The following post concerns the short-lived series Firefly and its film sequel, Serenity. I, personally, treasure the show and movie, and J.R. Daniel Kirk does a great job of touching on some of its larger themes. If you haven't experienced the show, I encourage you to do so as soon as possible. In the mean time, enjoy the following post.

-- Elijah Davidson, Co-Director for the Institute for Reel Spirituality at the Brehm Center for Worship Theology and the Arts

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If you’ve missed the series Firefly, you may go to Hulu right now and start catching up. It was canceled after one season but managed to produce not only a huge cult following but also a feature film entitled Serenity.

Following up on the series, and assuming for the most part that you know the characters and their ways from there, the film focuses on the desire of the intergalactic alliance (think “the Empire”) to recapture River, a young woman who has taken up with a former freedom fighter (think “the rebel alliance”) and his crew–a posse that now steals and trades whatever they can to make a buck off of their Firefly Class spaceship named Serenity.

This is called a “space western” on many of the sites, and the name is apt (think “first three Star Wars movies, with their western hero Han Solo / Luke Skywalker”). Heck, so long as I’m making Star Wars references, there’s even a scene where the good guy and bad guy duke it out on some catwalks. But I digress.

A few interesting themes pervade the movie, and I’d encourage you, should you dive into this world with its cult following, to keep your eyes and ears open for them.

One of the characters is a “shepherd,” a futuristic sort of monk/pastor. He encourages the main cowboy type, Mal, to believe–even if he doesn’t believe in God, to believe in something. There’s a running theme in the film about the power of belief itself. It’s worth keeping your ears out for that.

One of the core conflicts in the movie seems to revolve around that idea of belief. The alliance believes that it can compel people to be better, to a better way of life. Mal and his posse represent the opposite. Mal says he doesn’t believe we can make people better.

As Mal dukes it out with a guy who always seems to be dressed in black (or dark purple), their different beliefs come to the fore again. Evil dude is a top flight assassin, who is striving to create “a world without sin”–a world that will hold no place for himself, he well knows. The conflict of the film is resolved when Mal presents an alternative means to that world without sin: not killing the girl, River, but telling the galaxies the truth about the Alliance.

In the end, Mal tells the secret of survival to River as they fly off for their next journey: love. It was love that enabled River to be freed from the Alliance in the first place. It is love that allows the crew of Serenity to survive.

Especially for a “space western,” this was a well-told story whose thematic riches might be easy to miss within the otherwise predictable action-hero adventure.

-- J.R. Daniel Kirk

Modern playgrounds (in the 20th century sense) were usually constructed with the theory that it was to be a place of education. In fact, according the the United Nations “Declaration of the Rights of the Child” (1959) the purpose of “play” was “to develop [the child’s] abilities, his individual judgment, and his sense of moral and social responsibility, and to become a useful member of society.” With this theory in mind, playgrounds were made using fixed parts - swings, sandboxes, seesaws, and slides. Children came to these fixed parts and had a limited number of ways in which to play on them. These were the accepted and traditional playground amenities. Through “play”, children were to learn how each of these functioned and become adept at using them. In the process, it was hoped that children would have opportunities to learn the etiquette of society: take your turn on the swings, don’t throw sand, share the seesaw, no pushing on the slide, etc.

This was all fine and good. Fine and good if you simply want to raise well-behaving, and polite little clones. This kind of playground, however, was terribly suited for fostering creativity. It was also terrible for promoting play, if we mean a more playful kind of play than that described by the United Nations.

Today, there is sort of revolution afoot in playground construction and strategy. It started in mid-century Europe when the first “junk playground” was constructed by Carl Theodor Sorensen in Copenhagen. This innovative structure had moving parts: pieces of wood, pipes, nails, hammers, shovels, and other tools. Today, the junk playground concept has evolved into what New York architect David Rockwell calls the “Imagination Playground”.

One of the key features of this new playground model is that it replaces the fixed parts of the traditional playground with “loose parts”. Specifically, these are large, bright-blue, foam blocks molded into complementary, modular shapes. With these, the children on the playground have virtually limitless options for play. What was once a fairly scripted activity (swing on the swings, slide on the slide) has now become a free and open, creative exercise. With the availability of foam blocks (which, by the way, seem much safer to me than nails, hammers, and wood!) children are invited to imagine new ways of playing.

You know where I’m going with this.

How much do our worship services resemble the playgrounds of old? We have our fixed parts known as “the four-fold plan of worship”: Gathering, Word, Table, Sending. In some ways, these are indispensable for they give a coherent deeply-rooted (yet simple) structure to our meetings. And yet, the content we typically pour into these molds tends toward restriction in the realm of creativity and imagination.

Our song-singing, though formally participative, often appears more as performance. The Word is typically an intellectual exercise for the congregation and primarily a presentation of the verbal and mental acuity of the preacher. Our Communion often resembles driving through a McDonalds rather than a sacred act in which uniquely created individuals are cemented together in mysterious, holy union.

What’s more, the mid-century, European version of our worship with it’s organs, pews, and hymnals has really not altered very much, except in terms of the names of the parts. Rock bands have replaced organs. Folding chairs and theater seats have replaced pews. Projected lyrics have replaced printed hymnals. These changes are only cosmetic. We are still stuck with inherited and “fixed” parts. These limit our ability to imagine, create, and play in the presence of God.

If we were to change all of this, what would it look like? What are the bright-blue foam blocks that are to replace our swings, seesaws, and slides?

To answer this question would be to write another full blog post. Instead, let me pose the question to you: How do you imagine a worship environment in which people are invited to create and imagine instead of merely mimic and recite?

The term “loose parts” as it relates to child’s play was coined by the architect Simon Nicholson in 1971. In an essay called “How Not to Cheat Children: The Theory of Loose Parts”, he wrote:

“In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.”

In terms of our worship practices, how can we increase the variables and “loose parts” in order to liberate the inventiveness and creativity of our worshipers?

-Eric Herron Brehm Blog
Eric is the Community Manager at http://www.creativeworshiptour.com/

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Quotes and historical content from: Mead, Rebecca. “State of Play." The New Yorker July 5, 2010:32-37.

The Godfather saga, The Professional, The Italian Job, Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13, Bonnie and Clyde, Inception, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, Memento, Taxi Driver - the list goes on and on and on. So many much loved movies are about morally repugnant people, people whose actions would be absolutely reprehensible if they weren’t characters in movies. Why?

Why do I cheer behavior on screen that I abhor in real life?

I recently watched a movie that fits into this category of films. The General is a 1998 film about Irish thief and folk hero of sorts Martin Cahill. Cahill was a gangster. He stole, killed, and tortured people in Dublin throughout the 80s and early 90s. He is especially well known for his ability to elude the police and remain legally disconnected from any of his crimes. He aligned himself with none and all of Ireland’s political groups, and in the end (and in the beginning of the film), he is assassinated, though who killed him remains a mystery.

The film is very good. It stars Brendan Gleeson as Cahill and Jon Voigt as the officer chiefly in charge of apprehending the thief. Roger Boorman directed the film, and very deservedly procured the award for best director atCannes the year the film premiered. If you see it, I encourage you to watch it in its original black and white and not the color version.

The most disturbing element of this film, which includes tremendous amounts of profanity and explicit violence, is the way it makes you sympathize with Cahill. Objectively, Cahill isa morally decrepit man. He is a thief, liar, murderer, adulterer, torturer, perjurer, manipulator, and all around sorry guy. And yet I found myself rooting for him. At one point, he puts a jewelry store out of business, chucking its workforce on the street, and yet I felt he was somehow justified in his actions. I was gleeful when he was able to connive the very detective assigned to catch him into being his alibi. I wanted the woman whose life he threatened to lie on the witness stand so Cahill could avoid prison yet again. When I realized this, I was more disgusted with myself than with Cahill.

Perhaps we are able to root for people in movies whom in real life we would chastise because stories create their own systems of morality. In The General, we are presented witha Cahill who is trying to provide for his family, who shows real remorse after he mistakenly accuses a friend of stealing from him, who is mocked and harassed by police officers. Yes, Cahill is a criminal because he breaks society’s laws, but he doesn’t break the laws of the movie while his enemies do.

I can’t really criticize movies for creating their own moral systems though, can I? After all, I do the same thing in my own life all the time. Sure I speed on the freeway, but I wouldn’t ever dream of driving while intoxicated. I tell a “white lie” here and there, but I don’t call people pretending to be their bank and try to convince them to give me their credit card information. I’m not that bad.

And that’s true to an extent. Compared to a depraved theoretical and fictional other, I’m a saint. Compared to the fictionalized police officers in The General, Cahill is a stand up guy as well. If only we had some better standard to compare our actions against.

Oh, yeah. We do.

Morality is tough stuff, not for the feint of heart. I would argue that systems of morality are best left developed not by man at all but by God. Only God is pure and holy. Only God is capable of giving us a truly true standard to compare ourselves against. God did that in Christ, the Truth if ever there was one.

So, to get back to my original question – why do I root for villainy in films? Well, because in those films, what would be villainous in real life is presented as heroic. As long as I remember that I’m operating within the world of the story, I don’t see a problem with rooting for Martin Cahill and the like. In fact, I find I learn a few true moral lessons in the process.

Now, if I try to translate the film’s morality into the real world, however, we’re going to have a few issues, because in this world we’re judged by a Higher Authority than the screenwriter’s pen and the director’s shot selections. In this world, the real world, Christ has called us to love our neighbors, to live for Him, and to lay down our lives for the world just as He laid down His.

-- Elijah Davidson, Co-Director of the Institute for Reel Spirituality at the Brehm Center for Worship Theology and the Arts

• Creativity is a gift to be received as part of our humanity—as we are created in the image of a Divine Creator;
• Creativity is a skill to be cultivated;
• Creativity is a quiet invitation to be fully human, fully alive, and fully present in the mundane, the profound and even the in the profane or challenging moments of life.

Wanted:  displaced creativity to infuse into vocation, avocation, and the daily grind. 

- Deborah Buchanan

Rambo movies.

Harrison loved Rambo movies. He had seen them all many, many times. I had never seen any of the Rambo movies, but Harrison never knew that, and I didn't let my unfamiliarity with the franchise hinder our conversation. This is a testament to both A) my conversational skills on the subject of movies (I say that acknowledging my pride) and B) the mindlessness of most action movies (I didn't have to have seen the movies to know what happened, more or less, in each one).

With regards to "B" above, The Expendables is no exception to the rule. (With regards to "A," I did actually see this movie before writing this review.)

And therein lies The Expendables' glory - it is not trying to be anything other than an action movie. In fact, its stated goal is to be an homage to the blood and guts, wham-bang-boom action movies of the past.

Here, we have Stallone. We have Statham. We have Li. We have Rourke. We have Lundgren. We have Austin.

I'm sorry. I didn't write that last paragraph correctly. Let me try again.

Here, we have Stallone! We have Statham! We have Li! We have Rourke! We have Lundgren! We have Austin!

That's better.

We even have Willis! and Schwarzenegger! for a very brief moment. This is the Dirty Dozen of action flicks by design, and it excels at its purpose. I'm sure Harrison will love this film.

The story (Does it matter?) involves Stallone's team of aging commandos' attempt to overthrow the corrupt dictator of a nondescript island nation, apparently by killing everyone. I've never been sure how that's supposed to "free the people" in these movies, but I am sure I'm not supposed to think too hard about it.

Along the way, Stallone meets an idealistic resident of the island, who also happens to be female and beautiful, and toppling the powers that be becomes more about Stallone's character proving to himself that he still has a soul after all his years of gun play and bloodshed.

Oops! My review is about to get a little poignant. I honestly didn't see this coming.

In recent years, Sylvester Stallone has become a bit of a curiosity to me. With each subsequent rehashing and reinterpreting of the films of his glory days (Rocky Balboa in 2006,Rambo in 2008, and now The Expendables), I've wondered what he's trying to achieve. Is he doing it for the money? I don't think so. He doesn't seem greedy. Is it fame? No, I think he has that, and he doesn't come across as vain either. What is it then?

I don't know, and this is purely speculation, but maybe Stallone is looking for absolution, or rather (and better), maybe he has found it.

Both Rocky Balboa and Rambo (2008) were marketed as "Christian films." Stallone talked at the time about his return to his Catholic faith following the birth of his daughter in 1996. She had severe health problems, and he said the experience made him realize his need for God, his inability to handle the stresses of his life on his own. He surrendered his life to Christ at the time, he says, and found new life.

In Rocky Balboa, Stallone plays a man trying to be a good person and reconcile with his son. I haven't seen Rambo (2008), but (in case I ever run into Harrison) I know it's about a group of missionaries who are captured by terrorists, and John Rambo goes in to save them. Now, in The Expendables, Stallone plays a man haunted by his past who wants to prove there is still a man somewhere beneath the years of violent action.

If indeed Stallone has come back to Christ, and I have no right to disbelieve his word on the matter, he has absolution. His past does not haunt him anymore. In Christ, we are free from our sins. No matter what Stallone has done in the past himself, and no matter what he has depicted on screen, he is forgiven. Christ hung on the cross and shed His blood for all the blood man has ever shed, and then He rose again. Sin's curse is destroyed. Through Christ, life courses through Stallone's and everyone else's veins.

The Expendables is about an aging hero who wants to know if there is hope for his soul.

There is hope for our souls, of the blood and guts, wham-bang-boom kind, and perhaps Stallone knows it. Maybe this is his way of telling us about it using the language he knows best.

-- Elijah Davidson, Co-Director of the Institute for Reel Spirituality at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts

(P.S. The movie is great.)

-- Elijah Davidson, Co-Director for the Institute for Reel Spirituality at the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts

I still don't think I've 'gotten it,' but I do think Wilde has helped me see the Passion narrative in a new light (similar to what director Ingmar Bergman does in the final scene of his cinematic masterpiece, Winter 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), how to be human.  How to, as Wilde would put it, 'be divine.' 

This is imago dei, fully realized.  In art and in life. 

We are citizens of a Kingdom Coming. We live by a law of love that supersedes the laws of the free market. Should Madoff be in prison? Probably. Should he be reviled? No. He is not beyond Christ's love and mercy, and that love and mercy is supposed to be exemplified in us Christ's Church.

-- Elijah Davidson

For the past quarter century, the Taiwanese director has been revered as one of the grandmasters of world cinema. The first Chinese director to garner the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, film critic J. Hoberman calls him our "greatest living narrative filmmaker"; scholars consistently rank his works among the most artistically significant of our time; a Village Voce/Film Comment international critics' poll in the late 1990s identifies him as "Director of the Decade".

In light of this, it is surprising that only four of Hou's films to date have received theatrical release in the United States. The same fate has befallen other important foreign directors whose works have been deemed too difficult, too esoteric, to be financially viable in a market dominated by commercial fares and escapist entertainment. Martin Scorsese, an avid Hou fan, often laments the state of our culture for its unwillingness to embrace film as a legitimately artistic medium. It would appear that Hou's brand of austere, minimalist cinema - with its deliberate pacing, extended long-takes, and rigorous focus on the subtle moments of everyday life- is having difficulty attracting a general audience whose attention span has been greatly reduced in this media-saturated age, who sees film primarily as a commercial medium of escapism, emotional manipulation, and instant gratification.

