Blogstravaganza!

Samba Brazilian Steakhouse - TheGuysWhoLikeToEat

2009-11-11T22:56:00.001-08:00

Our latest restaurant adventure (which we shot back in March or some such time!). Samba was outstanding. Not only was the owner and the staff extremely hospitable and helpful, but the food was terrific. The buffet alone nearly merits the dinner price, but the all-you-can-eat barbecue put this restaurant in a class all its own. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance.

As for the episode, I think it's possibly less funny than some of the preceding ones, but ironically also perhaps the most informative. I don't know...

Whining

2009-09-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

A woman helped me to realize

How little I know about love

How much pain is involved

When I desperately don’t want to love but do

When I want to tear the beating memory of her out of my mind

When I curse God for being love, if this is love

I want to gouge out my heart and crush my skull

And float, comfortably numb, in a head without a mind

At least my neutrality in that static would make sense

It feels perverse, loving her

Who holds my weakness over my head

And makes me dance for her amusement

That weakness is my love

How absurd

Newest Video Stuff

2009-07-16T18:40:00.001-07:00

Smokehouse Restaurant & Bar

To explain the multiple intros: this was intended to be one half of a "pilot episode," so the Bonanza thing would follow a commercial break and intro the second segment--or something like that.

Also, here's something I was contracted to do for People's Church in order to recruit volunteers:

Patrick Contreras Band - Purple Rain Video

2009-06-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Hero's Sports Lounge - TheGuysWhoLikeToEat

2009-04-03T12:07:00.001-07:00

TheGuysWhoLikeToEat - North India Bar & Grill

2009-02-17T01:24:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right, I haven't posted since mid-October, and I'm back with a Youtube link... to explain, I have been occasionally involved in various ways with this little show for a while, but with this one, I directed and chopped it, and also created the new opening sequence. So that's why I'm posting it here.

If you happen to have comments about the video, please leave them on the Youtube page, not here, or posting on both works too. Then subscribe to the GuysWhoLikeToEat channel and peruse some of the other videos as well.

Dodgers...

2008-10-15T21:37:00.001-07:00

...lose. Boo.

Dodgers!

2008-10-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Dodger stadium with my chum Ben Wideman, having just witnessed the Dodgers complete their sweep of the Chicago Cubs, and the atmosphere was electric. Certainly the most energized sporting event I've ever been to or participated in. Lots of fun.

Meditation on Death

2008-06-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

I guess it's fitting that I haven't posted anything since Grandpa's funeral, because I recently created a video for my class on grief, loss and dying, and it happens to concern this topic:

"Surrender on Iwo Jima" - Grandpa's Memorial

2008-03-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Eleven days ago, my grandpa died peacefully in Fresno, CA. For several years, I've known that it would be my responsibility to present something about him whenever his inevitable end came, and I fulfilled that unspoken obligation last Saturday. This is what I read to the approximately 200 people who gathered that day for his memorial service. It's a mere summary, and (as usual) I feel like I didn't say exactly what I wanted, but such perfection will likely never come. I suppose that's something we all have to live with. Anyways, Grandpa Bradford was a good man and well loved, more than I could ever encapsulate in a few short words.

I’d like to tell you a little bit about my Grandpa, and how I understand him and the life he led and now leaves to me, and us, as a gift:

Grandpa was one of the kindest, most friendly men I have ever known. He never withheld his love, friendship and encouragement from anyone. I have a bag full of letters that attest to the fact (which I demonstrated)—and this is just four years worth— I’m sure many others here today could share a similar stack of mail. In many of these letters, he voiced his desire simply to spend more time with me, to talk about school and life and Godly stuff, and usually over a bite of lunch. Looking back, I realize that I refused these requests far too often. It occasionally seems like we spend too much time preparing for life, rather than living it. Remember to embrace the loving Presence of others while the opportunity persists.

Several years ago, Grandpa asked me to be his “aide de camp”—that’s a military term for a personal assistant to a high ranking officer. Of course, I accepted, and over time, it became clear that Grandpa wanted to share a particular story with me, the story he wanted to call, “I surrendered on Iwo Jima”. So here’s that story in brief form.

