Brehm Blog
April Alkema Jan 30, 2010
Burj Al Arab, in English “The Arabian Tower,” is a Jumeirah hotel located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Its architect, Tom Wright, designed the building with the specific goal of creating an iconic structure—recognized by the ability to draw it in only a few strokes and by its immediate identification with a specific place on earth. The building is meant to resemble the sail of a dhow. Burj Al Arab’s website boasts that it is “the world’s most luxurious hotel,” a statement supported by the fact that it is often popularly known as a “seven-star” hotel. With prices indicative of its luxury, the building is in fact set up to be not only an iconic structure but an iconic experience, associated particularly with Dubai, UAE.
A controversy developed as some viewers noticed that, viewed from the sea, the building makes the shape of the cross. People claimed that Tom Wright had a dream that he should be a Christian influence in the largely Muslim UAE. The level of controversy surrounding the building developed to such a degree that Tom Wright responds to it on his website with the following statement: “I can categorically state that the idea of designing the largest Christian cross in the world on the shores of Dubai never crossed my mind,” and specifically identifies himself as an agnostic.
As far as I can tell, some of the major news sources (i.e. The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times) have not taken the time to deal with the quibbling of the conspiracy theorists and gossipers on this issue; however, the fact that the issue has grown large enough to incite articles, blogs, and a personal response from Tom Wright points to its significance. Symbols are powerful, and this situation is one example of that. The simple presence, however unintentional, of the shape of the cross—infinitely more iconic than Wright’s towering sail—has caused a backlash that would not have arisen if its critics did not think that there were any power or import connected to the shape.
I am sure there are Christians that hear of this odd circumstance and feel a sense of pride in the fact that, in their opinion, God has brought about a small miracle in order to witness to Muslims. There are images circulating the web that highlight the cross on the building. This strange sense of “haha, we got you!” from Christians feels like a tagger from one gang crossing onto another gang’s turf. To some people, the presence of the image indicates the power of its group in the place it is located. The cross functions in many ways for Christians, but some of them include a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and a reminder of God’s presence. But is the cross a reminder of God’s presence or does it actually mediate God’s presence? The criticism and bitterness on one side and exultation and encouragement on the other shows that, for many people, the presence of the symbol really does indicate or even mediate the presence of the church or God in that place, almost as if it were a sacrament through image.
I am convinced that it does not take the presence of a symbol or a member of the church to know where God is; God is everywhere. On the other hand, when people recognize a cross and connect it to Christianity, it offers a moment to remember God and/or the church. In some people’s thoughts during these moments, the memories—perhaps of bad experiences in church or of scorn for the idea of a higher being—may have the opposite effect of what some Christians view as the positive witness of the shape of the cross. For others it may be a reminder of God’s presence or Christ’s love. Still many more, including myself, may see the cross and experience a variety of these and other types of responses. Because of the nature of the human mind, it turns out that the shape does mediate something about God and the church, but not God’s Self. The symbol is too entangled with human experience for that. In the end, God does not need the symbol to be present. God is there already and humanity’s power-mongering is only detracting from the truth of love.
Tom Wright Design
Aaron Raymond Jan 29, 2010
So much depends upon the body. We come to believe in the inherent self worth of our own particular form because we have consciously, or not, contemplated upon it our whole lives. Our knowledge of the world is wrapped up in the boundaries of our own finite experience. From birth we witness the world from atop a desolate hill, laying down our foundations of learning from which we build upon. If we are wise we never stop building. We send out signals into the great void hoping to hear a response louder than our own subconscious echoes. We sound the horns, send out the messenger doves, and cast up smoke signals. And to our constant amazement we receive reply.
Our mothers bore us for 9 months, breastfed us for 2 years, bathed us for two more, and watched us grow and mature for the rest. They know the freckles on our nose, the mole behind our ear, the scar on our chin, and every ticklish corner of our skin. Yet every time a mother looks at her child, who by now has grown up with years stretched across his eyes, she sees with joyful surprise that same face she beheld in tears when she was a younger woman. She knows that body, which she bore, nursed, bathed, and clothed.