Whether or not you like films and care about art cinema, this phenomenon should be of particular concern for Christians. Among the more significant developments in contemporary Christianity is the move towards embracing ancient tradition, particularly spiritual practices and rituals that help rootus in the reality of the divine. Silent contemplation and meditative prayer are just some of the kinds of practices that allow us to slow down, look inward, and develop heightened awareness of the rhyme and rhythm of life in the midst of our restlessness. They help us to sober up and embrace life as it is given in all of its basic simplicity and beauty. While fast-paced, escapist commercial cinema has its value in the marketplace, the inability (and sometimes utter unwillingness) of people to slow down and embrace films that do not fit the mold of conventional cinema and their culturally-defined sets of expectation is indicative of a grander, more pressing problem that has, I believe, very serious spiritual ramifications.

To learn to appreciate art like Hou's works is to learn to surrender our need for constant distraction and instant gratification, to learn to expand our horizon, and to become attuned to the spirituality present even in the most mundane moments and casual gestures of everyday life. The best of his brand of cinema - typified also by the likes of Edward Yang, Abbas Kiarostami, Yasujiro Ozu, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne - has the ability to help us live deeper and look closer. The transforming power of these films is akin to that of a meditative prayer.

Hou's latest, The Flight of the Red Balloon, is a wonderful introduction to this kind of poetic, unobtrusive cinema. A French-Taiwanese co-production commissioned by the Musée d'Orsay to celebrate its 20th anniversary, this marvel of a film is an homage to Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 children's film The Red Balloon and continues Hou's preoccupation with collective cultural history, the relationship between past and present, and the nature of artistic enterprise and its role in human interaction.

Like its source material, Flight of the Red Balloon shows a young boy going after and being followed by an elusive, seemingly sentient red balloon around the city of Paris. Unlike Lamorisse's original, Hou's film goes beyond depicting the wonder of childhood and morphs into a light-hearted but casually melancholic portrait of the close-knit social circle that surrounds the boy. The balloon assumes the role of an active observer, a symbol of childhood innocence and contradiction, and a hovering presence from the past that witnesses the untidy modern life shared by the boy, his frazzled mother - a professional puppeteer played by a luminous Juliet Binoche (who has never been better or sexier), and his babysitter - a Chinese film student who is in the process of remaking the original Red Balloon.

The plotless film revolves around the daily existence of these individuals and is defined by casual encounters, ordinary moments, and off-hand conversations/reflections that subtly but unmistakablyconvey the poetic rhythm and essence of modern life. A scene featuring the tuning of a piano in the midst of domestic chaos, for example, has the graceful flow of an expertly choreographed dancemovement. Slowly and in its unassuming way, the film serve as a quietly rigorous and self-reflexive meditation on art and life. More importantly, it is a celebration of human experience and its banality, ambiguity, and contradictions. It is the filmic equivalent of a poem, and a sublime and rapturous one at that.
           

Whereas escapist entertainment distracts us from the messiness of real life, this film, like every great work of art, enhances your perception of reality and make your want to embrace life all the more. I invite you to check it out. It may take some time getting to, but the reward is a richer, deeper, and more abundant life.

-- Eugene Suen

-- Elijah Davidson

Much to my charigne, the Bible is mute on the subject.  Apparently the Biblical writers lived in a time much different than ours where romantic pursuits took on either a remarkably different character or existed as something else entirely.  For the life of me, I cannot find the passage where Jesus tells me how to get a date, much less a wife.  There is, of course, Song of Songs, but even then, the most strident exclamation arising from scripture's greatest love poem is, "Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires."

What's a boy to do?  Society says romance is everything.  The Bible doesn't say much to the contrary or in affirmation.  I want to believe that everything works out in the end in every romantic endeavor, but experience has taught me that this just isn't so.  Sometimes hearts break.  Sometimes lovers split.  Sometimes you end up alone on the streets of Dublin singing your heart out for a spare shilling hoping someone will stop to listen.

That is where we join the Guy's story in Once.  He's brokenhearted and alone, unsure of what to do with his life, with dreams of doing this or that "once" he gets this or that straightened out.

And then someone stops to listen.  The Girl hears the love behind his laments, and they form a friendship full of healing and new hope.

Once is a musical unlike any other.  As a friend so astutely pointed out for me, the movie is a vehicle for the songs, as if the movie was made to give the songs a stage.  Indeed, the film acts in many ways as an 83 minute long music video.  Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the Guy and the Girl, have composed a beautiful collection of songs including the Academy Award winning "Falling Slowly," and the film does their songs great justice.

Linking the songs together and informing the songs and being informed by the songs is a delightful love story with more depth than most.  Over the course of their two or so week long relationship, the Guy and the Girl fall in love with one another, but they are mature enough to know that the purpose of their love is not to be together forever.  They love each other so they can separate, and though apart, live better lives and love other people better because of their love for one another.

Why do we fall in love?  Some would say it is because we are hard wired to try to propagate the planet with more of our species.  Romantic attraction facilitates progeny.  Others would say that romantic love makes all our other problems go away.  "All you need is love," these paramourian prophets proclaim.

The Bible seems to say both and neither.  The Bible definitely says that God is good in all things, and I imagine that means no matter how desperate and desirous our hearts may be and no matter if our hearts find romantic satisfaction or not.

If only I could remember to believe that.

Once believes that we love, and that love is good even when things don't turn out like we think they should.

I believe that God loves us, and that God is good even when things don't turn out like we think they should.

(Once is rated R for language.  This is an Irish film, and the Irish seem to use a certain four letter word like teenagers use the word "like."  I don't think any ill-intent was, like, intended.)

-- Elijah Davidson

I love a good spy movie.  What can I say?  I am my father's son.  By my dad's side, I've seen every James Bond movie, many of them multiple times.  I've enjoyed all of Hitchcock's yarns of mistaken, duplicitous identity.  I've even seen the spy movies you've never heard of like The Day of the Jackel and The Odessa File (both highly recommended, by the way).

I used to pour over "spy gear" catalogues.  I begged my mom to take me to a spy shop I discovered in the yellow pages.  I had a nondescript cardboard box (so that it blended in) in my room when I was a kid full of "gadgets" I had created for the day when it became necessary for me to go undercover to save the world.  I would dress in all black and sneak around the house trying my best to not be discovered by "the enemy," also known as my little brother and sister.

(And to this day I will still tell you proudly that the CIA recruits more people from my undergraduate alma mater, Texas A&M University, than from any other non-military institution of higher learning in the nation.)

I love spies, and so for the first 95 minutes of Salt's 100 minute running time, I loved this movie, and then I realized that this movie wasn't going to end.

On the most basic level, Salt is a throwback to the Cold War espionage films of my childhood.  There's mystery and intrigue and elaborate world domination plots and evil Russians and secret, training facilities in Siberia and you're never quite sure who's on whose side.  If you focus on this basic plot and premise, Salt is fun.

And I think if Salt had been made 40 years ago, it would have been a really neat movie.  Unfortunately, it was made today, and so it falls victim to an industrial movie-making machine hungry for franchises.  Instead of being a twisty thriller like those of days gone by, Salt tries to be the next Jason Bourne, and she fails to measure up.

The Bourne movies are my favorite film trilogy since the original Star Wars films.  Beneath the frantic and fantastic fight and chase scenes of the Bourne movies beats a strong heart of genuine emotion.  Jason Bourne's is a compelling story because he is a character on a journey for real redemption, and each film in the trilogy grants him a bit of that redemption.  The climax of the third film gives it to him completely.

Eveline Salt (Angelina Jolie) wants redemption too, and I don't think I'm ruining your film-going experience by saying that the story keeps it from her, kinda, though there doesn't seem to be any reason to deny her some redemption except to provide an excuse for a sequel.  Sigh.  I miss the days when they knew how to make movies with endings.

That being said, if you're in the mood for a good almost-throwback, Cold War era espionage thriller with some modern car chases and fight scenes thrown in for good measure, and if you think you might be interested in watching the further exploits of Eveline Salt in the soon to be produced sequel(s), this is the movie for you.

Otherwise, hold a double-feature in your living room with The Day of the Jackel and The Odessa File, and savor sweet story resolution.

Oh! And aren't I supposed to have something faith-related to say about this movie?  I don't think so.  Every movie doesn't require theological reflection.  Sometimes a story is just a story, and that can be ok.

As long as the story ends!

If you haven't yet seen this film, I encourage you to stop reading my review, and go see it. Right now. Finish this paragraph if you must, but please don't read the rest. I won't be giving any spoilers, but I honestly believe that the best way to enter into the world of Inception is with as little preparation as possible. Briefly, the movie is excellent. It is a tautly wound, enthralling film, well acted on every part. It is akin to other psychological thrillers, and yet more ambitious and daring in its plot structure. It is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout, and deservedly so, but it does not deserve a more adult rating at all. Thematically, the film questions reality, how we perceive it, and how to live accordingly. Once again, I can't recommend it highly enough. Stop reading this review, and go see it now. Then come back and read the rest of what I've written.

Ok. Now that you've seen the film, we can continue on together.

At it's most basic level, Inception is a heist movie, like Ocean's 11, The Italian Job, or The Great Escape. I adore heist films, because I love when people with different gifts assemble to do something none of them could have done alone. In every heist movie, I see a picture of the Church. When Paul writes about apostles and prophets and teachers and miracle workers and healers and helpers and administrators and tongue speakers, I read "masterminds" and "forgers" and "scroungers" and "tunnelers" and "manufacturers." What is the Church if not a group of people with different gifts and skills who have come together to do something none of them could do alone, namely, to bring the love and grace of Christ to the world?

But that's beside the point really, because Inception isn't about that at all. It is a heist movie though. The story concerns a group of people who break into people's dreams and steal what they know. "Inception" refers to the act of placing an idea into someone's mind, a much trickier task it turns out, and this task provides the action for the story. Group leader Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) past complicates things a bit though, and the film uses that conflict to explore matters of existence and epistemology (a seminary word for "how we know what we know").

And that's all I'm going to say about the plot. Like I said before, I don't know when I was so thoroughly engrossed in a movie as I was while watching Inception, and the little knowledge I thought I had about the film kept pulling me out of the story as I tried to make fit what I thought I knew. I don't want that for you, in case you didn't heed my warnings and continued to read this review without seeing the film first.

When I was 17 years-old, I saw The Matrix for the first time. It was a few years after it was in the theaters, and my pastor invited me to come to our church one evening. We watched the movie on the big projection screen in the sanctuary with the church sound system turned on. It was a wonderful experience, one I'll never forget. That night, I felt like I was seeing something unlike anything I had ever seen before. The stunts and special effects were revolutionary, and the Wachowski brothers' work inspired a wave of innovation in science fiction filmmaking.

As I watched Inception, I found myself hoping that this film will inspire a similar wave of innovation, not in special effects, but in storytelling. Christopher Nolan has crafted a story of unbelievable detail and complexity. Inception's world obeys very particular rules. It must for the story to hold together, but the story is such that it could oh so easily have slipped out of Nolan's hands, fallen to the earth, and crashed into a million confusing pieces. He somehow maintains the narrative, though it is a breathless endeavor. The story concerns (and questions) multiple realities, and yet somehow it is accessible and understandable. Like a delicate chandelier, Inception is magnificent.

Christopher Nolan is one of a few filmmakers whom I feel represent the post-modern inclination in current, mainstream cinema. Quentin Tarantino, Tom Tykwer, the Coen brothers, and Charlie Kaufman also come to mind for various reasons - Tarantino because of his use of intertextuality (drawing meaning from the juxtapositioning of otherwise unrelated sources), Tykwer because of his meditations on life, death, and love, the Coen's for their affinity for absurdity and irony in the face of the apparent meaninglessness of life, and Kaufman for his determination for purpose amongst the inevitability of heartache.

Nolan's post-modern leanings fall into the realm of, as I mentioned before, epistemology, or how we know what we know. He often accomplishes this through the manipulation of time. Memento tells its story backwards, Insomnia occurs in a place where the sun never sets and it therefore without time, The Prestige happens all out of order, and Inception, well, if you've seen it, you know.

Post-modern thought is all but defined by it's questioning of what we profess to know. It is for this reason, I think, that so many in the evangelical world are threatened by post-modern thinking. After all, the evangelical flavor of Christianity is characterized by a profession of what we believe to be true. Post-modernism questions whether or not we can truly know anything to be absolutely true. Post-modernism doesn't question the existence of absolute truth; it questions whether we are capable of grasping that absolute truth.

Nolan has wrestled with this question again and again, and in my opinion, it is not outside the scope (or responsibility) of Christianity to deal with these same questions. Yes, we are beholden to the Ultimate Absolute Truth, but we would do well to be a bit more humble in our affirmations of what we know about God and how we know God. If the popularity of certain movies is any indication of the thoughts and inclinations of our society at large, this conversation about how we know what we know is one we'll be having more and more in the coming years.

And even if you aren't interested in such philosophical matters, I still think you'll enjoy this film. Inception is breathtaking.

But if you've made it this far in the review, I trust you've already seen it, and you've already found that out for yourself. ;)

Recently I joined a group of students and alumni traveling to Orvieto, Italy, for the Brehm Center’s summer immersion course. For two weeks we would study medieval art and theology, with the philosophical ideas of contemporary Italian writer Umberto Eco mixed in for good measure. Since returning from my trip, many people ask me to describe my favorite part—a simple question that has become a surprising source of frustration.

Several times I’ve tried answer this question by explaining that for me, the most meaningful part of the trip was not the cathedrals, the frescoes, the sculptures, or even the food. It was the sensuality of the Italian people. But whenever I use that word, sensual, I know I’ve used the wrong one by the look on my listener’s face. It’s an expression of concerned curiosity with a hint of judgment, as though he or she is wondering if I spent every evening in Italy in dark corners of smoky cafes with a different Giovanni or Lorenzo.

Fair enough, I guess. But here’s what I mean by sensual:

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to spend a chunk of time in Italy so that I could slowly sink into the culture and try to experience la dolce vita, the sweet life that Italians have so artfully and famously mastered. Orvieto, a small medieval hilltop town in the region of Umbria, was the perfect place for a control freak/perfectionist like me to do just that. When Henry James traveled through the region, he picked up on the importance of this slower pace, writing in his Atlantic Monthly article “Chain of Cities” that a visitor’s “first care must be to ignore the very dream of haste, walking everywhere very slowly and very much at random.”

Indeed, after a few days in Orvieto I managed to shrug off any notion of haste as I spent 90 minutes savoring our midday meal with my fellow students. I also learned to walk slowly—bordering on aimlessly—through the winding, jasmine-scented streets of the little ancient town. And nobody had to teach me how to enjoy an espresso with a small square of chocolate or every bite of my gelato con panna.

One afternoon near the end of our stay in Orvieto, I sat on the steps in the shade of the cathedral. The piazza was to my right and a grassy lawn stretched out at my feet, a place apparently reserved for teenagers to come and smoke, gossip, or make out. I had a book with me, but instead of reading I leaned back on my elbows and looked around. Old women moved slowly together through the heat, and young children played tag all over the cobblestones, stopping once in a while to pat a stranger’s dog and ask its name. A pair of twenty-somethings ambled over to the grass and flopped down about 10 feet in front of me, where the woman used her lover’s chest as a pillow, both staring up at the white clouds moving across a deep blue sky and lazily smoking cigarettes.