In 1942, at the age of 22, Grandpa left his home in Oklahoma and joined the Marine Corps. He trained at the newly established Camp Pendleton in San Diego, then got assigned to an engineering regiment of the 4^th Marine division, which made its home on Maui, one of the Hawaiian islands. There he met Merle, a friend who left an indellible impression on my Grandpa, so much so that he gave the name to his first son, my uncle. In 1944, during the division’s first combat operation on a remote coral atoll called Kwajalein, Grandpa’s good friend Merle was killed.

As the war continued and the Marines drew closer to the Japanese home islands, the ferocity of the fighting only intensified, first on the island of Tinian, then Saipan, and finally, Iwo Jima. Though I have seen commendations and awards for his part in these battles, Grandpa remembers very few details from any of these traumatic experiences, perhaps by the grace of God. Suffice to say, it was a hellish time. On Iwo Jima, the ash-ridden rock where the famous flag-raising occurred, Grandpa reached the end of his physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual rope. On March 3, 1945, some two weeks into the fighing, in the middle of the brutality and despair of war, Grandpa made this simple promise to God: “If you see me through this, I’ll serve you.”

Apparently, God took up the offer, and Grandpa was not counted among the 7,000 American and 20,000 Japanese soldiers who died on that remote island in a five week span. However, it would take some time before Grandpa would fulfill his part in this “foxhole covenant”.

After the war, in 1947, during the same week in March that he had promised surrender two years earlier, he was involved in a major car accident that caused a concussion and the loss of the deltoid muscle in his right arm. He was in a coma for four days. When he awoke, Grandpa took his accident as a not-too-subtle hint from God and was baptized on March 3, 1947 in Texas. As Grandpa put it, “Our gracious Lord allowed me to surrender in 1945, and die to the flesh in 1947.” Two years to the day.

After his baptism, Grandpa was pointed to San Jose Bible College where he could “train for the new service.” But this his trials had not yet ended, because somewhere along the way, he suffered a major nervous breakdown and landed in the Sonoma State Hospital, where he experienced first-hand “the rudimentary days of California mental health” at the hands of “an ogre-type psychiatrist” who administered shock treatments. Grandpa had lost sense of time, and could not remember his own name. Eventually, his identity was obtained and, one day, Grandpa’s brother Don arrived to get him out of there. Grandpa says, the story of the Prodigal Son has become especially meaningful in view of these dark days of his life.

After recovering from this breakdown, Grandpa re-enlisted at the Bible College, met and married Grandma, and gave the remaining six decades of his life to his Lord, his family and every other person he randomly encountered. A man full of vitality till his legs could carry him no more, Grandpa approached every day with what he called a “gung-ho” attitude in service of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

So Grandpa surrendered on Iwo Jima, and I hope you catch the irony. In one of the most memorable military victories in American history, Grandpa was defeated. However, God’s victory did not come easily, and not without a cost. Grandpa loved the song “Amazing Grace,” and I think it’s because he identified himself so resolutely with the “wretch” described it, just as he identified with the prodigal who wanders from home, and later returns filthy, destitute and ashamed, but is met by a father who calls him “beloved” for no other reason than that he is a son.

Grandpa told me his story—and I tell it to you now—not simply because it’s a good story, or a sentimental one, but because it points to God, and to faith. Not the kind of insubstantial “believing-in-something” we often talk about, but a faith forged in fire; the faith of a wretch and a sinner; the faith of a person who will not cheapen grace, but embrace it as something costly; a faith that says, “I am useless, a wanderer and a wretch, and still God calls me ‘beloved’.” Thanks be to this God—Grandpa’s God and ours—who invites, rebukes, corrects, nudges, directs, orchestrates, embraces and loves.

I have one last thought Grandpa’s recent departure: I read somewhere this allusion to death as a “coming home.” Imagine yourself as a child, playing outside in the sandbox, or in my case, I imagine those long car trips home during which I’d fall asleep to the drone of the tires. And while sleeping, wherever you are, your parents gently pick you up and carry you into your home, and put you in bed. After an unknown time, you wake up in your bedroom, tucked away under the covers, maybe even in your pajamas. You don’t know how it happened, but you know you’re home. The thought came to mind while I watched Grandpa drift away last Saturday. It came as a sort of epiphany to me—perhaps the final gift Grandpa gave to me—that dying itself is not so hard. We fall asleep, and someday, we will wake up in God’s house. Always the bold one, Grandpa has led the way home.