We all enter the world in the same fashion. We sense our bodies in much the same way. We learn to bathe ourselves. We learn to clothe ourselves. We look in the mirror at ourselves. We get haircuts. We step on the scale. We feel our heart race. We feel our chest rise and fall. We feel the tingle of a soft wind blow upon our neck and through our newly cut hair. We feel our teeth and our lips with our tongue. We feel our fingers press and our toes wiggle back and forth. We feel our bodies in motion in much the same way.
Yet we come to experience another person’s body in varying degrees and contexts. From a look, or a handshake, to the most intimate of human interactions, we learn of the other. And in that most intimate of human interactions we surrender what for so long we had always assumed was so uniquely our own yet bears the signature of a proud mother and the trademark name of a father. In this moment we learn more fully that our bodies are not our own, but one variant manifestation aforementioned.
I raise my eyes from the charcoal lightly held in my right hand, pressed in sweeping gestures upon a blank white sheet of paper. What must it have felt like the moment right before the Big. Bang. occurred? Right before The Word rolled off His tongue. A thousand violins poised in expectant, bottled furry waiting for the down-stroke of the conductor’s baton. And then… Creation pours forth. From my hand as if from the very source of Life itself! It feels like teenage trestle jumping off the train tracks at night into a pitch-black lake. It’s that moment right before your first kiss.
I look to see what my hands have in vain tried to recreate. Out of the corner of my eye I behold the soft toned symmetry of curvilinear shapes that merge together in V-like perplexity and force a drafted echo of a figure upon the empty space of two dimensions. I don’t know this young woman, not even her name. But right now I feel as intimate with her figure as though I were her love. And in every blemish and imperfection I fall more deeply in love as such mistakes become nuanced moments of intentioned observation wrought from charcoal. Every wrinkle, every scar, and every sag I behold in my mind as a testament to time. How perfect is imperfection? My own skin once smelled like butter. Now it smells and looks like a man’s.
Lin Schulz Preiss Jan 20, 2010
Maybe because of lasting impressions of Christmas and Epiphany, I can't stop thinking about stars. (And I mean the ones that have evoked the human imagination far longer and are less visible than the ones here in LA). Nearly every night when I walk I find myself looking up, and in spite of the light pollution, I can still make out a few constellations that I know: Orion and his belt, the Big Dipper and a faint view of Seven Sisters. That’s about all I remember from 4th grade astronomy anyway.
When my husband and I drove back from Colorado to the Southland after New Years, we stopped in the middle nowhere in Nevada. We both were awestruck by the mass of greater and lesser stars we could see. Our necks craned, we could hardly make out good ol’ Orion or the dipper amidst the countless others. Have you ever had that opportunity? To think that that same sky captured the imagination of generations, how much greater impact would there be on the imagination in a world lit only by fire, a stable hope in the dark of night? It is no wonder that from these stars came stories like that of the Seven Sisters, Leo and so many more. Their imaginative potential is found in the Psalms, and in the star of the Magi’s’ wonder. However, they too show up in chapter one of the story, one of God’s first creative bursts: “'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day and night; let them serve as signs…’ And it was so.”
It is on this point that I have been most in wonder lately, thanks to my Dad. He’s an engineer, a mathematician and finds his faith fueled by connections with science. But lately we’ve found shared interests, where the wonder of science and the imagination of artists are met in God’s creation. My dad had sent me a DVD called “The Star of Bethlehem,” and while I knew he was excited about it -maybe because it smelled of too many a forwarded email I’ve received- it took me months to finally sit down and watch. But I finally did, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. (Sorry, I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt, Dad) You see, as many a person more observant and wise than I have found, the movement of the stars is constant, steady and predictable. Therefore we are now able to see what the night sky looked like at any place in any time of history. It is on this technology that “The star of Bethlehem” is based. And why my mathematical father is so intrigued.
However, as the DVD explores the possibilities of what “star” the Magi would have followed to Bethlehem, it also draws upon a rich history of star symbolism and meaning. For example, peoples long before Christ had named the stars and constellations, from which we get many Greek myths and the like. There are constellations of the Virgin, the Lamb, the Lion and others whose movement came together in striking ways that correlate with the Christ event that was to come countless years later: a slain lamb, the lion of Judah, born to a virgin. It excites the imagination to think about, especially considering that these stars were put into motion already on “day four!” Likewise, what does it mean that these stars also “told” of not only Christ’s coming but, his death, even before Adam and Eve were created, let alone sinned. There’s some food for thought.