The sensuality that steeped that afternoon was intense. My five senses were heightened: touch, taste, smell, sight, sound. I felt connected to my body and to my surroundings and so appreciative of the earthiness of Orvieto’s citizens. They are unapologetically human, embracing life and settling into their humanity in a way that is a bit startling—maybe appearing a bit unhygienic compared to Crest-white-strip America—but altogether admirable.

So if I can’t use the word sensual, I might need to use many words in its place. Maybe I will say that my favorite part of my trip to Orvieto was that, without even trying, the people of that medieval Italian city taught me to slow down, to open up all my senses, and to let each moment grow into me like moss on the cleft of a rock.

Or, I could just say that the gelato was amazing.

The movie is directed by Jon Turtletaub, who has a very good track record of making movies that I enjoy.  1995's While You Were Sleeping is probably my favorite romantic comedy, and I've watched  1993's Cool Runnings so many times I find lines from the movie slipping into everyday conversation.  I enjoyed the National Treasure movies as well, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice is in the same vein.

The story concerns a young man who discovers, much to his annoyance, that he is Merlin's rightful heir and destined to defeat once and for all the evil witch Morgana.  He learns this by way of Balthazar, one of Merlin's ageless apprentices who has searched for the heir for 1500 years.  Oh ho ho! Wait a minute though.  Another of Merlin's apprentices - the evil Horvath - is still around as well, and he intends to set Morgana free so she can enslave humankind.

The boy is played by Jay Baruchel who was perfectly cast as the voice of the nerdy Hiccup in How To Train Your Dragon.  His hesitant nasally voice fit Hiccup well, but his whining timidity tends to grate when it is coming not from an awkward 12 year old but from a 20 year old college student instead.  Nicolas Cage embodies Balthazar in a I'm-doing-this-for-the-money-and-phoning-it-in kind of way.  Alfred Molina's Horvath is by far the best of the bunch.

That being said, Baruchel and Cage's performances are the only part of the movie that is tiring.  The rest is a rollicking adventure through the streets of New York City where Chinese paper dragons come to life and mirrors become gateways to backwards worlds (my favorite sequence in the film).  Balthazar and Horvath vie with one another more like bickering brothers and less like mortal enemies, which I found humorous even if it did tend to lessen Horvath's menace and rob Balthazar of any sense of urgency to stop Horvath's plans.

The special effects are excellent, and in a movie featuring giant metal eagles and dancing mops (It's called "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," remember? *wink*), what more can you ask for?  As I mentioned before, the chase scene through Times Square is tons of fun.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice reminds me most of the second rate Disney movies of the past.  It's much more Condorman than it is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, much more The Strongest Man in the World than it is Mary Poppins.  I enjoyed it, and I think one day my grandkids will enjoy it in a nostalgic kind of way as well.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is rated PG for fantasy action violence, some mild rude humor, and brief language.  It certainly deserves it's PG rating.  A few of the scenes involving dark sorcery are especially dark.  One scene involving a young girl witch is downright scary.  If you or your kids are sensitive to such things, stay away.  Otherwise, know that the scary moments are few and far between and very brief.

I always find it interesting that magic-focused stories such as this one keep well clear of any mention of Christianity or any major world religion.  Works like The Lord of the Rings get around this by creating an entire new universe of activity.  Lewis' Narnia books masterfully create a parallel dimension where the things of this world are differently expressed.  Stories like The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Harry Potter series take place in our world though.  They are about the interaction of the physical and the spiritual.  You'd think spiritually focused world religions would come into play.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice sideways addresses this by essentially explaining much of the magic away by likening it to a science experiment.  I think that is a shame in the same way I think it is a shame that Christians willfully or unwillfully do not engage in this conversation.  The interference of the spiritual world with the physical and vice versa is ripe to be explored.  Indeed, it is the bedrock of our faith.

There are no heroes in Despicable Me, only ambitious, publicity-hungry super villains bent not on world domination, but on domination of the world's (dis)esteem.  Reigning villain extraordinaire Gru (Steve Carell) and his ne'er-do-welling nemesis Vector (Jason Segel) want nothing more than to be the best at being bad.

They compete against each other in a battle of oneupmanship - Gru steals the Times Square Jumbotron, Vector steals the Great Pyramid, and then they both try to steal the Moon.  This contest of purloining landmarks (Can the moon be called a "landmark?") forms the skeletal structure of Despicable Me and is entertaining enough on its own.

The film is fleshed out, however, by the adorable, cookie-selling orphans whom Gru finds on his doorstep.  The accompanying relationship between Gru and these girls gives the movie its much needed heart and provides an excuse for a particularly eye-popping 3D sequence at an amusement park (I imagine.  I saw the film in only two dimensions.).

Despicable Me is anything but despicable.  Following How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 this summer movie season (both excellent films in their own rights), Despicable Me carries a charm all its own.  It is engaging and fun in just about every possible way.  The film is simply a pleasure to watch.

The colors especially are brilliant.  When I close my eyes, I can still see the moonlight silhouetting Gru as he addresses his minions.  I still marvel at the multicolored lights at the girls' dance recital.  It is the most dazzling movie I have seen since Avatar.

Looking back over the past decade, I think one can identify a marked increase in quality of animated films, and I think this can be accredited to the consistent excellence of Pixar.  Just as Gru and Vector are forced to up their villainous games with each theft, so the respective animation studios have been forced to continually up their games to stay competitive with each other.  Despicable Me is from newcomer Illumination Entertainment, and they have produced a noble first entry into the animated feature world.  Here's hoping they have more to offer in the future.

A final thought.  I find it particularly interesting that Despicable Me's "hero" is a villain and even its "villain's" villainy is called into question.  The film (I would argue) inadvertently calls into question absolute morality.  Unlike other similar "the hero is the villain" and "the hero is villainous" films,  like Shrek and The Dark Knight, Gru is never shown to be "good."  He is a super villain to the end.  Perhaps the unspoken truth of the film is that no one is truly good, and we're all a little villainous.

Probably not.  I'm sure I'm thinking much deeper than the film intends, and there's no reason to go into the theater with muddled thoughts of moral ambiguity jostling around in your head distracting you from the fun on the screen.  Despicable Me is a wonderful, amusing, beautiful film.  I heartily recommend it.

Despicable Me is rated PG for rude humor and mild action.  In my opinion, there is nothing in this film that even approaches the crudity, adult humor, and comic violence of the Shrek franchise.

P.S. The minions are hilarious.

I'm indebted to my friends for this review.  I'm indebted to my friends for lots of things actually, but I credit this review especially to them, because without them, I wouldn't have anything good to say about M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, The Last Airbender.

(That's not entirely true.  I liked James Newton Howard's score.  I liked the art direction, because I'm a sucker for bold, primary color schemes.  The element-bending, what little occurred in the movie, was cool.  I think the movie might make a great screensaver.)

Overall, in my estimation, The Last Airbender is a terrible movie.  Consider all the things that contribute to a good film - an engaging plot, compelling characters, sharp dialogue, stunning visuals, good acting, mesmerizing cinematography, heartache and humor, suspense and revelation - The Last Airbender lacks all of these things.  It is a cold, emotionless, boring, mess of a movie.  At least, that is what I thought as I watched, no, endured it.

Then, I talked to my friends, and some of them had very different opinions of the movie.  A few of them forgave it.  A few of them tolerated it.  A couple of them even liked it.  After picking my jaw up off the floor, and quickly evaluating my friends and deciding that yes, I do respect these people's opinions, I probed deeper.  "Why?" I asked, "Why do you forgive/tolerate/like this train wreck of a film?"

Let's begin with those that forgave it.  These friends watched The Last Airbender and decided to overlook the cliche-ridden, exposition-filled dialogue and muddled, complicated plot and see instead a noble intention on the part of the filmmaker.

They admitted that The Last Airbender, like many recent Shyamalan films, is permeated by a vague sense of morality and spirituality.  There is another world beyond what we can see, Shyamalan's films seem to suggest, though his film doggedly refuse to define that world in any way.  "It's as if Shyamalan doesn't really believe anything or wants to accept everything," one friend said, "and so his films lack conviction and fidelity."

And then there are my friends who tolerated the movie.  Most of them praised the world the movie is based on.  The Last Airbender is the theatrical version of a popular animated show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, which aired between 2005 and 2008 on Nickelodeon.  I've only seen one episode of the show, but many of my friends are die hard fans.

Admittedly, the concept of the show is intriguing, and the world of The Last Airbender is complex.  There is great potential in the material Shyamalan had to work with.  Perhaps there is too much potential.  Shyamalan tried to fit the entire first season of the show into an hour and a half movie.  Because of this, there isn't the time to develop the characters and plot visually, and so the audience is incessantly told verbally what is happening and what characters are feeling.  As a result, I felt like the movie thought its audience was ignorant and incapable of following a plot or understanding character development.  It's a shame Shyamalan didn't try to boil the story down into something capable of fitting into a feature film's running time.  All that potential is wasted.

Finally, there are my friends who actually enjoyed the movie.  From what I can gather, they responded to the explicitly stated message of the film - battles are won not by force but in the heart.  The film's hero, Aang, (and the audience) is told by a grandmother figure that his destiny is to bring peace to all humankind not by violently defeating all aggression, but by changing the hearts of the violent ones.  My friends resonated with this message, and I appreciate that about them.

We do, after all, serve a God who incarnated Himself among us to bring peace to the earth by changing our hearts.  Christ gave us hope for life which compels us to live differently than those who are plagued by dread of death.  Aang is, in some ways, an imaginative avatar of Christ.

As the story plays out however, Aang fails to live up to this comparison.  As the plot progresses, we learn that the battle is not to change the hearts of humanity, but to change Aang's heart.  Only then is he able to command the element bending power that is his birthright and overcome his aggressors through an impressive display of force.  Like my friends who enjoyed the movie, I can identify where the film came close to truth, and I am willing to celebrate that, but I mourn that the narrative ultimately misses the point.

I do not enjoy writing negative reviews, because I truly love movies, and I want others to enjoy movies as much as I do.  I truly believe that there is almost always something to celebrate in every film.  My friends helped me identify the good in this film.  The Last Airbender attempts to be respectful to all faith-bents, it contains a rich and complex story-world, and it recognizes truth.  Unfortunately, in the end, in my opinion, it lacks conviction, squanders its potential by being overambitious, and falls sadly short of the life-giving good it aspires to emulate.

Paul Giamatti is looking for his soul. And he has come to Russia to find it. However, this is no introspective journey to the homeland of Chekov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Paul really just wanted a few days peace from the burdens weighing him down, but now his soul is missing. In fact, after being extracted in a simple procedure, his soul has been illegally trafficked in an underground soul trafficking ring between Moscow and New York. Incidentally, it looks like a chickpea, but he’d really like it back nonetheless.

In her 2009 film Cold Souls, filmmaker Sophia Barthes’ leads Paul Giamatti and audiences alike with enchanting ease to this climactic scene in search for one man’s soul; the absurdity of the film is all part of the charm. Like Paul Giamatti’s character (of the same name), the narrative began innocently enough, but the implications that unfold are of the deepest human concern. As a result, this surrealistic tragicomedy skillfully exposes some of the deepest questions of identity, pain and personhood that echo those asked throughout time and by Jesus himself.

The concept of the soul is unavoidable in the history of human narrative. It is a topic that can be found in all cultures and eras. The fate of the soul is central to most religions worldwide. Likewise, science, often accused of explaining away God, cannot avoid addressing the inherent notion of the soul. Philosophy, art and literature all wrestle with the subject of the human soul with reverence, mystery, and unshakable importance. The subject of the soul seems to permeate all variety of fruit of human endeavor. But what is the soul of a human? The subject of the soul elicits both familiarity and a sense of gravity while remaining ever elusive to understanding.

For Sophie Barthes, the subject of the soul is powerful enough that it even pervades her dreams. The dream that would develop into Cold Souls had its roots, like many prophetic tales, in the mysterious visions of sleep. Barthes describes her dream in few but vivid sentences:

“In the dream, I am waiting in line in a futuristic office. I am holding a box, like everybody else in line. A secretary explains that the box contains our extracted souls. The doctor will examine it and assess its problems. Woody Allen is also in line, just in front of me. When his turn comes, he opens his box and discovers that his soul is a chickpea! He is furious. At this point, I feel extremely anxious. I look down at my container but the dream ends. So I never saw the shape of my soul! But I wrote a screenplay…” (Sophie Barthes, “Cold Souls”: Dreams, Psychoanalysis, and the Shape of the Soul www.indieWIRE.com January 9, 2009)

An admirer of surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd, perhaps Barthes had fallen asleep reading the works of Samuel Beckett, or contemplating a painting by Max Ernst. Or perhaps she simply ate an odd combination of late-night leftovers. Whatever it was, the idea that resulted from that night’s dreaming blossomed into Barthes’ first full feature film; one that skillfully contemplates the abstract idea of the soul with eloquent realism and deft humor. However, in the film, Paul Giamatti brings a masterful performance of “himself” who indeed channels a Woody Allen type of neurosis. Barthes film takes one of the most abstract and elusive ideas of humankind and makes it concrete; transforming an idea that is most often related to the immaterial into a material and dispensable commodity. In this way, Barthes explains, film can make “philosophical concepts accessible and playful.”

I loved this film, even without the intoxicating atmosphere of Sundance. It is quirky, absurd, inspired, and beautiful. And I confess I envy Barthes dreams. Perhaps if I eat some chickpeas and fall asleep reading Checkov, inspiration will come to my own dreams; to spur on theological, existential and philosophical angles of life—with a humorous addition of a chickpea or two— I’ll get a better handle on the body-soul paradigm through which we experience God. I believe inspiration was with Barthes in the creation of this beautiful, albeit quirky film. However, it received very little media since its 2009 debut. Perhaps I am delusional in my love for this film... So, I recommend you see it and make your own assessment, but with the due warning that you'll never look at chickpeas the same way again.

The origins of this unlikely marriage lie in Ring Festival LA, a city wide festival designed to celebrate Wagner’s four-opera long marathon known popularly as The Ring Cycle.  Geoff Gallegos, co-founder and conductor of the orchestra, made the brave decision to reflect on the festival’s theme by interweaving these two very different musical languages.  The evening was also part of Grand Performances, a superb non-profit arts institution that works tirelessly to bring Los Angeles’ diverse communities together through art and performance.

Firstly, let us get a little background on Wagner.  He was a nineteenth century German composer, who was politically, musically, and artistically controversial.  A dynamic figure, he heavily influenced European music through ideas of “total artwork,” art that incorporates multiple art forms.  Sadly, he is perhaps most famous for his anti-semetic tendencies (which, you’ll be glad to know, are being met head on by event organisers with discussion panels, seminars, and performance space to recognise, reflect, and critique these views.)

Moving on to Hip Hop.  Let it be known before I begin, that I know very little about it.  I do know, however, that Hip Hop is the name given to the wider cultural movement that grew out of New York City in the 1970s.  The many genres and sub-genres of music now commonly known as Hip Hop involve rapping (or “MCing”), DJing, sampling, beatboxing, and scratching.  The vocalist will weave dynamic rhyme and verse, either pre-planned or improvised, over a beat. 

So, what on earth could these two genres possibly have to say to each other?  Well, apparently, quite a lot.  The evening was electric.  The 70 piece orchestra rocked out with a huge percussion section, electric guitars, and engaging, energetic vocalists.  The audience was completely engaged, and responded with tangible enthusiasm. 

