Once chipping away lonely in a dark hole, alone, and covered in dirt is now a man speaking to crowds, making more money than he knows what to do with. How does the former become the latter and still keep his soul when his world is but an open road? More importantly, what happens when you’re surrounded by the very worst in “Christian” religion, where it becomes the next thing in line behind oil that people are ready to sell (and ready to “buy” so to speak)? This is why There Will Be Blood works on so many levels. It is a historical sum up of America in the 1920s California, revealing how greed works its way into every aspect of life, no matter what a person’s faith may be. And once again, as he did in Boogie Nights and Magnolia writer/director P.T. Anderson crafts a story that’s a warning sign to future generations, overtly moral and striking in visuals and substance. What is it about? It’s about people. It should always be about people. Every time it loses focus, things go awry. There Will Be Blood shows us how bad it did get and how bad it will get if we don’t start taking Jesus’ words seriously: “money is a bitchy barrier to God—you can’t serve them both; when you try, be prepared to die twice.” That’s a paraphrase but it works, doesn’t it?

6. The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters: Every once in awhile, a documentary breaks through the barriers of capturing “life on film” and captures the competitive history of humanity in one 100 minute sweep. In 2003, a little documentary called Spellbound did just that. Not until now has a documentary repeated that feat. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters could very well be “Spellbound-as-adults.” Essentially, it narrows in on a group of 80s gamer geeks (a few of them geniuses) with one particular story in focus: who is the best Donkey Kong player on the planet? This question starts a film loaded with laughs, giggles (they are not the same) and so many smirk-cracking-to-laugh-out-loud moments you’ll swear you’re a character inside of the game. On top of this, the footage these guys capture is nothing short of a miracle. It’s a movie where more is at stake than the title of being Donkey Kong champion. It’s a movie about competition, competitiveness and ego, and it’s the best, most exhilarating, most entertaining documentary of its kind.

5. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly: So many critics are talking about this film and so many of them have named it the best film of 2007. That’s not a surprise. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is visually intoxicating and explosively emotional, and may very well be the most unique, haunting and creative "true story" vision to appear on film in years. Imagination hasn't looked this good since In America or Amelie. Many films try to get inside the heads of their characters visually, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly achieves such a feat with an emblematic visual rhythm. There are a few moments in the film that feel like home video footage from one’s childhood, slowly etching its way into our hearts. When the film gets frustrated, we get frustrated. When the film shows the most vulnerable moments between father and son, we recall our own personal moments. These moments carry the film and bleed into the harsh, seemingly hopeless reality that is the main character’s life (and real life person, Jean-Dominique Bauby). Every act of the film is fleshed out to perfection, thanks to the Cannes award recipient in 2007 for best director, Julian Schnabel. And don’t be surprised if he does an upset at the Oscars in a week.

4. Ratatouille:Disney and Pixar just keep getting better. Not only is this a film that was worthy of a Best Picture nomination (when are Oscar voters going to realize that 5 Academy Award nominations in other categories such as Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing and others warrant a Best Picture nomination, despite it being “animated”). In the tradition of Beauty and the Beast and Finding Nemo, Ratatouille may even be a more fully realized whole film. I can’t remember the last time an animated film honored Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet in story, in drama and in visuals. It also could’ve shared the title of another great film about Paris this year—Paris, Je T’aime (Paris, I love you)—in the way it seems to act as a love recipe to the city of blinding lights. Added to this, the movie really does (as cliché as it sounds) have it all. It blends high culture with low culture, criticism with creativity, and devotion with destiny. For a movie appealing to all ages, that’s pretty much a miracle in 2007.

3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, And 2 Days:Romanian films are quickly becoming the cinematic cultural touch points of today. Between past and tomorrow, moral choices and immoral social systems, nothing and everything seems to be sacred in the present. Romania showcased this brilliantly with its 2006 masterpiece The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and it’s done it again here in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, where the world of 1987 is seen through a 2007 lens. Watching 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is an experience that must be absorbed in one sitting. You can’t take a break, you can’t pause for an interrupted cell phone call; you simply must focus on the film’s use of space. With no music in the film, only silence showing the distant space between people, the film works through you gradually and meticulously like a shining razor, cutting through emotionalism in an effort to exploit its audience. You watch and wonder why the camera lingers for so long after a scene—that in most Hollywood films would be cut out in an instant—and marvel how director Cristian Mungiu brilliantly relishes in the mystery of the after space. The after space is that intangible but completely felt mystery weaving through the air after any choice made between two people. It is confused by how love often manifests itself and even more confused at how politics encourage such warped expressions of this love. The space is explored in this film between the heart of the character and the heart of the audience, merging the two in a climax that is eerie and unforgettable. This is breathtaking cinema that will be haunt you for days after you see it.