Glen Bradford
December 24, 1919-March 1, 2008

Diagnosed

2008-02-08T00:03:00.002-08:00

An interesting confluence of events brings me to the writing of this blog. First, I’ve had recurring nightmares this week. Second, my sister Lindsey passed on a Myspace blog asking for ten curious habits, goals or random facts about myself, which I just posted. Third, I finished Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out. How these three disparate elements sparked a light in my mind, I do not know, but here goes…

Since I don’t know when, maybe high school, I have had recurring “night terrors” or “walking nightmares” or whatever you want to call them. They follow a predictable pattern: 1) Someone or something is coming at me wherever I’m sleeping with the intention to kill me, 2) I freak out and try to escape danger, usually yelling “No no no!!” as I’m told, 3) I typically defend myself with my blankets and sheets, 4) I wake up, totally disoriented, my heart rate jacked, 4) I eventually figure out it was a dream, then have to remake my bed and fall asleep again, and 5) I never remember the details of the dream. Oy, that’s a mouthful!

My family and most of my friends have witnessed these episodes at least once. I’ve punched Curtis several times and Lito only once—which makes them special. I have tried to diagnose this… “thing I do” for some time to no avail. Then, I came across this little passage in Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out that seemed to offer the diagnosis I have been too blind to see:

“St. Basil, father of monasticism in the Eastern Orthodox Church, living in the 4^th century, was quite clear about the fact that even our dreams cannot be excluded from our spiritual life. When the question was raised to him: What is the source of those unbecoming nocturnal phantasies?” he said: “They arise out of the disordered movements of the soul that occur during the day. But if a man should occupy himself with the judgments of God and so purify his soul and concern himself constantly with good matters and things pleasing to God, then these things will fill his dreams (instead).”

Holy crap, St. Basil, you're a genius! I knew instantaneously this passage was written for me. So when my sister passed on the “10 strange things about you” challenge, one of my responses was that I have these sleep-walking nightmares all the time, and I thought, “Here’s a great opportunity to put a few things together (in blog form).”

To explain the above quote in its context, Nouwen contends that a primary aspect of the spiritual life is the movement from illusion to prayer, and this includes our dreams. What he means by that is: while we may have the appearance of someone pious, humble and selfless, we may interiorize dreams or fantasies wherein we “freely erect statues to honor our own martyrdom and burn incense for our wounded self.” In other words, we create “immortal images” in our day and night dreams. In dreams, we make ourselves into gods, setting up palaces to enshrine our glory. The only word for this inflated interior activity is idolatry, and Nouwen seems to think it plagues most people. I agree, because the I do this all too often.

What does this have to do with my stupid, embarrassing, occasionally injurious night terrors? Nouwen links the idolatry of our dreams to the illusion of immortality that flows out of it. Reading this, I suddenly realized the common element of these dreams: a powerful fear of death, and a desperate clinging to my life. While I cannot remember the details of these dreams, I always the very real sense of panic that I am about to die. Earlier, as I was taking down some brief notes for this blog, I thought of the Peter Weir movie Fearless, and the transformation from fear to embrace that Jeff Bridge’s character undergoes throughout. If you have not seen the movie, immediately rent it and watch it, then come back and finish reading this post. Yes, it’s that important. Anyways, I immediately pictured the plane crash crescendo that ends the film—hands reaching out for something unseen, bodies ejected through the fuselage, the ceiling tearing away like paper, faces cringing in the desperate attempt to hold on to life, and rays of light coming in like the fingers of God—and I joined these images to my dreams. There’s an important parallel here, I think. We cannot idolatrously cling to the illusion of immortality, but must learn to embrace life as gift. Nouwen writes:

“Patiently but persistently we must slowly unmask the illusions of our immortality, dispelling even the feeble creations of our frustrated mind, and stretch out our arms to the deep sea and the high heaven in a never-ending prayer.”