As we were drinking in the music, atmosphere, people, and surroundings, I couldn’t help but be a little over-awed, and gently moved.  There were people there of every age, race, and socio-economic background.  People’s heads and bodies were moving to the beat; cheering, talking, supporting the artists on stage.  The artists themselves were visibly excited; violin bows were waved in time to the beat, the animated conductor frequently wrote huge notes with a big marker pen to communicate with orchestra and audience, and the vocalists were astounding.

I was reminded of the power of music.  It’s power to unite, to communicate beyond barriers, to enthuse, energise, encourage, and excite.  It is a power that the church has long recognised and used.  From Gregorian chant, to modern mega churches, music is a key part of most worship services.  I reflected on this, asking, “What does music tap into, that cognitive discourse cannot?” and further, “What is it about music that makes it so appropriate for spiritual contexts and for prayer?”  As I was considering these weighty matters, the conductor announced that we were going to “share the peace.”  He announced that we were “almost like the church tonight,” and we should greet each other in love. 

What a dramatic challenge.  Here was a man outside of a church context who recognised that churches should truly embrace people of all ages, stages, and races.  He recognised that churches should be a symbol of love, hope and unity around them.  Do we as a church live up to this recognition?  Sadly, often we don’t.  What a challenge.  What a call to action.

I was also reminded, again, of the intersection between art and theology.  Both are concerned (or perhaps “obsessed” is the better word) with reaching for the transcendent.  By that, I mean the transcendent beyond what we can experience humanly and also the marks of the transcendent in the midst our humanity.  Peace, love, hope, understanding.  These things often seem beyond our situation, beyond our basic human ability.  And yet they survive, expand, increase and turn up in the most unlikely of places, often with transformative power.

So, yes, it was a fabulous evening of music, energy, and community.  It was a powerful testimony of a city once rife with race tensions, now forging a hopeful journey towards unity, rejoicing along the way in music.  It was inspirational to me as I contemplated the spiritual significance of music, and as I also considered how the church is perceived, for better or for worse; what it should be like; and what am I doing personally to help it along the way. 

If you have say thoughts on any of the above, please feel free to respond.  

Call God “All Things Right.”

The aim of our technological and theological pursuits is to obtain God, to grasp All Things Right.

There is a sense that All Things Right is up there, is out there, ever unable to be touched.  Michaelangelo's mural of two fingers just beyond each others reach isn't just dramatic.  It is emblematic of the frustration of being human and never quite making contact with All Things Right.

So we bite the forbidden fruit hoping to ingest God's all-knowing.

So we build our towers of Babel to keep connected what God would scatter.

So we make God in our image, or at least in an image we can manipulate and comprehend.

So we try with all our might to close the gap, to touch All Things Right.

We do these things not, I think, out of arrogance.  We don't think we are God.  We know we are not God.

But we are desperate.

Dissatisfied with, or distrusting of, how God incarnated Himself in our midst, we incarnate (or incarcerate) God in our cell phones and our commentaries.  We try to know everything.  We try to be everywhere.  And each time we create a better way to know everything faster and to be everywhere better, we upgrade out theo(techno)logy.

At the core of it all, behind the flashy keynote addressed and stodgy sermons, underneath the endless wires and the endless words, motivating every user's manual and every devotional, is a deep, deep need for hope.  We need to believe that All Things will be Right.

Will technology get us there?  Will theology?

iDoubt it.

Will God?

iHope so.

            In a testament more to themselves than to time, great ponderers have inscribed their tomes with pensive adjudications against a world that was either just or unjust, or just plain life.  But the poet undertaking the task at hand – with his hands – and having perhaps the last laugh, engraves the last line upon the dead man’s tomb.  As an aside to his own self he remarks, “Whatever being the dead have now, they have by the living’s faith alone.”

            So you ask yourself hesitantly, “Am I a writer?”  As if those who took up the pen before you never had a doubt!  Greatness is not born but made, wrought in the furnace of life’s incidence and struggle, not in stillness and repose.  Yet stillness can in its own way be an action if acted upon.  “It seems to me,” Degas once said, “that today, if the artist wishes to be serious — to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality — he must once more sink himself in solitude.”  Likewise in his own solitude, it was said of that most renowned American writing recluse (rest in peace), who chronicled how to catch kids in a field before they fell, that, “He wrote with ALL the stars out,” not holding back!

            But like an infant who learns to walk before she runs and to talk before she scrawls, so too must we all even more so babble and crawl.  So too did those who came before.  And what we tend to confuse as “Pure Genius” is often the verbose ramblings of vague reasoning.*  A bad idea, after all, takes a lot of explaining.  And if one parses her words with the turn of a phrase, then she might in turn appear sharp to her peers.  All this to say what Frankie has already said a thousand times or more… Relax!

            If, starting now and heading into your Finals Week and then from there beyond, I could give just one word of advice, it would be this.  Choose your words with care and intention.  For more so than how you shape each letter in a word and choose each word in a sentence, each word that you choose in turn will shape you.  And finally, I pray that on a clear night while resting your eyes from the screen with several more pages to go, you will be moved in stillness and rest in The Word.  I pray that you’ll LOOK UP! and remember to write, “with all the stars out!”

- Aaron D. Raymond    Brehm Center Blog

I knew that the name of the show would shape the idea of the show in people’s minds, and so it was something I sat on probably for months, just kind of turning ideas in the back of my mind.  We had a general theme.  I knew that we were going to be looking at images of flight and gravity and the idea of resurrection being the source of hope.  So I was trying to find a name that would envelop all of the different artists’ work—a name that would cover everything.  And Up From Ground, to me, aurally sounded better.  Any time you make a choice where you don’t do the obvious, it seems to resonate.

Yeah, it made me look at the word “ground.” It made that word pop and made me rethink the meaning of it.

Yes, we weren’t just talking about literal earth and ground.  ‘Up from the ground’ seemed to emphasize the location of ground.  What we were trying to say was something bigger in all of our lives—those experiences that level us and things that undo us.  But hope can come out of those places.

Tell me about the collaborative process.  What was difficult about that?

Well, first, that’s just the way that I work.  I love to bring people together and create something together that would be beyond what any of us would have been able to do alone.  I really believe that instead of imposing my vision on someone, there’s something amazing when I give a broad vision and invite people to bring their perspective.  I think that God really does speak through the collective.  Anytime I can be part of that, I love it.  We had an amazing group of people, and all around it was such a positive experience for all of the artists to come together.  Putting the whole show together really` turned into its own kind of giant collaboration because we had to build the space.  People that weren’t even part of the show became part of it by becoming this army of people that were giving their time to transform the warehouse into an exhibition.

You said that God speaks through the collective. How did you sense God speaking? What did you learn in this process that you weren’t expecting? Where you blinded by any truth?

On a personal level, I think there were different seasons of my past—experiences, jobs, different things I’ve done, skills, things I’ve learned—that were like different strands that came together in this project.  It felt like God was saying, “And that was actually intentional,” and “This is why I was forming you here.”  I wasn’t expecting that to happen.  I wasn’t expecting that these loose ends in my life, the things I resented or didn’t understand, would be braided together.  As I’m going forward, I feel like I have a new wholeness as to who I am.

That’s just like Olga’s The Afterward.  I approached that by seeing all these different strands coming to the center to become something.

Yeah, and I think that was neat how the different pieces informed the others.  A lot of people commented on that in their experience of the show.  They were reading Lin’s sculpture in light of John and Chris’s photographs.  The hope in their photos and Lin’s sense of decay really resonated together.  I may have placed them in the room but you don’t know the connections that people are going to make, and so, as cliche as it sounds, when you are available to it, something that is beyond yourself can happen.  Another thing I took away from it was that there’s something so validating about artists being able to publicly show their work.  I think that became all the more clear to me how much I want to facilitate things like that in the future.  The artists that were involved have expressed to me that their confidence and their ability to say “I am an artist” has been more solidified. And, in a way, because of this, there’s going to be fruit in the future—you know, applying to shows on their own and doing more things where their voice is going to have an impact.

Yeah, to continue your own imagery, you’re giving them ground to stand on, to take steps forward to pursue their own artwork.  I was really impressed how everything felt like it fit in that space.  Something about the warehouse really brought it all together for me.  What about La Founderie tied everything together? Why not Payton Hall?

First, we definitely wanted to do something that would not feel confined to Christian spaces.  We wanted to do something in neutral ground so that anybody that has any interest in art would find the show on par with their expectations of what a professional art show looks like and feels like.  Also, I think the ruggedness of the warehouse space really worked with our theme.  I think for a lot of the artists including myself, we can sense how spaces like that have a certain feel and personality, and it was really cool to work with the raw beauty of that.  We had the contrast of white walls, but it still felt like there was an earthiness to our show.  That was one of the really important themes.  We wanted the hope that we were talking about to be grounded and earthy, and the space mirroring that was really helpful.

It almost seems like the whole show is its own piece of artwork.  You have all these consonant and dissonant perspectives on this theme.  Then you put it all together in this space that is itself limited and broken, and you pull something out and up from that.  It all comes together to make this one big aesthetic symphony.

Yeah, you should quote yourself.  That was good.  That’s what is so neat: God is a Creator, and that was His artistry.  If anybody experienced that, even on a subliminal level, I feel like that was His orchestration of something that wasn’t our mastermind.

You can see photos from the exhibit Up Grom Ground by clicking here.

You can see more of Michelle’s work on her website: www.vintageremade.com

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

I was sent a link to this video last weekend, and since then, I’ve seen it popping up all over the internet.  My friends have Facebooked it, my fellow twitterers have tweeted it, my favorite bloggers have blogged it.  I even found myself in conversation about the video with a pastor at the conference my office is hosting this week here on campus.

“Sunday's Coming” is the evangelical flavor of the minute, and deservedly so.  It’s a very well done, funny video.  Most of us can relate to having sat through church services that felt just like that - stylized, plotted, and ultimately, fake.  In our efforts to “contextualize” the gospel and make it “relevant” to our society, we all too often end up stripping the gospel of its heart and relying on “lights and big drums” to move people instead the radical hope we have in Christ.

There is a deeper and more troubling aspect to this video, however, an aspect that everyone seems to be overlooking.

I am disturbed by this video chiefly because of its source.  "Sunday's Coming" was created by North Point Media, the audio/visual arm of North Point Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia.  At the risk of losing you, my reader, into the neverending realms of the internet, I invite you to follow this link over to their website.  Then please, return here.

Ok.  Thanks for coming back.  Did you see what I saw?  North Point Community Church appears to be the very thing they are mocking in "Sunday's Coming."  Sure, the "Sunday's Coming" church is hyperbolically ridiculous, and I'm sure North Point is far more moderate and holds an actual worship service each week, but the form - and the form is what is being mocked - is essentially the same.

Before I continue, I want to make clear that I'm sure North Point Community Church is a great church.  I know for a fact that my father, whom I have the utmost respect for, finds great value in the sunday school material they produce.  I've listened to their pastor speak, and I have respect for the man's sermons.  I am not intentionally criticizing North Point Community Church or anyone associated with it.

I would, however, like to draw attention to the use of ironic self-mocking that "Sunday's Coming" represents.

Our culture in the West excels at ironic self-mockery.  We lampoon ourselves with excellence.  For example, recall the 2000 presidential election and every presidential election since then.  The election circuit isn’t complete until the candidates appear on Saturday Night Live to poke fun at their images.   It’s all done in good taste, of course, and we like to see our leaders laughing at themselves.  We like to know that they know that all of the election hubbub is a bit silly.  Then we are able to respect them once again, even though they go right back out on the campaign trail and continue the hubbub.  (Saturday Night Live specializes in this kind of mockery, by the way.)

Ironic self-mocking is dangerous because it allows us to distance ourselves from our faults by admitting them in jest.  We legitimize our faults because having admitted them, we are not required to correct them.  It's like we say, "See, we know we are this way." It is confession, but It is confession without repentance.

Ironic self-mocking also sets up a straw man to which we implicitly compare ourselves.  We create a hyperbolically faulted Other that we measure up well against.  As a result, there is less impetus to change.

I'm concerned "Sunday's Coming," as funny as it is, serves these purposes, not particularly for North Point, but for all of us concerned with worship.  The video provides a cheap and easy laugh, but it does nothing to spur us to change.  Yes, it points out the faults of a broken worship form, but they are faults we're all aware of already.  Instead of merely laughing at "The Song That Everyone Knows," what if we sat down and did the hard work of writing good songs for our congregations to sing?  Instead of mocking "The One Man With All The Answers," what if we dared to imagine and experiment with new and old teaching structures that better involved the entire community and highlighted our dependence on the Holy Spirit, the scriptures, and each other for revelation.

Irony is funny, and it's good to laugh, but the faults the irony mocks are no laughing matter.  We are called not to spirited self-mockery, but to worship in spirit and in truth.

Synopsis: Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes, 1972) takes place in 1560 Peru and follows a group of Spanish Conquistadores in search of the legendary city of gold, “El Dorado.”  When the jungle becomes too overwhelming, a small band of soldiers led by the nobleman Ursúa set out on a series of rafts (which quickly becomes one) to secure a more confident route.  When Ursúa decides to return to the main camp after their journey down the river becomes too dangerous, an officer by the name of Don Lope de Aguirre incites the men to mutiny.  He proclaims that the Spanish King (their commissioner) has been disposed and ordains  the Don Fernando de Guzman “Emperor of El Dorado.”  Propelled by the fanatic desire to become the next Cortez, Aguirre continues the journey downstream along with his small group of armed men.  The expedition is fraught with danger from both on and off the river: hostile indigenous people pick off the men from the banks with arrows, food supplies run low, and inner hostility threatens the group’s stability. Despite food shortages Guzman continues to gorge himself while the rest of the soldiers starve on a diet of corn kernals.  He is murdered by his men after he orders that the horse on the raft to be shoved into the river.  The men, sluggish and hallucinating, struggle for survival as natives continue shooting poison arrows at the remaining members on the raft.  Despite the obvious futility of the journey, Aguirre continues to tramp around what is left of the raft while proclaiming his vision of wealth, power, and celebrity, the anticipated glory awaiting him upon the founding of his new empire.  The film closes with Aguirre, “the Great Traitor,” galavanting around the corpses of men weighing down what is left of the deteriorating raft as monkeys begin attending its refuse.

“If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees... then the birds will drop dead from the trees. I am the wrath of God. The earth I pass will see me and tremble. But whoever follows me and the river, will win untold riches...“I am the Wrath of God, who is with me?” - Don Lope de Aguirre

Aguirre, The Wrath of God represents a microcosm of the history of conquest.  For Herzog, the soldiers on the raft correspond to the regulating effects of power and fanaticism.  It is no accident that the raft, as it floats down the Amazon functions to support the madness of Aguirre and his soldiering crew deteriorates in accordance with the unstability of (fascist) revolutionary maxims.  By the end of the film stands only the idle inane, Aguirre.  Nature simply absorbs the irreverent remains, the feces of violence.  Herzog’s disposition though is not one of rebellious dynamism, but rather a frustrated sense of acquiescence. There is a sad “normality” to it all.  Despite the film’s robust texture detailing the soldier’s poetic descent (one might write a review focusing on the film’s use of landscapes alone), the film’s conclusion simmers into futility.

It would be unfair to reduce Herzog’s film to the, now cliche, intent of critiquing the oppressive structural ideologies (racism, nationalism, sexism, etc.) of history’s bourgeoisie appetites, regardless of the truthfulness of those claims.  Herzog is not interested in simply projecting a cynical vision of the historical man, but is concerned with the problem of evil itself, that is, the absence of god.  Aguirre, The Wrath of God is an atheist’s lament.