2. Lars And The Real Girl:Ryan Gosling somehow manages to upstage himself yet again (from last year’s Half Nelson) into this wholly complex character of an ordinary lonely man in Wisconsin who grew up without a mother. Hundreds of actors have played characters like this before but no one has given the depth and emotional intelligence that Gosling gives to Lars here. Having said that, the entire cast fully supports this tricky performance. Patricia Clarkson as the wonderful psychiatrist/MD Dagmar, Emily Mortimer as Lars’ overbearing yet completely loving sister-in-law, and Paul Schneider as Lars’ older, sometimes wiser (sometimes not) brother. In a sense, the movie redeems our perception of what a sex doll could do for people (and in this case, an entire community). There are endless layers to Lars and the Real Girl—with its visual chemistry warmly fused with its lyrical story—but I really saw it as one giant contemporary parable with shades of pink colored in everywhere. Lars is about redemption, yes, but it’s also about how perception and community can make us into truly good people. There are so many wonderful scenes in the film, so many crying out desperately needing to be noticed it seems as though the loneliness Lars feels is actually connecting to us. The movie is mostly somber and quiet but there’s a level of respect, humanity and honor in this quiet. It has its outrageous, hilarious moments (as shown in too great of detail in the movie’s trailer) but these are not where the film’s strengths lie in. Like my last year pick for second best film of the year Stranger Than Fiction, Lars and the Real Girl rests its head in between the tragedy and comedy of everyday life and everyday people. And there, in the transformation of seasons—from winter to spring—is where we see its heart and our own.

1.Into The Wild:There’s a pattern going on here. Roger Ebert, the undisputed greatest film critic of the twentieth century, is freaking me out. Every other year for the past few years, his “number ten spot” on his wrap-up top ten list of films for the year has been my “number one.” In 2003, his number ten was my my number one: In America. In 2005, his number ten was my number one: Millions. And now, two years later, it’s happened again. His number ten is my number one—my favorite and pick for the best film of the year: Into the Wild. The film (even after three viewings) is a deeply moving, completely complete motion picture event. Movies like this rarely get made anymore. It’s got the character driven-ness of great films like Five Easy Pieces and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and the pitch-perfect-poetic flare of a really good nonfiction book. It’s about a selfish kid trying to find his way (with to his credit, a seriously disturbed past) in life, out on the road, and climaxes in a way that movies rarely, if ever, do: a spiritual, emotional, purely human supernatural epiphany. Is it from God? Heaven? Nature? Inside himself? Let the viewer decide.

NEVILLE'S LIST RE-VISITED:
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10. Eternal Summer
9. The Host
8. Superbad
7. There Will Be Blood
6. The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters
5. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
4. Ratatouille
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, And 2 Days
2. Lars And The Real Girl
1. Into The Wild
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THE 2007 ODE-TO-CINEMA AWARD: I started a tradition a few years back picking out one film a year which furthers the art of cinema. It honors the past while creatively putting together a fresh, unique vision for the future. Essentially, I like to think of it as part of my 2007 Top Ten list, just in a different way. This year's award goes to, Paris, Je T'aime.Eighteen different directors and dozens of world-famous actors come together for various interpretations--sad, lonely, tragic, scary, happy and wondrous--of what it means to be in love in Paris and in love with Paris. Each vignette takes place in one of Paris' streets and is named after it appropriately. There are of course a few favorites I've watched more than 10 times already (see Alexander Payne's film, Tom Tywver's film, and Gus Van Sant's film for three greats inside of here), but what I love most about this film is the way it captures--sometimes in five minutes or less--moments in life. It moves us, sweeps us up and enchants us. I hope the future of movies come close to resembling something like Paris, Je T'aime.

That's all for now. Be forewarned though...once I see more films from 2007 and once I see movies I loved more than once, sometimes that makes me rethink my list. So as always, this is subject to change. But enough for now. Sorry Nathan for making you wait so long. I hope you're not heavily disappointed.