I have been fascinated by monastic spirituality and the classical Christian disciplines for several years, and the undertaking has been uneven and choppy. However, when I look back, I can see that the best sleep of my recent life came during an extended period of real discipline during the first few months after I moved to Pasadena. While I still did some weird stuff—and I think Nebyou could testify to that—my dreams were not marked by the same sense of terror. I’ll confess, I have really slacked in the area of spiritual discipline for some time, and now I want to get back in the habit. Thankfully, I came across a meaningful and simple discipline in Reaching Out, the Hesychastic “Jesus prayer,” which goes “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” This coincides with focused breathing and a “looking into the heart,” or a submersion into the center of our being. The prayer comes from the gospel accounts of the blind man/men who recognize Jesus as the “Son of David” and desire his mercy and healing. My hope is that I might be given even a portion of this “blind faith” and receive the healing touch of Jesus. May it be the same for you.

Personality Test

2008-01-24T16:28:00.000-08:00

So, I was perusing my friend Kristin's blog which had a link to this free personality test, that I decided to take cause I was bored. Maybe I was too nervous answering all these invasive questions with black/white answers, but I'm not sure I agree with the results. I mean, I'm no online program, but I don't think I'm so much more "feeling" than "thinking," and I don't think I'm so musical. Maybe I should retake it. You tell me...

Top 10 of 2007

2008-01-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

After speaking with Fuller’s resident film expert (and good friend) Eugene Suen about the best movies of the year and reading his list, I figured to compile my own list. Let me begin by saying, last year was a great year for movies. Of course, I have not been so exposed to such a wide selection of cinema from around the world as I have been in 2007, so that perception may be a little jaded. Additionally, I missed a bunch of movies I wanted to see, but to see them all, I’d probably need to become a film critic, which would likely make me into even more of a recluse. One thing I can say about 2007 is that many of our best filmmakers focused on very dark, even nihilistic, themes. I suppose that says a lot about the state of our world right now.

10. King of Kong

As I was browsing a list of 2007 films to refresh my memory, I came across this title and suddenly a rush of good tymes came rushing back to me. Perhaps the most unintentionally funny movie of all time, featuring a battle royale between a regular schmo who decides to challenge some pompous Donkey Kong champion a**hole for his title. The amazing thing is: you watch this thinking “who cares about a bunch of lame middle-aged white guys playing an 80s arcade game,” and by the end you find yourself strangely touched.

9. Sweeney Todd

I am not a huge musical fan. I think the Sound of Music is great, I enjoyed Hairspray, Chicago and West Side Story, but I can’t think of many others that really resonated with me. Then there was Sweeney Todd. Only Tim Burton could pull this one off: a grim, bloody and passionate musical adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim play. If you want to see impeccable staging, hear some memorable music and leave a musical more unsettled than you’ve ever been before, check this one out.

8. Once

My sister first told me about this little movie, and I later caught it on DVD. A remarkably simple DV feature that proves creativity, authentic characters and boldness make a great movie, not extravagant sums of money, effects and celebrities (for exorbitant, polished garbage like this, look no further than the latest Pirates of the Caribbean). Plus, the tunes in Once will probably be stuck in your head for days, and that’s a good thing.

7. Juno/Superbad

I lumped these two together because they share many commonalities, despite some obvious differences. Aside from being quite funny, they both wind up being surprisingly “adult” movies and genuinely moving, especially Juno. While most high school flicks I’ve seen paint a picture almost totally incongruent with my own experience, Superbad played like a page out of my history book. Director Judd Apatow and screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg give us an accurate and de-mythologized version of adolescence, with all its awkwardness, insecurity and unintentional hilarity. Juno accomplishes much the same feat with less obscenity. Juno unflinchingly presents its characters as awkward and insecure, and makes no apologies or concessions, which I liked.

6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

With a title that reminds me of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and a style reminiscent of Terrence Malick, I may like this movie more by this mental association with two favorite directors than its own merits. A visually lush, mesmerizing and psychological/psychospiritual/spiritual Western that defies conventions and delves extensively with the nature of distinctively American folklore and the hero myths that characterize much of our narrative history.