Augirre personifies this absent god not as some unambiguous no-thing, but as a tyrannical lethargic, detached from the world of suffering.  When his daughter (the only character in the film Augirre shows any concern) is killed by natives he holds her without emotion, impassive.  His character is hypnotic, always staring, and a lurch, in other words, a haunt.  He is an indeterminate, yet an omnipresent force.  Augirre represents a vacuous nothingness, a rather paradoxically foreboding presence.  Interestingly, we never see Augirre commit murder himself.  Bullets seem to appear on the screen from nowhere, like a miracle.  He yells commands, but the brutality is always carried out by influence, that is,  “through the spirit.”  Augirre propels history (the raft floating down the Amazon), but without any accomplishable aim.  The madness (absence) of god is characterized by a morose nonchalance as opposed to energetic evil.  Augirre’s narcissistic heroism obsesses defiantly toward the blank horizon.  For Herzog, Christianity’s God is a passionless paradox.

“ God is dead,” the popular atheist mantra coined by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1883 sounds eerily similar to Christ’s words on the cross, “God, why have you forsaken me?”  They are, in fact, the same claim, but with different conclusions (God waits 3 days to reveal his alternative).  On the cross Jesus dies the death of God.  However, death was defeated and made subject to the power of God so that through Him all humanity might experience relief from the absurdities of evil.  The painful genealogy of history will be overthrown at the new creation.  Christ’s cross was not the goal of the incarnation, but rather the advent of rebirth where all of history will be redeemed.  History does have a goal.  And there is hope.

Atheist materialism today intimates almost regularly, “We have the world we deserve.” Even as this might be true, Christians should resist seizing this thought in order to relegate it to the archaic, seeking to only “entrap” would-be-converts. “Where is God amidst all this?” is a question universal to human experience.  Christianity’s denial of this is nothing but a false piety, an indolent stoicism, or if you like, active repression.  Nicholas Wolterstorff, contemplating the nature of suffering as he grieves over the loss of his son defines a more authentic Christian witness when he writes: “God’s work to release himself from his suffering is his work to deliver the world from its agony; our struggle for joy and justice is our struggle to relieve God’s sorrow (Lament for a Son, 91).” By this Wolterstorff reminds us of the narrative of our faith– God and we.

Suffering implies a loss of something or someone cherished.  So, in order to speak of God whose essence is love, it must follow then that He is capable of suffering.  Jean-Luc Marion, the French phenomenologist redefines Decartes’ adage in stating, “I love, therefore, I am,” thus conceptualizing Love as an ontological category.  Because God loves, it also means that He suffers.  For, it would be impossible to experience the loss of His children otherwise.  God has suffered in order that we might be given life though the self-giving of the Son.  This means Christians, carrying God’s eternal self-image, are called to solidarity with the sufferings of creation. The Spirit is our source instigating hope and renewal amidst a world suffering from the absence of God.  Conversion is a becoming perpetually manifesting hope beyond measure.  God’s hope does not merely tolerate lament, but responds to the cries of those who suffer the birth pangs of history.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” - Matthew 23:37

Perhaps humanity is the paradox as opposed to God.  Discerning truth is immediately abstracted the moment we seek it within our own historical production.  Thomas Merton explains this perodox as humanity's complete inability to solve their own problems.  Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God represents a neutered epitamy of history’s “all too human” nature (Nietzsche) where, the "wrath" of God represents the ironic futility of self-determinism in light of an absent god.  Apparently, Nietzsche comes out a closet optimist in comparison. As Christians though, we have a greater access that enables us to discern and hate hell more properly.  We remain forever dependent on grace, God’s suffering on the cross, and his self-giving to us.  This hope is resilient and still.

This leads to the interesting situation of having the desire but not having the voice, longing to express oneself but not having the tools to articulate it.  This in turn creates a despondency many adults resultantly feel; with other responsibilities crowding out our time, it seems futile to return again in humility to a discipline that feels arrested.  “I’m too old,” is one of the major complaints of adults intimidated by the Arts. While there is something to be said for child prodigies and early development (these humble writers wished they had picked up the guitar just a few years earlier and kept practicing the piano like their mommas told them), we don’t have to look far in American history to see adults who broke this mold.  Take, for example, Anna Robertson Moses who began painting in her 70’s.  She became known as ‘Grandma Moses,’ and her paintings were quickly in museums, galleries, and even Hallmark cards.  Regardless that this seems abnormal, the point still remains: you can pick up the brush, pen or guitar at any age.

Another common psychological deterrent is the Perfectionist’s Complaint.  “Well, I’m no Mozart.  So why bother?”  If this resonates with you, read the book Art and Fear.    In the words of Ted Orland & David Bayles,

“to require perfection is to invite paralysis…Believing that artwork should be perfect, you gradually become convinced that you cannot make such art (you are correct.).  Sooner or later, since you cannot do what you are trying to do, you quit.  And in one of those perverse little ironies of life, only the pattern itself achieves perfection—a perfect death spiral: you misdirect your work; you stall; you quit.”

In short, the oppressive idea of perfection is the very thing that squelches the arts.  Mistakes are the very moments in which a craft is learned and the inner voice is heard, and to be afraid of them is to risk the timid death our own artistic explorations.

This follows in line with the sticky issue of motivation. There are all sorts of reasons (and excuses) that people do things. Abraham Maslow, in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” lists his famous hierarchy of needs with five levels: Physiological, Safety, Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization. Despite this, modern society has operated off of a simplistic economic model of extrinsic motivation that in fact inhibits high performance, creativity and intrinsic motivation. A case in point is the laboratory study of rhesus monkeys solving a simple mechanical puzzle without either negative or positive reinforcement. They just did it.  Inversely, they solved the puzzle more slowly and less often when external rewards were used.

So how are we to think of the reasons why we do things? Walk the hallways of any Art School in America and you will hear the bemoaning complaints of the plight of artists during an economic recession. Art, ever since the Paris salons of Enlightenment-era Europe, has arguably been an elitist bourgeois endeavor crowned as the apex of culture, evidenced by Maslow’s fifth level. But Art, in the authors’ understanding, is NOT the apex of Culture, but should be understood as Culture’s foundation and the foundation of Human intelligence.

So what?  So get out there!  Pick up your old clarinet, flute, or tuba.  Doodle during class or your weekly Faculty meetings.  Take a tip from you child.  Stop.  Smell.  Breathe.  Jump.  Dance.  Listen.  Look.  Wonder.  Reflect.  And then... CREATE!  Create without judgment.  Let the analytical voices in your head take a nap while time slows down and you lose yourself in the moment, enjoying the process more than the end result.  And when you’re done you might say to yourself, “I had no idea that was in me!”

On the other end of the spectrum, we have "Porte de Choisy" by Christopher Doyle which with few choice words, Claudio Carvalho, with the official IMDB synopsis says it's "absolutely non-sense." In it's contrast to "14ème Arrondissement" with it's poignant script, "Porte de Choisy" ends with a scene where a French hair product salesman is paraded through a mishmash of chinese: can-can girls, hula girls, army-garb-cleavage-popping ladies amongst others. At the end of the whimsical walk-a-bout the hairdresser asks him if he would prefer her with blonde hair, perhaps a result of what he is selling whether a certain race or this product, he rather he says "no, I rather like you better like this. That's how I like you" pointing to a picture with her natural black hair. 

The films been out a while and pretty well known but if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

I loved The Movies, because unlike the entertainment reporters and talk show hosts that aired earlier in the day, Siskel and Ebert talked about films.  They weren't concerned with gossip or awards or politics.  They focused on movies, pure and simple.  They argued a film's merits and deficiencies.  They praised good stories and lambasted bad ones.  They knew what they liked and didn't like, and they had the ability to explain why.  From Siskel and Ebert, I began to learn the language of film criticism, but more than that, I began to learn how to better love films.

Only a lover can be a critic.  Only a lover can truly and justly call the good "good" and the bad "bad."  Love isn't blind.  Love sees all and knows all.  To truly love is to pursue perfection in the beloved, and to pursue perfection, one must see imperfection and name it as such.  Then, with patience and passion, the lover works to eradicate what is unlovely from the beloved, that both the beloved and the lover may be complete.  And only a lover can truly celebrate the beloved's beauty, because the lover sees it, not in spite of, but alongside the beloved's ugliness, an ugliness that the lover is watching pass away as beauty overcomes everything.

Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert were true film critics because they truly loved films.  They were equally enthusiastic in their degradation of poor films as they were in their praise of good ones.  For Siskel and Ebert, thumbs up or down was more a moral judgment than a measure of technical proficiency.  They judged more from the heart more than the head, because their criticism was rooted in love and not in passionless intellectualism.

ABC recently announced the cancellation of the long running show, ending its twenty-four year run in August.  Siskel and Ebert haven't occupied the balcony together since 1999 when Gene Siskel suddenly died of complications that arose during brain surgery.  Roger Ebert left the show in 2006 when thyroid cancer robbed him of the ability to speak.  In their absence, other men and women have filled their seats and attempted to teach the rest of us how to better love movies.  ABC says the show is "unsustainable."  In other words, the show isn't popular enough to be profitable.

This unpopularity of professional criticism is becoming a bit of theme in our society.  Some blame (or credit) the internet with the further democratization of opinion.  I think our technology does indeed shape us, but I also believe we shape our technology.  Perhaps the shift in preference from professional film criticism to 140 character reviews and communal ratings on IMDB is reflective of a broader shift away from regard for the institution and to a higher regard for the individual.  In any case, individuals in our society seem to be more hungry than ever for media, and they seem to want good media.  They just seem to also want to determine for themselves what "good" means.

This shift isn't unique to popular culture, of course.  It is finding its way into our government as President Obama interacts with the nation via Youtube.  It's being expressed in workplaces as a new generation of workers wants to be more engaged with the inner workings of their employers.  And, of course, it's finding its way into the church as an increasingly individualistic culture is remixing their own faith practices and demanding to be involved in the formation of communal worship.

In the midst of this shifting we need the professionals.  We need the critics.  We need the lovers.  We need Siskel and Ebert.  As individuals in our society clamor to have their voices heard, as they demand to have a say in what is good, we need people committed to the greater ideas to teach the interested masses what good is and is not.  This will require humility on the part of the professionals to admit that opinions of the amateurs matter.  It will require patience on the part of the professionals as the amateurs learn.

It will require love, because ultimately, that's what we are trying to pass on.  We are trying to instill deep appreciation and respect and commitment into the merely interested masses.  We are trying to teach them to be better lovers.  We are trying to teach them to better see the perfections and imperfections of the beloved, so the beloved can be made more perfect.  And as we better love movies and governments and workplaces and our churches and ultimately our world, we will see the world become a more beautiful place. 

P.S. I recommend you visit Roger Ebert's website and read his current film reviews and blog posts. The man has much to say, vocally or not.

In recent years we have all witnessed China become a manufacturing powerhouse. And this drastic new role has deep implications for the larger population, many of whom are factory workers. Leaving hometowns of rural villages to the metropolises to find higher earning wages is all too common. We are seeing the same shift that happened in the Western Industrial Age in the 19th Century. Families are being displaced as parents are working in the city in order to support their families. Every year, for many families the only time they can get together is during the New Year. During which, migrant working parents would make the long train trek back home. The documentary states this is the largest human migration and involves the movement of 130 million people. The film follows the Zhang family and their attempt to be reunited as a family, both physically and emotionally. The one desire the parents have for their children is that they can break out of the cycle of poverty by getting an education. To this end, they work extremely hard in a garment factory and live in minimal sleeping quarters.  What they have to live for is this one provision, therefore when it comes time to make it back home and spend a few precious with their children; the only thing they know how to communicate is their repetitive "stay in school" mantra. This sentiment is encapsulated by a Chinese proverb the father shares over dinner, "Eat your bitter melon, if you eat the bitter first, then only afterwards you can really taste the sweetness."

The daughter expressed how she is one of the few students still left in her class. Many by the end of Middle School have left the countryside and have also gone to the city's factories to find work. Eventually, frustrated by the sense of abandonment, in an act of teenage rebellion she does the very thing her parents worked so hard to prevent. She goes work at the garment factory. During some downtime she reflects upon being back in the village, "Freedom is happiness. I felt stuck in a cage. Work is tiring but it doesn't mean I don’t want to do it." She goes from the factory to busting tables at a nightclub, glamorizing herself along the way. In a final attempt to bring her back to school, the parents ask her to make the journey they religiously take every year. As an audience we experience the long and crowded wait, alongside the family. This year there seems to be an additional complication as trains delay, we see thousands of families idly waiting, some for days, in cramped spaces for trains to come. The filmmakers are deliberate in allowing us to observe the mass from above, while juxtaposed by long cuts on ground level to simulate the experience of being tossed around by the sea of people, standing on their feet for hours on end. In one shot, a lady suffering from exhaustion is pulled behind the barriers of soldiers for a breath of fresh air and some space to sit and rest.

The daughter for once experiences first hand the trouble her parents go through every year just to see her, her brother and grandmother. Family reunions during the New Year are the one non-negotiable matter for the Chinese, on the train a man explains, "The young and old are in the village. If the family can’t even get together for New Year, life would be pointless." It was upon this return, we see the daughter break her reserve demeanor and in a fit with her parents she address the camera in tears saying to the effect of, "you want to see the real me, well THIS is the real me!" At this climax, I first realized the honesty of this Cinema Verité film, and was able to appreciate the intimacy the filmmaker has with his subjects. The director Lixin Fan says that he was able to have them open up to him because he first shared his experiences growing up in China and opened up to them first. In a similar project, I came across a series of photographs at the last Venice Biannle Arts Festival by photographer Chen Chieh-Jen. He juxtaposes images of migrant workers in New York's Chinatown next to pictures of their families back in China. He writes about his experience of being a messenger, traveling back and forth documenting both sides of the world. He shares how he is able to get such candid shots of his subjects during downtime because he has built their trust by opening up his life to them. This documentary style has been identified by a critic as contrary to another seminal documentary photographer, Jacob Riis in a series entitled How The Other Half Lives, whom photographs of the same subjects. Yet his approach has been that of an observer, the photographs the subjects are taken from a distance and are approached from an ethnographic demeanor rather than from a shared experience. Taking the time, energy and resources to being vulnerable to his subjects, allowed Lixin Fan to capture very honest truths and experiences of human life exhibited in the struggles of the Zhan family. Perhaps in the same way Lixin Fan and Chen Chieh-Jen chose to invest their lives into the people they are interacting with can inform the way in which we, as Christians, should approach culture, interfaith dialogue and evangelism.

Left: Chen X. Family, New York City, 1998.  Right: Chen X. Family, Fuzhou, China, 2007

Yet for the Zhan family, it is this very incarnation presence or lack thereof that leads to the familial fragmentation. While the parents had the greatest of intentions to provide for her children, what they need most from their parents was a better balance of finance and physical presence. I will try not to be too naive and say that one is more justified than the other. There are some circumstances where "roughing it" together as a family is just not possible. Nevertheless, the film points toward the experience that for a parent and child to see each other only once a year is simply not enough especially during the early formation of a youth. Both parents and children have different views on what sacrifice and love is, and this misunderstanding is most heartbreaking in this narrative.