As an artist I was further struck by the idea that God put the stars there, but it was through generations of neck-craning philosophers and storytellers’ imagination we found their deeper meaning. It is in such orchestrated ways that our God works, and I am in awe. Whether scientist, philosopher and artist we freely think, imagine and create in response to the world, only to find ourselves kneeling before our King who divinely inspired our own imaginings. And so I wonder: Is this true of all creative processes, at least in their potential? And can we also, see, really see, imagine and follow where it (God?) leads?
To find out more about "The Star of Bethlehem" DVD, go to: http://thestarofbethlehemmovie.com
Elijah Davidson Jan 14, 2010
The worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it. - Oscar Wilde
Where is your source of stability? What do you depend on? In the midst of the turmoil of life, where is peace? What is your hope?
For many, financial security is the bedrock of their lives. We work hard in our chosen fields. We go to school to obtain a higher degree and become more skilled. We save and invest. We do all of this in hopes that these practices will ensure a pleasant, peaceful life.
Then one day we find ourselves sitting across from a man like Ryan Bingham, and he has come to tell us that our foundation is being ripped from beneath us. We are losing our jobs. "Your hope," he says, "is no hope at all. Take this packet, and let us begin helping you rebuild your life."
Ryan Bingham, played by a never-been-better George Clooney, is the central character in Up in the Air, and his job is traveling around the country letting people know they have been let go. He is the god of wealth's angel of death, flitting through the clouds and descending only to bring judgment on the unsuspecting worshipers below. He does this coolly, calmly, and without remorse.
But he is also human, and to become Mammon's harbinger of doom he has had to detach himself from all consequential relationships. He loves and is loved by no one. Women are play things, other men are adversaries, and family is an annoyance. "Relationships are weight," he says, "To carry them is to be slowed down, and to move is to live."
The narrative's central crisis is created when Bingham learns that like the thousands he has spent his life firing, his way of life is in jeopardy. A hot-shot young woman (Anna Kendrick, wonderfully liberated from the Twilight franchise) has arrived on the scene to revolutionize the way Bingham's company fires people, and he isn't going to be able to live disconnected any longer. He's going to have to land in Omaha, a place where he has no reason to be except that the city houses the headquarters of his employer.
Up in the Air is essentially two films in one. On each end of the film and interspersed throughout are montages of people reacting to the news that they are losing their jobs. In these moments the film becomes a lament over the economic storm that we have weathered through the past year. Many of the people pictured in these moments are not actors. They are people who have recently lost their jobs. We see their actual reactions to finding out their hope has failed them. The audience lives vicariously through these people. We commiserate with them in their angst. We ask with them, "When our supposed hope fails us, to what do we hold?"
The second foci of the film concerns the purpose of relationships in our lives. "Make no mistake," Bingham chides Nathalie, "We all die alone." Why then, should we invest in one another?
"Ah ha!" you're thinking, "I know where this movie is headed. The second question answers the first." You'd be right in most films, but Up in the Air doesn't offer such easy answers. Like Ecclesiastes, Up in the Air admits that loving relationships are a balm to life's bruises, but also like Ecclesiastes, the film doesn't picture love as a cure-all.
This film as a whole is more honest that most others. It is a brave work, because it is willing to point out our brokenness and to admit it's inability to provide an answer. It is truly compassionate both to the character of Ryan Bingham and, by way of the people in the film who lose their jobs, to the audience. This is not a trite film in any way.
Like the slave masters who were kind to their slaves, most movies freely give false hope to their audiences. Up in the Air doesn't want you to remain in slavery, and so it doesn't offer easy answers. It doesn't lie to its audience by saying that romance solves all problems. Some will see this film as sad and depressing and unsatisfying. It is these things, but the filmmakers should be applauded for honestly saying, "This is the world as we see it and as we surmise our audience sees it as well. It is a broken place, and we mourn over that, and we have no answers."
This is the place where we, as bearers of the hope of Christ, must step in and give the Answer that has found us. We have true Hope in the face of economic misfortune. We have a reason for relationships. We see past death. "Saints love beyond Time's measure," the hymn sings ("All Flesh Is Grass"). It is our duty to answer Ryan Bingham's cynicism with, "No, Ryan. We don't all die alone, because we know One who has already died for us."