5. There Will Be Blood

After I watched this, the latest effort by director Paul Thomas Anderson, I left asking myself, “What on earth have I just seen?” In retrospect, I believe it to be a parable about American capitalism and a tragedy in the same vein as Citizen Kane, a similarity that numerous critics and viewers have drawn. Daniel Day-Lewis gives birth to one of the most complex, rich and involving performances of the year that should garner him an Oscar, that is, if there is any justice left in the world. It’s a movie that keeps unraveling long after you’ve seen it. If it’s any indication what kind of movie this is, it’s bounced all over the place on this list in the course of a couple short days.

4. Ratatouille

Unfortunately, I did not see this one in theaters, which was a mistake. Director Brad Bird has yet to offer audiences other than a superb movie. If somehow you missed The Incredibles, watch it immediately, for you shall love it. Then, after you have become enamored, go rent The Iron Giant. Ratatouille displays the same visual dynamism as the other two, the same warmth, the same deep characters and the same sense of total satisfaction when all is said and done.

3. Into the Wild

Directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild may be the most sweeping epic of the year, without the accoutrements of a bigger, more expensive studio production. Based on the true story of Christopher McCandless who abandoned civilized life in order to wander the earth on a quest for a more authentic kind of life. I could really resonate with his impulse to drop everything and head for the wilderness, though I have never acted on that impulse with anywhere near the tenacity of this guy. A sweeping road trip film, the movie takes place in dozens of locations, and everything was filmed on location. As a result, Into the Wild feels very real, almost like a documentary. Fresh, invigorating, introspective, strange and passionate.

2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I probably don’t need to say much about this one since I just finished writing a blog about it. Suffice to say, it is one daring effort by director Julian Schnabel who crafts a movie about an artist struggling to create. The visual style crafted by Janusz Kaminski will surely spawn its copycats, and surely with less efficacy. A pioneering, emotionally involving, devastatingly beautiful and uplifting movie.

1. No Country for Old Men

The Coen brothers have crafted an intense, penetrating and sobering film that left me haunted for days after I first saw it, and left me affected as much the second time. No Country conjures analogies to the Coens’ 1996 film Fargo (which I consider a masterpiece, too), an ironic, occasionally hilarious and deeply disturbing movie. No Country paints a bleak picture without the humor. I labeled it a lament, or to be more specific, a lament for the vicious cycles into which humanity keeps falling. The film leaves me pondering what my country will look like when I am old, and strikes me with the determination interrupt the destructive circle before our children inherit a bleaker, more difficult and violent culture than the one we now know. Add to this a spectacular, unflinching performance by Javier Bardem that makes him one of cinema’s greatest villains of all time, and you’ve got one memorable movie.

Honorable Mentions - Here’s a few titles I either couldn’t figure how to place or failed to recognize their greatness.

Silent Light (Stellet licht) – Carlos Reygadas

A slow-burning, meditative, earthy picture of Mennonite life. Not for the impatient filmgoer, however.

Flight of the Red Balloon (Le voyage du ballon rouge) – Hsiao-hsien Hou

Juliette Binoche is great (as always) in this film that lingers on the ordinary and urges us to perceive the transcendent. Again, if you think a movie like Letters from Iwo Jima is too slow with too many subtitles, then Red Balloon probably isn’t for you… but you should see it anyways, just for that reason.

Eastern Promises – David Cronenberg

Once again, Cronenberg subverts our expectations and plays violence like it should be: grotesque, unsettling and downright frightening.

Zodiac – David Fincher

On of the least violent, most cerebral serial killer movies you will ever see.

Deal With It!

2008-01-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

While I was driving back from some place yesterday I passed a car with a window sticker that read “Jesus is alive, deal with it.” This slogan overlaid a big, cartoonish cross. For some reason, this really jumped out at me. In fact, I was so convicted by this slogan that I immediately rededicated my life to Jesus there at the intersection of Fair Oaks and Corson.

Actually, to be honest, I didn’t like the sticker at all. “Why not?” you may be asking. Well, it seems to reflect the fact that many people perceive the supposed good news of the Gospel as un-good, and that believers in that Gospel want to keep it that way. What the sticker presumes (I’m guessing) is that non-Christians don’t believe in the resurrection despite the preponderance of clearly obvious empirical data made available to them by so many eager apologists, and by that I mean, people with stickers on their car windows.