Lastly, the film also raises questions of consumerism and globalization. The film once again provides an insider look at the normalcy of living and working at a sweatshop where babies are lying on top of counters and children and roaming the aisle of sewing machines. When the daughter and her friend go shopping in a department store, they inspect the clothes and see if they were made in their factory, alas it is more likely their products are exported abroad. A comedic anecdotal experience that hints at these grandeur issues is when a seamstress hold up a pair of jeans too large to fit any Chinese, he smirks, "It must be for Americans."

In his book, Pink points out the six senses of the Right Brain: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, & Meaning.  All of these combine to provide a quintessentially right-brained employee of the future.  Why, as the subtitle of his book suggests, will such people rule the future?  Three reasons: Abundance, Asia, & Automation.

Pink’s understanding of Abundance is that it affects the consumerist drive to seek out novel and aesthetically pleasing products.  Since functional capabilities of products are no longer as discernable (they’re all practically the same anyways) the only difference is one of Design.

The second reason is that Asia = Outsourcing.  If someone else halfway around the world can do it just a good as you can but at a cheaper rate on the American dollar, you can bet that’s where the money will go.  Therefore, the jobs in high demand will be those that cannot be outsourced.  One component of living in a culture is being able to speak its contextual language.  This is a key aspect of Design and a reason why Design cannot be outsourced as easily.  It requires a more locally grown organic grass roots method of cultivation.

The third reason is likened to the second: Automation.  If a robot can do the work cheaper than a person, regardless of it being outsourced, than a product will in fact be manufactured in such a way.

For most of the book, with these three reasons in mind, Pink goes through the six senses listed above, their measurable effects upon productivity in the workplace, and methods of cultivating these senses.  The portfolio exercises at the end of each chapter are intriguing and enjoyable.  They are quite fun!

Take for example the chapter on Play, which explains that one quality of Right-Brained thinking is Humor, which involves empathy, play, and symphony.  Take a cartoon from The New Yorker (without reading the caption)  and make an attempt to write your own caption.  Any luck?

What is interesting to note about such activities is the brain’s ability to “cross-train,” like the curious ability of pianists to also be skilled mathematicians.  This has led my own thoughts into a direction briefly touched upon in the chapter on Empathy.  What would it take for the world to see, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once quoted from the book of Amos, “Justice roll down like waters in a mighty stream,” ? 

As such understandings suggest, it would take the development of right-brained thinking by individuals and societies who are able to grasp issues holistically and in a non-linear fashion, by people who have been educated broadly and are able to synchronize seemingly disharmonic variables into a congruent whole without the compartmentalization of issues that inevitably lead to the cynical resolution of "Such is Life."

This is done, quite frankly, through the Arts.  Not through passive appreciation, but through active participation.  Through practices such as Painting, through Poetry, through Dancing, through Singing, and especially through Drama, the artist is not only honing the skills required in their own craft but, as Daniel Pink suggests, cultivating a new and richer world where the Right-Brained act of Empathy plays a key role.

“The M.F.A. is the new M.B.A.” says Pink.  “A master of fine arts, an MFA, is now one of the hottest credentials in a world where even General Motors is in the art business.”  Clearly, times have changed, and that linear Left-Brained education that was so highly valued a generation ago is no longer the only game in town.  How will educational institutions change in response to a growing business world that demands highly creative thinkers?  How will you change?

A Whole New Mind - Daniel H. Pink

That being said...

I love my Mac.

During my final year of college, I was steadily indoctrinated to the wonders of Apple by my friend and roommate Patrick. He effused about Macs daily and even threw a little party when he bought his first Macbook. When I purchased my first computer a half-year later, I never considered any other brand. I've never regretted it.

I am a oft-times too eager disciple of Apple. I have owned two iPods since converting, buying a second one after my first one broke. Now, that's loyalty. I think the company makes dependable products that are aesthetically pleasing. I don't ask for much else.

However, though I daily partake of the goodness of my Macbook and my iPod, I have yet to complete the holy trinity of Apple products - I do not own an iPhone, and I don't think I ever will. Allow me to explain why.

An iPhone is not simply a phone, as all the users will readily attest and as the advertisements affirm. An iPhone is a mobile connection device. An iPhone is an email-sending, Facebook-checking, Twittering, GPSing, video game-playing computer that fits in your pocket. And it makes phone calls.

It's kind of awesome. iPhones are the future come to the present.

In May, my friends Patrick, Jon, and I were driving through nowhere Wyoming, and Jon and I got into an argument about how to pronounce a word. After a few minutes of going back and forth, we decided to pull up an online dictionary on Jon's iPhone, pipe the audio through his truck speakers, and have the internet settle our argument. While driving 80 mph through the middle of nowhere, we had a computer correctly pronounce a word for us.

If that's not the future, I don't know what is. As my professor Barry Taylor said, with an iPhone, one has the collected knowledge of all humankind in the palm of one's hand.

That's crazy cool, but as awesome as the iPhone is, it's not enough. It's almost enough, but it's not quite there. Because an iPhone is so much more than a phone, I need it to do a little more than it does. I need my mobile connection device to allow me to write and upload to the internet at any time from practically anywhere (within reason). An iPhone is great for interacting with what has been created, but it's almost useless for creating.

The iPhone is a consumption device. It helps one consume media of all kinds (and it makes phone calls). It does not help one produce anything. Allowing me access to the internet is one thing; allowing me to alter it is another. Putting the collected knowledge of humankind in the palm of my hand changes my world; allowing me to add my knowledge to that of humankind changes the whole world.

When Apple builds that device, they'll likely get my money.

The iPad might be that device. I'm not really sure yet. I need to play with one first. We'll see. I think it's at least a step in the right direction.

In any case, the iPhone and its deficiencies exemplify a key component of our society. We truly live in a culture of consumption. Almost everything is oriented to encourage us to buy. Remember after 9/11 when President Bush gave his speech from Ground Zero? Remember how he suggested Americans should cope with the tragedy and fight back against the terrorists? He told us to go shopping. How does our government combat a recession? It mails us checks and asks us to spend, spend, spend. How do I cope with a particularly stressful week? I go to the Apple Store and look at all the things I could buy if I really wanted to.

Consuming equals peace-making. The iPhone is so popular in part because it is an excellent means of being a good citizen of the kingdom of Consumerism.

But the kingdom is evolving, and my problems with the iPhone are indicative of that evolution. As another of my professors, Ryan Bolger, points out, we are moving into an equal parts consumption-production culture. Photoshop, Garage Band, Final Cut Pro, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Wikipedia, Noisetrade, blogs, etc. - these are tools for production and outlets for what is being produced. The consumers of cultural artifacts are becoming the producers of those artifacts. Our society is morphing into one of both consumption and creation. We are defining ourselves both by what we consume and what we create.

As a student of worship, theology, and art, I must ask what that means for the church. Here are a few brief thoughts:

I think people will be less and less willing to simply sit and take from those in leadership. People are going to want to have input not just in big decisions but in definitions and dogmas as well. People are going to want to help form worship instead of just forming themselves to it. This will be challenging for church leadership because it will take a great deal of discernment to know when to insist on certain tenants and practices and when to bend. We must learn to better listen to God and to each other as more and more voices clamor to be heard.

I actually find this to be a very exciting time. When I read Jesus and the apostles' descriptions of the ideal church in the New Testament letters (by the way, none of the actual New Testament period churches were ideal), I see a nonhierarchical, highly interactive church where everyone is a valued part of the body bringing individual gifts and no one is left out.

Will we get there in our generation? No. Will we get closer? I hope so. I think the history of the Church is one of being conformed more and more to the likeness of Christ. I don't think the Church was closest to right in the first century and that we've just been getting more and more corrupted as time has gone by. I think God has been sanctifying His Son's Bride for two thousand years, and I think that one day we will be made perfect.

And if I have to get an iPhone or iPad to be better prepared to help us get there, so be it.

In Andrei Rublev, we find the once cloistered monk-artist exposed to the horrors of the outside world’s ensuing battle: between state patronage and repression, Orthodox Christianity and pagan hedonism. Unlike the fictional character, Don Quixote , there is little comedy instigating sympathy for our supposed hero. Moving with an almost stoical impassivity, Andrei struggles to overcome revulsion. After giving up on painting, Andrei finally meets a boy who challenges the artist to look at the world again; emphasizing Tarkovsky’s ideal that art’s purest form culminates in unselfish acts. The film attributes a significant role to the artist, as if his powers have the ability to hold the whole of creation together as it bangs against itself, threatening to pull itself apart. It does, but through Andrei we are given the expectation of resurrection. After having massacred a village and burned the church, Vladamir’s new Czar assigns a young boy, the last living of the bell-makers, to the task of crafting a new bell. With the threat of beheading behind him, the boy assets to the mammoth task with a passionate sense of urgency.

The bell has functioned as an incredibly powerful symbol in Russian history. As Elif Batuman writes, concerning the return of the Danilov bells to the Danilov Monestary in Russia:

In Russian history and culture, church bells occupy a mysteriously important position. Their tolling, Father Roman said, has been known to bring hard-hearted people to repentance, and to dissuade would-be murderers and suicides. Whereas Western European bells are tuned to produce familiar major and minor chords, a Russian bell is prized for its individual, untuned voice, producing rhythmic layered peals. Russian bells are given names like Swan, Bear, or Sheep, and are considered to be capable of suffering. Mentions Konstantin Saradzhev, “Moscow’s most famous bell ringer.” Tells the story of Boris Godunov and one of Ivan the Terrible’s heirs, Dmitri. Under Stalin, bell ringing was prohibited by law, and thousands of tons of bells were destroyed. (The New Yorker, April 27, 2009)

In Andrei Rublev, the ringing of the bell triggers the film’s first relieving moments. The bell seems to represent the irony of a world founded on self-contradiction and the life lived “between the times.” This setting provides the material from which Andrei bears witness. From the purview of the bell’s authoritative presence and cathartic resonances the prophet beckons.  Slowly, the first glimpses of color begin to overcome the screen, as if consuming all of the events that transpired before it.  Burnt orange emanates from the screen as the camera pan’s closely across the surface of Andrei’s icons, seemingly representative of the baptismal fire (Matt. 3:11). A fire which consumes, cleanses and resurrects, indeed, presenting itself as a challenge to evil’s unrelenting adage– “Long live death!”. The film concludes with a view of The Old Testament Trinity, inviting the audience to gaze into the very face of God Himself.  The icon provides a window into divine things, a deterrent from material idolatry, and the abuse of power.  We are admonished to take up our proper residency under the authority of the true King, where judgment and beauty, ultimacy and grace, truth and love, exude from a single Countenance.

http://rtrentpettit.wordpress.com/

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 

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.

    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

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."

Turmoil draws us out of our own selfish worlds and awakens us to what is beyond us.  We cry out to God.  We beg aid, because faced with worlds outside our own, we need someone outside our world to order things.  We need someone bigger than and beyond the brokenness to set things right.  Affronted with a bent world, we appeal to one unbent outside the broken to enter in and straighten all things.

Why is it then in those moments of deep desperation that God so often appears absent?  Why, when we most want answers, is God silent?

Faced with God’s apparent absence, our other problems dissipate.  The question, “Why is this happening to me?” pales before, “Where are you, God?”  If God is absent or ambivalent or non-existent, what hope do we have?  If all that exists is this mess, that fact is much more troubling than the mess.

Faced with the absence of God, how is one to react?

The psalmists wait.  “Wait for YHWH,” Psalm 27:14 reads.  “Be still before YHWH, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices,” writes the psalmist in 37:7.  Psalm 131 reads, “O YHWH, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.  But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.  Oh, Israel, hope in YHWH from this time forth and forevermore.”

But there is another option for how to respond to evil besides waiting on God.  One can fight back.

If God will not act and wipe away the injustice in the world, perhaps we should.  If God will not raise a hand against evil, we can.  In the absence of God’s justice, we can enact our own, or at least this is one possible answer, and it’s an answer contemplated by our world and arguably by the book of Esther.

In Esther, God is silent.  The Jewish people have been displaced.  Their homeland has been overrun.  They are aliens and outcasts in a hostile land.  Hadassah is forced to hide her identity to survive.  She calls herself Esther, gains the grace of the most powerful man in the land, and is made a queen.  Soon however, her secret people are in grave danger, but using her wiles, she saves them.  Faced with genocide, Hadassah turns the tables on her people’s enemies, and the Jews slaughter seventy-five thousand people in a single day, a day that was supposed to be a day of triumph for their enemies, and bring an end to their oppression.  Through all of this, God is silent.  YHWH’s name is never even mentioned.

Similarly, with his characteristic cinematic flourish, Quentin Tarantino gave audiences a modern version of the same tale in his 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.  The film is a reimagining of the end of World War II.  It is two and half hours of Jews brutally killing Nazis.  Even Hitler himself isn’t immune to Tarantino’s fictitious circumcised vengeance.  In the film’s main plotline, a young Jewish woman hides her identity, ingratiates herself with the Nazi glitterati, and uses her power to annihilate her people’s enemies during what is supposed to be a celebration of Nazi prominence, bringing an end to World War II.  Inglourious Basterds is more than WWII remixed; it is Esther retold as only Tarantino can tell it.

Inglourious Basterds isn’t about World War II.  It’s about the problem of evil in a world seemingly devoid of God.  (This next bit is speculation, but from what other context can I write?)  The Holocaust was an atrocity unlike any other, and God let it happen.  Where was YHWH in the midst of that?  Was God absent?  For many Jews, I would imagine the answer is yes, God was absent.  And if God was absent, if God refused to save them, perhaps they should save themselves.  Perhaps they should enact their own justice and destroy their enemies.  They weren’t able to do that then during the Holocaust, but Quentin Tarantino has given them their justice now much like the book of Esther gives narrative victory to the displaced and trod upon Jewish people in a land and time when God seems silent.

However, Quentin Tarantino isn’t as brave as the writer of Esther.  Inglourious Basterds does indeed revel in the violence of killing Nazis, but the film is ultimately ambiguous as to the worth of that violence.  Yes, the great Nazi evil is eradicated, but justice comes through strange channels and means.  The film does not celebrate the eradication of evil via violence.  It simply presents it to the audience to judge for themselves whether good was done.

Esther makes a claim.  Esther calls the violence and victory “good.”  The book closes with a celebration of the Jewish victory over their oppressors and commends the greatness of the Jews.  Inglourious Basterds does not provide that release.  The film refuses to make that claim.  The book of Esther hates evil enough to call its eradication “good” even when it comes by shockingly violent means.  The book of Esther hates evil more.

Because God hates evil.  God hates injustice.  And God loves people.  Unflinchingly.  Unfailingly.  Even when God seems absent, God’s love never fails.

Here is where Inglourious Basterds falls short of Esther.  Tarantino’s film cannot rejoice in the demise of evil, because it cannot call the evil wholly bad, because it will not call God good.

The writings of the Old Testament are built on the foundation of YHWH’s unfailing love.  The psalmists wait on the Lord because they know the Lord will come.  The Jews in Esther can institute a festival commemorating their victory because they know God also rejoices to see justice done.

And they are all proved true.  Time and time again, God answers the psalmists’ cries and delivers them.  The transplanted Jews thrive under the auspices of Queen Esther and her benevolent cousin Mordecai, God’s proxies in a foreign land.

Yes, sometimes God is silent.  Sometimes, God seems absent.  Everything we know can be falling apart, and we can look to the One who is supposed to be holding it all together, but our Help is nowhere to be seen, and I don’t know why that is.

But I know that God is good, and God’s love never fails. So while it may be true that tragedy is the tale common to all humankind, that is only a temporary truth.  One day a greater truth will take its place: God is making everything new.  And the absence of God will become the ever shrinking space between us.

And the silence will become peace.

Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul - by Stuart Brown, MD

Early last month marked the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of one of our most post-mortemly celebrated authors in American literature.  Any guesses?  I’ll give you a hint: “Nevermore!”  I am of course referencing the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.  What correlates Edgar Allan Poe with Virginia Woolf, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollack, and several other popular artists down through the centuries is that none of them would have received a mental bill of health.  The old stereotypes of the Modern genius, tortured in her soul by an enslaving talent fit well with our assumptions towards the artist.  We expect them to act irrationally and erratically because such extreme behavior is the result of living on the existential extremities of life where the divine is experienced, on the borderlands of the mind and in the thin-places of the soul.  Forgive me for a moment if I steal the reader from out of the clouds to seek a more incarnational approach, more down to earth.

Over the years Stuart Brown has been making a name for himself and for his foundation, The National Institute of Play.  He’s directed and produced a PBS series on the topic of play, counseled Fortune 500 companies how to harness the benefits of play in the work place, and now has co-authored a book that came out earlier this year as a follow up to his widely acclaimed lecture at the 2008 Art Center Design Conference here in Pasadena, California.  You may have seen the lecture on TED Talks, in which case his book follows the same basic outline but is obviously longer than the twenty-six minutes it take to watch this lecture.  To meet the minimum word requirement Brown fills the pages with anecdotal stuffing, along with trimmings of easy-to-read tables and b&w photographs of children and animals naturally having fun.  In short, the book is an easy read with a light peppering of that confusing hard science, which the publishers must have assumed the average consumer has a hard time chewing.*

All this aside, the book, like the lecture, did provide many valuable insights, too many to fill this short blog post, which would likely raise issues of copyright infringement.  ©,®,â„—,â„ ,™ - take your pick.  Brown highlights creativity as one of the many hallmarks of the phenomenon of play.  For what little science Brown does discuss, he describes the psychological event as both an altered and elevated state of consciousness.  Altered being that we tend to accept as the norm the brain state that our societies deem to be normal.  And elevated because senses are heightened, as we tend to allocate more of our body’s resources towards a task that involves “play.”  It’s no wonder then that Fortune 500 companies want to harness this type of productivity.

Another issue Brown discusses, which struck a dissonant note in my philosophy of aesthetics, was the antithesis of Play.  He states, “The opposite of Play is NOT Work.  The opposite of Play is Depression.”  How can this be if all of the greatest artists that we’ve come to idolize for their misery could have qualified for a lifetime prescription to Prozac?  This is understandable on the biological level since an PET scan of a patient diagnosed with clinical depression can literally show signs of depressed brain activity.  It is as if the mind is shutting in on itself, a chronic low-grade malaise prematurely simulating a lethargic death.  However, a growing amount of research is showing remarkably just how close the body-mind connection actually is and how we can best harness this to our fullest potential.

From a creativity standpoint, the old body-mind dualism of Western philosophy culminating in the Modernist agenda of the Cartesian theatre is daily finding new challenges that refute such assumptions.  If the creative process is indeed a mental process, then a case is made that a healthy brain is more capable of such things.  A correlative issue that Brown briefly discusses is from John Ratey’s new book SPARK:  The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.  In it Ratey shows with substantially adequate science that another one of our stereotypes is completely wrong.  In this new understanding the Jock is the Nerd!  The Bronze is the Brains, or at least has more potential to be so.  Of course proper input of time into any given task is necessary to become adept at it.  Anybody up for 10,000+ hours of Sodoku?  This being said, waddle on friends, waddle on!

But what do we do with people like Edgar Allan Poe?  Or for that matter, what do we do with artwork that by and large seems to be unbearably depressing for most individuals, save our hyper-morose teenagers who love their own melodramatic agony?  It may be understood that Edgar Allan Poe, or Virginia Woolf, or Vincent van Gogh (take your pick), didn’t necessarily create their art out of their misery but as a response to it.  The artistic process was a means through which they were able to break loose from these cold chains of melancholic conventions of the mind.  The difference is one of subtlety where in the former the state of depression is lifted up as an idol of perceived authenticity.  In the latter it serves as catharsis and if playfully and properly grappled with, like Jacob wrestling with God, serves as a moment of transcendence.

So what new models are there for us to use if the old paradigms fail to set the standard for creative achievement?  Numerous examples abound.  But what comes most earnestly to mind is the old photograph of Albert Einstein at a ripe old age riding a bicycle.  The argument here is not that depression and concepts of the tortured artist are invalid.  Every aspect of human experience is worthy of the palate’s objectification.  Instead what is proposed is that the experience of play, most akin to what ‘Jack’ Lewis might have called JOY, is the entry point into the creative process. 

*Thanksgiving is only a week away so thanks for putting up with the bad humor.

stuartbrownmd.com

National Institute for Play

TED Talks with Stuart Brown

A bit of background for those of you who don’t know:  The “Jubilate!” Mass was one part of a two day Brehm Centre event entitled “Just Art” (‘just’ as in ‘justice’ not as in ‘barely’...you’re welcome).  It was the first of what will be an annual lecture series designed to encourage ideas, conversation, and action in the arena of theology and the arts.  World famous philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, and practicing worship consultant Marcia McFee, came to us to explore and share ideas about art, ethics, theology, worship, and practice.  It was inspiring and sobering to listen to their ideas about the relationship between art, beauty, and justice in our diverse, pulsating global Christian community.

The Tuesday evening event which showcased Ed Willmington’s Mass was, therefore, an opportunity to truly experience theory birthing practice, action embodying concepts.  It was a privilege to be a part of that evening.  Ed had embraced the structure, text, and heart of the age old Catholic Mass, fusing it with both contemporary and ancient musical expressions.  The technological track, the live musicians, and the choir were admirably threaded in a mutually beneficial manner which resulted in an eclectic musical tapestry.  Alongside the music there were visuals also.  The dramatic walls of Pasadena First Congregational Church held projections of key texts and images, whilst Marcia McFee gave physical embodiment to the music by gifting us with deeply insightful dance interpretation.

The full title of the event was “Just Art: The Place of Art in the Ethical formation of Christian disciples.”  Especially meaningful to me personally, was the effort that Ed Wilmington took to explicitly link the artistic process and the real life living.  Time after time he would tell us as a choir that he hoped the rehearsal and performative process would be deeply enriching to us.  He gently exposed us to the formative (and sometimes painful) privilege of living with art during its gestating period.  He took time to explain the Latin biblical texts.  He took time to pray with us.  And he took time to remind us that we were taking our place in a long line of Christians who had sought to glorify God and bless others through those exact words expressed through music.  To those listening I truly hope and pray it was a blessing.  As one performing, I know that it was. 

    Last Friday, Fuller’s Hubbard Library opened Approaching Eden, an exhibition featuring seven pieces by Patty Wickman that reveal profound in experiences set in contemporary gardens. While we seminary students seek insight and nuance in study of the Word at the library, Wickman’s artwork is an example of how to rediscover the divine in layered conversations with the seemingly commonplace.

In the life-size painting Outside the Garden, a strikingly ordinary man is caught ankle deep in the soil of his garden, as his work is distracted by something outside our view that captures the attention of even the animals surrounding him. All the while, the bright light of the garden nearly catches the revelation of mystery in its rays. This piece is one of three large paintings in Approaching Eden. Wickman’s realistic style evokes the psychological and the transcendence of human experience in the everyday. Subtly playing with focus, she renders some elements naturally soft while accentuating others with striking sharp clarity. There is enough in each of the large paintings to keep you captivated, searching, journeying deeper into the images.

   For me however, the most captivating dynamic of the work shown is the juxtaposition of Wickman’s small after-studies alongside the larger three. Four of the after-studies depict scenes from the larger paintings, but stripped down and with their key elements altered. In Outside the Garden After-study the gardening man is still grounded in mud, but his hands are in a different position, striking a notably different chord. As painters prepare a composition, it is common to sketch out studies, playing with the gestures, and juxtapositions of the subjects. However, with Wickman’s after-studies, it seems like something more is being revealed.

(pictured) Struggle Garden by Patty Wickman, courtesy of Lora Schleisinger Gallery, Santa Monica

   At Friday’s opening, I asked Wickman about the after studies, seeing that the drawing Outside the Garden After-study was completed nine years after the large painting. She explained that while she simply needed to finish a few drawings to be ready for show, there was also more she wanted to play with in the subject itself. It is like a game, she said, moving around different elements— simply changing a hand gesture or the placement of an object—changes the narrative. This reminds me that as an artist, Wickman herself is on a journey, never fully arriving even when a painting is dry and signed with satisfaction. The elements that first drew her to a composition were simply guides as, like the title of the show, she approaches something, just as her paintings themselves provide layers of meaning offering more of an invitation to a deeper conversation rather than a monologue.

   As testified by the after-studies, Wickman works with pieces that keep intriguing her even as she finishes earlier studies. For the Seminary student, the same impulse lies behind our study of scripture in relation to the world-as-we-know-it. For anyone believing in deep meaning in our life experiences, these paintings challenge us to play, even wrestle with the ordinary in our own lives to see things anew. Along the way, perhaps we will find ourselves approaching the proverbial garden, returning to seemingly familiar images of our days, putting things in fresh light, seeing how the narrative changes as we explore, dig and seek God in the midst.

   Approaching Eden will grace the Hubbard Library until November 23, inviting us to engage in the conversation of juxtapositions in the contemporary images by Patty Wickman.

I have an extensive cd collection.  I particularly enjoy being able to study an artist's or band's entire career.  I like to be able to trace their progressions (or in some cases, regressions) as artists.  I feel that knowing an artist's catalogue adds an extra dimension to the listening experience.  That knowledge makes the good albums better and grants the bad albums a little more grace than perhaps they'd otherwise deserve.

As I've collected so many artist's catalogues, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon - self-titled albums are most often comparatively the least in an artist's catalogue.  (Admitedly, this is not always the case. Sometimes bad music is contained on non-self-titled albums as well, as evidenced at left.)  I've pondered this.  Why are so many self-titled albums bad?

Well, clearly self-titled albums are usually an artist's first album.  They're not experienced, and so the songs aren't as good as their later work.  That's the easy answer.

But the deeper question is, why are these songs worse than their later songs?  What quality is this early work missing that the later work possesses?

I think the answer is identity.

As I've listened to and studied these bad debut albums (Oh, the things I do for art!), I've noticed a common thread - on early albums, artists seem often to be trying to be someone else.  One artist plays the piano and writes story songs, so he tries to be the next Billy Joel.  Another captures snapshots of Americana that erupt in praise of God, and so he apes Rich Mullins.  This other band is from the South and loves guitars, so they try to remind you of Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Don't you just love the irony of a self-titled album where in every song the artist is trying to sound like someone else?

Eventually, over the course of a few albums, if they keep at it, the artist or band almost always finds their identity, but it seems to take time and practice and confidence to drum up the courage to be oneself, and it's wonderful when that finally happens.

This afternoon, I went to Azusa Pacific University to see their production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita.  The show is very well done on all fronts.  The singing, the acting, the choreography, the costumes, the lighting - everything on stage is top notch.  Even the music, which is provided by a live orchestra, is wonderful.  The students at APU are really doing a fine job.

And to their credit, there seems to be a large measure of group identity among the cast and crew.  All too often, productions of this size try to be more than they are.  Companies overreach their rigging.  They overstep their stage, and so their productions fail, if not entirely, at least in part.  APU's thespians seem very at home on their stage, and theirs is a comfort that is communicated to the audience and makes for a very enjoyable afternoon.

As artists, we can learn from the failure of so many musicians and from the success of Azusa Pacific University's theater department.  May we learn to be ourselves.  May we be comfortable in who we are.  May we act on the stage God has placed us on.  May we ply our God-given talents to the task at hand so that when He gives us more, we will have developed the skills needed to be equally as responsible with them.

It's the least and the most we can do.

What’s the point?  What’s the meaning?  Is there meaning?  Why do we do what we do?  Essentially to do anything at all employs a contextual level of aesthetics that for most of our day we are blissfully unaware.  We all have tastes for certain artifacts in our lives be it our fashionable choice in clothing, what NOT to wear, our cars, our books, our Macs or PCs, or even our coffee, latte, or macchiato.  The latter three falling into a broad rubric of culinary aesthetics. 

But what is aesthetics?  What are we talking about when we say that someone has an aesthetic appreciation for ____________ ?  My first answer would be a pseudo-intellectual posturing where I would state that the etymological roots of the word come from its Greek origins, “aisthesis,” meaning sensation or perception.  My second answer, and perhaps more honest, would be that I haven’t got a clue!

My professor and mentor Steve Heilmer, associate professor of Art and the department chair at Greenville College, once told me in passing that art is done for the sake of the community.  I thought about this and compared it to the very practical applications of famous pieces of art from antiquity where great architecture, and imposing marble statues all made their civic contribution to Plato’s idyllic Republic.  But does this reduce the validity of art to a democratic acceptance via status quo? 

There is room enough, even within the many Christian communities, particularly Evangelicalism, for art that shocks, offends, and disturbs.  It would be stating the obvious to most people to say that Protestantism, and particularly the Reformed tradition, as opposed to the Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, etc. has the most work ahead of itself in rebuilding the bridges it has burned between its own traditions and the broad, all-encompassing domain of art. 

At a time when Europe was experiencing great cultural upheaval, the incentives coming from John Calvin’s work The Necessities of Reforming the Church spoke to an emergent cultural expression which placed emphasis upon a new technological advancement, i.e. the printing press of Johannes Guttenberg.  It is a saddening case of cultural misattribution that Calvin makes to describe the various works of art, particularly statuary, that existed throughout the Catholic churches of medieval Western Europe.  These “Graven Images” which Calvin speaks of bore little resemblance, aesthetically or functionally, to the false idols of the Old Testament.  If you asked a peasant in the rural countryside of Christendom whether or not the statue in the local church of St. George was his god, the answer, lacking in any theological verbosity which Calvin was prone towards, would simply be, “No.”

The result of the Guttenberg press and the Reformation’s consequential emphasis upon the textual aspect of scripture is twofold.  The obvious, is that it relieved the institutional church of its burden of authority, most notably a cross taken up hesitantly by Gregory the Great and continued thereafter, and placed it upon the individual reader.  The less obvious result is that with an emergent emphasis upon the text, now being read silently by one’s self and not in community, the de-emphasis of art as a form of communication for biblical narrative allowed for a blind eye to be turned to the non-literate parts of society.  Hence literacy and salvation came hand in hand.

As inheritors of that Protestant tradition, Evangelicalism has much work to do to rebuild that burnt bridge and to broker the disconnect that is experienced between Art and Religion.  Living in the media saturated world of Web 2.0 we are no longer the textual culture of Modernism brought on by the advent of the Reformation.  And neither, as Marshall McLuhan would prophecy, are we now solely a visual culture.  But instead, as the World Wide Web suggest, we are emerging as a community based (i.e. facebook, twitter, myspace, etc.) visual/textual culture where we recognize art for what it is.  Art in essence is the way in which we shape our world.  Literature, therefore, even when canonized as scripture by a certain faith community, is still one of many mediums, like oil, marble, or pixel, in which we communicate.