I suppose this kind of in-yo-face! religious zeal reflects the condition of competition and rivalry that, according to Henri Nouwen, pervades even our most intimate relationships, let alone our relationships to strangers. In There Will Be Blood, Daniel Day-Lewis says, “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed.” I see in this comment an insightful commentary on modern American society as a whole and western Christianity too. By saying “deal with it,” aren’t we telling others that Jesus’ resurrection is far from being good news about the incarnate reign of a merciful God in our midst and represents more an annoying intrusion of an exclusive and elitist ideology?

This attitude is reflected in exclusive claims to knowledge and the creation of who’s in/who’s out categories in the Christian church, doesn’t it? How can so many Christians (especially evangelicals) claim the blessings of God and condemn in broad strokes so many others who do not hold to the same beliefs? Here’s what I fail to understand about the narrow “salvation” claimed by so many of my fellow followers of Jesus: it presumes that the grace of God was limited by the emergence of Jesus. I cannot see why, for example, Jesus’ death would condemn the Jews (his own people!), merely because they would not accept him as Lord and Savior. I can just see Christians back in the second century with the words “Jesus is alive, deal with it” engraved on the back of their carriages just to incite their Jewish neighbors.

I hope that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus never represents something that must be dealt with, as though it was a harsh, exclusive and condemnatory fact, but instead a reason for joy and gratitude that we are invited into the life of God in the midst of our fractured, confusing and fallible lives.

The Search for Deeper Sources of Vitality

2008-01-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

I recently saw a great new film at the Laemmle Theater called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. You may have seen a preview for it, but probably you’ve never heard of it. Too bad, because it’s a great movie. TDBATB is directed by Julian Schnabel, who has limited filmmaking experience but an extensive history in the arts, and it shows. I saw another of his films, Basquiat (1996) in an art class at Fuller last year and enjoyed it, too. With a combination of pioneering film style, great performances and a remarkable story make this one of the best films of the year.

It begins with perhaps the most appropriate FADE IN from black in the history of cinema. As the audience, we awaken with the protagonist from some unknown past into a dim hospital room, the camera struggling to focus on various strangers who ask odd questions and appear not to hear a voice that emanates from the rear speakers, a voice within a mind that belongs to someone we cannot yet see. Schnabel and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (a Spielberg regular) invite us into a vicarious experience of total paralysis and muteness—the world of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who has suffered a sudden debilitating stroke. For a good portion of the film, we see the world only through a subjective camera which blinks and darts just like the human eye. Bauby lives behind a two-way mirror, in which he can see, think and respond to others but they cannot reciprocate. The effect is claustrophobic. We hear every little sound, from the brush of fabric to gusts of breath. Bauby’s senses and ours become heightened to his surroundings, living in a world of forced asceticism. The analogy of being trapped in a diving bell is especially pertinent. Imagine being trapped hundreds of feet below water in a large metal diving suit—the closeness of sound, the immobility and the feeling of utter helplessness—and you can imagine this film’s unique aesthetic quality.

It soon becomes apparent that Bauby’s condition trapped behind the mirror will likely be permanent. An eye is sown shut (in the film’s most cringe-worthy scene) and a couple lovely ladies are brought in to teach him to communicate. The system devised involves a person reading the alphabet to Bauby, who blinks when the person gets to the letter he wants. This continues to form words and phrases. Many of the effects on film were accomplished in the camera, without digital manipulation, and much of the dialog—or dual monologue, to be more precise—is improvised, and the film benefits from the resulting “hands-on” feel.

At first, Bauby feels so trapped and helpless in his “diving bell” that he wants to die, but the love, attention, patience and mere presence of so many people, including his friends and family, instills in him the will to stop pitying himself. This motivates a move away from the subjective camera to an objective camera, where we see a paralyzed Bauby for the first time. The other scenes that step out of the first person into the third are Bauby’s dreams, memories and imaginings. He calls memory and imagination the only parts still working in him. His memory/imagination comes to us in bits—presumably, as he recalls the events himself—and always ends abruptly, as though waking from a dream. I don’t know about you, but every one of my dreams ends the same way. This element contributes to the vicarious experience of the film and draws us further into Bauby’s interior world.