My question would not be if it is or isn’t art, or even if it’s idolatrous.  I would have to ask, “Is it intentional?  What does it say?  What is my response?”  Art doesn’t become idolatrous because we can get carried away and lose track of time in the right-brain process, nor because we read our Bible a little less this past week or forget to shake our pastor’s hand at the end of every sermon for his own affirmation.  To view Art in conjunction with Faith as an Either/Or premise is to approach God without intentionality.  Like the ancient Japanese Tea Ceremonies where every movement is artistically imbued with meaning, or like the intricate and ethereal ballet dances of The Nutcracker or Swan Lake, we can give meaning and create intentionality within our own lives, within our Eucharistic communion with fellow believers, and within our walk, or dance, with the LORD.

Graffiare means "to scratch," and street art like that of Martin Soby, does just that.  It scratches beaneath the surface of the urban landscape and exposes the beauty within.  It scratches the itch the pedestrian feels as she walks past almost endless concrete and glass facades longing for a bit of beauty amongst the banality.  It scratches away at commercialism's near obsessive insistence on functionality and efficiency and reveals a better, more soul-filling aesthetic.

I point you now to Good and an interview with Soby by the Wooster Collective.  As artists (and especially as Christians), may we always seek to bring and find beauty in the broken places.

On Friday, Porterhouse Fine Art Editions will release a limited edition vinyl figurine of Mark Ryden’s, “YHWH” from the “Bunnies and Bees” exhibition from 2000. What I love about Ryden, is that he engages theological concepts from various religious traditions, be they Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, what have you, from the “outside,” in. That is to say, the artist claims no formal or institutional religious affiliation, yet his work belies a theological sophistication that, to my eye, offers wonder over disdain, curiosity over critique – not that critique isn’t welcomed. Actually, I would argue that it is Ryden’s theology from the “outside” that provides a fresh lens for those of us on the “inside” who sometimes find it difficult to see the forest for the trees.

What strikes me about this piece in particular, is Ryden’s grasp of Apophatic theology. Strains of Aphopatic theology within the Christian tradition can be traced as far back as Augustine. This approach, known as “the negative way” or “Via Negativa,” holds that the Divine is ineffable and our experience of God can only be recognized or remembered, rather than accurately described. What’s more, the imperfection of language and our finite ability to grasp the eternal necessitates that any attempt at describing God will ultimately prove flawed and incomplete. To that end, practitioners would not make propositional statements about the nature of God or what God is, but rather, what God is not.

Also worthy of noting is that in the Jewish tradition, “YHWH” is the ineffable and unutterable name of God. In fact, for reasons of reverence, its utterance is absolutely forbidden in many Orthodox Jewish communities, even in prayer.

So here I sit at my computer, looking an artist’s attempt to capture the uncapturable, in a painting named after the unnamable, and consider purchasing a $180.00 vinyl toy depicting that which cannot fully be known. I look at the little girl’s bare feet, conveying the holiness of her Audience, her bent elbows and open skyward palms symbolizing reverence and worship. I look at the unblinking maternal gazes of the tripartite ineffable, and I consider the omniscience and benevolence of an eternal First Cause. I’ve never been one to collect religious brick-a-brack but, as I consider these things and find myself moved to tears, I realize “YHWH” is probably a good place to start.

This entry is taken with permission from the author, Christopher Min, from his blog - "aestheticism - searching for meaning somewhere post of modern".

I grabbed a few friends and drove to the Barnsdale Gallery Theatre, and for two hours we listened to the teaching pastor Tim Chaddick introduce ideas about worldview, culture, the arts, and how Christians should interact with it. At one point in the lecture, Tim said something that stung me: “Art can become a demon in time if you demand from it what only God can give.” He said it in passing, but the words had weight to them, heavy and sharp with truth meant for my ears.

I did undergrad work in English, I buy books faster than I can read them, I listen to music daily, and I frequently try to create my own. So I’ve naturally grown quite accustomed to my regular diet of the arts. It has been a healthy feast for sure, but one that can slowly become more like gluttony, a vice that can crowd out any space for cultivating a hunger for God.

Tim’s words convicted me, and I’m thankfully starting to realize how easy it is for a healthy love of the arts to become an idolatrous obsession with the created object rather than the Creator it should be pointing to. Frankly, feeding only on human expression, no matter how transcendent the work seems, will not provide lasting spiritual sustenance.

When I look solely to the arts for meaning and transcendence, I’m soon lost in a house of broken mirrors, only seeing distorted images of myself. But if I can remember that my experience of the arts should always direct me to God, then art becomes more like a stained glass window, allowing light to shine through all its brokenness.

I've wanted to see Koyaanisqatsi in its entirety since I first watched a half hour clip from it in my Intro to Film class at UT Dallas during my first semester of college. Koyaanisqatsi is a a 90 minute film without dialogue. Basically, it's a montage of natural, industrial, and urban scenes shot in time lapse photography and set to music. Here's the trailer:

Koyaanisqatsi was released in 1982 (if you couldn't tell from the clothing and hairstyles of the people in the trailer), and while now much of what it is and does has become commonplace, at the time, its use of time lapse photography was groundbreaking.

Ostensibly, the film is about how our lives are inundated by technology and about how we are destroying the "pure, natural" environment and ourselves through our use of technology, but that is not what I was struck with as I watched and listened last night. I was brought face to face with the bigness of God and the vast variety and beauty in our world.

There are scenes in the film of hundreds and hundreds of apartment complexes, and while I'm sure the filmmakers' intention was to highlight our uniformity and anonymity, I saw the homes of thousands of people, and I knew that God was in and over and around each of them.

The film portrays beautiful landscapes in Canyonlands National Park and the Grand Canyon (I saw Horseshoe Mesa, which I've hiked) and Lake Powell (I've walked along its shore), and then it juxtaposes these images with clips of masses of people walking down the streets of New York City. I thought, "Wow. Those Parks are amazing, and I want to go to there, but each one of those people is more mysterious and endless and more fascinating than any of those natural environments. I could spend years in Canyonlands and eventually know it all; I could spend an eternity with any one of those people and never find where they end."

As the film continued, I saw more and more places I wanted to visit and more and more and more and more people I wanted to get to know.

One scene stands out for me more than the rest. I have to think it was in New York City based on the way the people were dressed. A short, dark-haired man with a thick mustache is standing at an ice cream counter holding an impossibly pink double scoop and talking with the two young African American men behind the counter. He's smiling. They smile at something he says. He reaches across the counter to shake their hands and as he turns to leave, he sinks his teeth into the top of his ice cream cone.

As I watched him, I thought, "I want to know that man. I want to know where he's from and how that has shaped him. I want to know what flavor of ice cream he's so completely enjoying. I have not been where he is. I do not know what his life is like. I have not experienced much of what I'm seeing in this film. There is a lot of world out there, and I want to see all of it."

This world is full of amazing, beautiful, unique people, and each of them is as complex and nuanced as I am. Each of them is the center of their own world, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean that each person experiences life differently than every other person. Every life lived is unique. Every person is like a phone booth that opens into outer space. Every person is an eternity wrapped up in flesh.

And God is very, very big, because God knows every last inch of every person.

Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi Indian word with multiple meanings, most of them having to do with life being out of balance, but the final meaning given is the one I like the best - "a state of life that calls for another way of living."

Koyaanisqatsi calls me to more fully engage with my world and particularly with the people in it. It inspires me to notice the beauty inherent in each person and the grace of the world around me. God has made an amazing earth and filled it with even more amazing people. I pray I see it better.

Garage Voice on MySpace

Noah Gundersen on MySpace

Tom Rorem on MySpace

Peanut butter and jelly.  Chocolate and vanilla.  Batman and Robin.  Ying and Yang.  Some of the best things in life are made even better when paired with a good opposite.  For three years Coffee by the Books and its Fuller community have witnessed the musical talent of two very different artists: Carrie Graham and Justin Fung.  Drawing large crowds whenever each musician plays, Carrie and Justin always bring an energized dynamic to their performances - a particularly difficult task for solo artists.

Justin, an American from Hong Kong via London, is a singer/songwriter who makes such harmonic use of his acoustic guitar as to woo his audience into a sympathetic dream.  His style ranges from U2’s open chord progressions of The Edge’s arena rock guitar to the more somber life reflections of Johnny Cash or the near spoken-voice musings of Damien Rice.  His baritone voice, compared best with Jason Wade from Lifehouse, alternates back and forth between frail and full, depending on the lyrical demands.

Carrie Graham is a Texan singer/songwriter and pianist whose compositions are an expression of gratitude for the loved ones in her life, including family and close friends.  An ardent fan and friend of Carrie Graham says this about her music.

“If Ben Folds and Regina Spektor had a daughter, fed her a Gerber blend of Sia, Kate Nash, and Butterfly Boucher, then raised her in Broadway musicals, you’d have the fiery soul that is Carrie Graham.  She… displays a spectrum of emotions in songs written like 'a musical diary, therapeutic sort of thing' (her words).  Entries include reflections on the beauty of God’s love, the stupidity of human love, and everything in between.” Dan Long

On Thursday May 28th, 2009 from 6-9 PM, both Justin Fung and Carrie Graham will each be performing their Swan Songs in The Catalyst here at Fuller.  Coffee and other refreshments will be provided courtesy of Coffee by the Books and the Arts Concerns Committee.

Justin Fung on MySpace

Have you ever been lost in the woods?  Or been hiking down a trail hoping that you would?  Tina Frei, in her Master's Thesis work, evokes such sentiments.  With a Bachelor of Arts in Theology from Walla Walla University and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest as her muse, Tina’s body of work provokes a discussion on Western Christianity’s relationship with the natural world.  Studying her compositions elicit a literary comparison with the nostalgia of J.R.R. Tolkien, John Milton, or Henry David Thoreau.  Drawn both from the stark contrasts of earth and sky in her home town of Walla Walla and the lush green forests of Western Washington, Tina’s paintings convey a quality of immediate spiritual presence for the viewer.  Imagine listening to the softer side of Jars of Clay’s first album or the playful tunes of an Eisley cd.  Yet Frei is hoping to address our Western attitudes toward Nature by revealing that such nostalgic tendencies are in fact a cue that we’ve already separated ourselves from it.  If the “Re-enchantment of the West” is an emerging part of our collective consciousness, Frei does well in adding to that “stock of available reality.”  Look for her exhibit, which will be showing 9 AM - 12 noon Friday, May 22nd in Payton 101, here at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Jena Ashton, a Phoenix, Arizona native with a subtle touch of an “Indie” aesthetic, is a second year student in Fuller Theological Seminary’s Master of Arts in Theology program with a concentration in Theology & the Arts.  An undergrad hailing from Grand Canyon University with a degree in Christian Studeis, her Master's Thesis project, entitled Embodiment, debuts Friday, May 22nd on campus in Payton 101.  Coming from a vocational background in Youth Ministry & Worship with the Presbyterian church, Ashton draws from this as well as her own life experience as part of her thematic depiction.  Her six piece exhibit of mixed media – acrylic, print, plaster, etc. – on canvas features eclectic compositions dealing with various subject matter within the spectrum of Body Theology.  These topics include sexuality, gender roles, body image, and the body/ soul indistinction.  Drawing upon her own theological tradition, sharpened through her time spent at Fuller, Ashton defines Embodiment as the “portraying [of] characteristics of Body Theology through a holistic understanding of one’s faith which is lived out through the body.” 

Come by Payton 101 on Fuller’s campus to see the incarnational work of Jena Ashton and several other Fuller artists during Artventures starting 9 AM this Friday, May 22nd, 2009.

Jena Ashton's Website

TALKBACK
David Goetz
Talkback is a time for attendees to pick a topic for further discussion. Attendees broke off into groups that meet at various local venues. David Goetz gave a provocative insight into the flaws of the perfect picket-fence suburban lifestyle, and so I went to the Q&A session that was held at Buffalo Billiards, a local darts, pool and shuffleboard hangout. During the Q&A Goetz shared stories of his high-maintenance lifestyle and the burden that comes with it. He distinguishes in the city, while many socio-economic dynamics are compactly present; the differences are obvious whereas in the suburbs they are not. In the “Burbs” there is no drugs, no crime, no poverty and everything looks perfect from the outside. However, Goetz points out that poverty is not only financial, deeply hidden behind he picket fences is a spiritual poverty. The addictions lie in maintaining a certain lifestyle, and living our dreams through our children. Therefore as Christians it would be profoundly life changing to recognize these “toxins” and reach out to neighbors in meaningful ways. During the talkback, questions were asked to Goetz about remedies and positive outcomes to which he honestly confessed that it was still an on-going problem for him and the friends he is trying to reach. It was also asked if there were spiritual leaders to look to up to which he replied he is always hesitant point out a superstar, but rather seeking to find mentors who are older, found just within our communities. People who are farther along and not asking to be "trumpeted". I couldn't agree more.

AFTERNOON SESSION
John Burke, Pluralistic Evangelism.
Andy Crouch, Power, Privilege and Risk.
Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, The Post-Atomic World.
Shannon Sedgwick Davis, Not On Our Watch.
Bill Townsend & Bill Hampton, Economic Opportunity.

TALKBACK
Andy Crouch
During talkback Crouch dug deeper into concepts for his next book. Thoughts such as what happens after you have created culture. Does one simply marinate in the success or does one turn the accumulated power back into new opportunities. Couch shared how his first book Culture Making was first formulated during Q and how over the years it finally came together. Although with success, he expressed concern that no one wanted to here about taking risks and giving up the comfort of privileges. For the talkback he expect only a few people to show up but it ended up being fully packed with people standing on the sides. He gave illustrative answers that eventually addressed the issue but the whole way through he was thoroughly engaging!

EVENING KEYNOTE
Shane Hipps, The Spirituality of The Cell Phone. Keynotes are an extended talk, where rather than 18 minutes, the talks are doubled to 36 minutes. Hipp’s talk occurred after dinner and we were warned that upon entrance back into the theater, our cell phones would be confiscated for the period of the talk. There was a lot of anxiety for some many folks who found it really hard to part-ways with their smart phones even for that period of time. There were many people including myself trying to get in their last calls before handing over their coveted device. There was a survey where about 60% of the attendees had iphones, probably the largest concentration in any conference! I made a friend from Australia who cynically refused to hand anything over in America after many experiences of lost items in the past. Shane Hipps talked about the disembodiment of technology and how we are constantly being taken out of the present moment. He even made an iphone app called, “Fully Present” where for a specified time one can disable the phones functions. That when multitasking, our brain is merely dividing up the same limited resources and spreading it thin. Being so fragmented is the opposite of spiritual wholeness. Therefore to counter this he satirically made an iphone app called, “Fully Present” where for a specified time one can disable the phones functions. He also talked about how the power of presence is unique to the Christian faith, where God decided to take on a body to come to Earth. As Christians we are also called to be incarnate in a disincarnate world.

About
Q is a gathering where innovators, church leaders, social entrepreneurs, and cultural pioneers come together to explore the church’s role in positively contributing to culture.

In Austin, April 27-29 2009, hundreds of remarkable leaders will collaborate around the biggest questions facing the church today. Q is not for content consumers, but for those who will contribute to the bigger conversation. We hope you will be one of them.

Check out the rest of the presenters and more about Q. www.qideas.org