The majority of the film follows Bauby’s decision to write a book with the help of a transcriber. This is where Diving Bell diverts from a similarly themed movie, The Sea Inside (2004). Whereas Bauby decides to stop pitying himself and create something beautiful, the character played by Javier Bardem in The Sea Inside takes his self-pity to a dismal end: a glass full of poison. Bardem ends his paralyzed life alone in front of a DV camera, while Bauby ends his life surrounded by love. I recently discovered the writer Henri Nouwen (who I will surely write on at a later time), and a particular section from his book Reaching Out sparked a connection for me with this film:

What if our history does not prove to be a blind impersonal sequence of events over which we have no control, but rather reveals to us a guiding hand pointing to a personal encounter in which all our hopes and aspirations will reach their fulfillment?
Then our life would indeed be a different life because then fate becomes opportunity, wounds a warning and paralysis an invitation to search for deeper sources of vitality.

I cannot think of a better way to summarize this film. In some ways, the end of Diving Bell resembled another film about discovering deeper sources of vital after suffering paralysis, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue, although the paralysis in that film is more emotional than physical. Both films show us that the categories that make us human are far wider than we might imagine, and that personal encounter, or Presence is one of, if not the most valuable resource for our lives, indeed, that makes life worth living. The “butterfly” the title implies is released from Bauby’s interior world of memory/imagination and breaks into the external world of the “diving bell,” imparting beauty, meaning and hope to an otherwise painful and insufferable reality.

At the Golden Globe Awards last Sunday, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly received two awards: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director (Julian Schnabel). If you are able, see this movie!

"Based on a True Story"

2007-11-14T23:44:00.000-08:00

One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about since coming to Fuller seminary is the problem of historicity in the Bible. Plain and simple, there seems to be plenty about the Bible that doesn’t fit the 21^st People swinging toward the “conservative” end of the spectrum tend to stick to a rigid, literal reading of the supposed historical elements of the Bible while those on the “liberal” end tend to disregard its historical value entirely and spiritualize these stories. It seems to me that both tendencies are somewhat misguided. The problem I see it is that some thinkers are too Enlightened for their own good, unrealistically conflating “truth” and “history” as though the two are independent, mutually supportive and absolute objects. What moved, inspired, challenged and conveyed truth to the ancients was story, and I believe the same rings true today. Even enlightened 21^st century North-Americans often convey truth in narrative form.

I had a history class as an undergraduate whose professor repeatedly insisted that true documentaries are as objective, detached and cold as possible. In other words, a proper documentary merely presents the facts. Don’t give us music, interpretation or emotion. The way to get at truth, in this professor’s mind, was to be as “objective” as possible. This approach is extremely problematic. The goal is the same one journalists supposedly hold to: objectivity. During college, I also took a news writing class that taught me how to arrange a story. So stop and think: journalism is supposed to be objective, right? But what makes something newsworthy? Good stories make good news. Narrative plays the crucial role. News is story, or in other words, truth comes in narrative form. And who decides what makes a good story? To get a bit more abstract, what makes for the truth in the first place: the words on the page of your newspaper or the reality beyond them? Clearly our language is, by nature, symbolic. The words we use to communicate only mediate, that is, connect two intangible points. But I’m getting a bit off track.

The metaphor, or “symbol” I want to use to investigate the nature of Biblical truth is one every American is quite familiar with: film story, especially movies “based on a true story.” Getting back to that history professor of mine… after reflecting on the idea of detached objectivity as the means to “understand what really happened,” I came to believe that this approach is ridiculous. Here’s why. I am an avid World War II buff. Why? I don’t really know. I don’t like violence and I may be a pacifist. Anyway, I’ve read a lot of books about this war, from objective accounts of specific battles—this unit moved here at this time and did this and suffered this many casualties—to books that take more creative liberties. I enjoyed Stephen Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers and Band of Brothers, but not because they told me “all I needed to know” about E company of the 101^st In fact, there’s a lot of boring information the books don’t include. On one level, it’s because true objectivity is simply impossible for anyone except God. The “absolute truth” of the experiences of that company could not be recorded in a thousand volumes and shouldn’t be. Any form of communication necessary sifts through the facts, edits them and transmits them via symbols—word, language, music, etc. That’s the major failure of my professor’s insistence on “objectivity,” I think. The most objective account is necessarily selective in its presentation of the facts and must convey them by symbols, which are then interpreted by somebody else. Here’s what strikes me most about this distinction between objective and narrative forms: I’ve read a lot of straightforward accounts and seen some dispassionate, “informative” documentaries—that is, I’ve received a lot of information. I’ve also watched the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima and Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Here’s the difference: the documentaries never left me in tears. So which is more true? I would contend that these feature films, complete with actors dressed up to resemble the real people, shot on soundstages and augmented by musical scores convey at least another truth, if not a greater one. This, I believe, is not something to fear, but to embrace.

Take for example, another great movie, Fargo. It opens with the words, “This is a true story,” but it’s not. The film is entirely fictional. So why didn’t I feel cheated after discovering that it wasn’t really a true story? Why didn’t I return the DVD and demand reimbursement? Why did I enjoy this untrue true story all the more for its toying with the truth? Because that’s how stories work. By design, narrative is the shaping the events to convey something about reality to its recipient. It seems truth is, in many ways, an inherently narrative thing.

All this to say: if certain parts of Scripture aren’t “historically true,” why would that get under my skin? I’ve heard a certain pastor say: “Unless something scriptural is clearly figurative, then you should believe it’s literal.” Interestingly, what’s “clearly figurative” isn’t so clear to me because the same group of people advocating this approach are the same ones trying to tell me that Genesis 1-11 and the stories of Jonah and Job are literally true, and even speculate about the mysterious leviathan in Job and the Psalms (“Is it a dragon? Maybe the Loch Ness monster?”). Instead of dogmatically demanding infallibility or some equivalent, I’d rather take the best historical, scientific and archaeological information available, accept the narrative structure of these accounts, and approach them like I do Band of Brothers. Clearly, something really did happen in a specific, concrete way in the Ardennes in 1944, and the same is true of the origins of the universe billions (or thousands) of years ago, but I’m not interested in the cold, dead facts. Instead, I want to know how it feels to huddle in a damp hole all day without proper clothing, waiting for German counterattack while ammunition dwindled. I want to hear the crunch of snow under soldier’s boots as they march breathlessly toward enemy lines. I want to see the panic on the face of a nineteen year old running desperate for his life as enemy tanks close in. This is the realm of the artist. This is where a deeper reality lies.

So my contention isn’t to do away with notions objectivity in journalism or attempts to reconstruct what “really happened” in historical events. I’m thinking these are necessary points to depart from, interpret and re-imagine. Otherwise, my analogy is useless. Obviously, there must actually be such a thing as an army, war, fear, pain, death and so on to make Band of Brothers possible. People of faith need some cold, hard objectivity to provide the framework for works of creativity, imagination and interpretation. Something as fanciful as Star Wars would be impotent if not rooted in universal human experience, that is, reality. After all, nobody ever blew up a death star or constructed a light saber. Yet, these films inspire remarkable (sometimes scary, sometimes sad) devotion in millions of faithful Jedi. Reality is bound up in story. Would it be inappropriate to label Reality itself as “narrative”? I’m not yet sure.

One thing is for certain: the Bible is not what it could be (and what some still claim it is): a statement of faith followed by a series of propositions supported by empirical evidence. Why does the Bible (or any Scripture I’m aware of) give us Truth and the nature of Reality in the form of stories, poems, parables and sermons? Why not a list of bullet points? Wouldn’t that be easier? If God really cared about getting everybody into heaven, wouldn’t it make things a lot more digestible if the Bible were merely handed down off a cosmic bookshelf with a title like Everything You Need to Know About God, Truth and Reality? The answer, I believe, is that reality comes to us in narrative form.

So is the primeval history of Genesis, Job or Jonah more like Fargo than PBS’ Nova? It seems to be the case. Does that somehow diminish the seriousness, the importance, relevance or truth of these accounts (or Fargo)? I am inclined to think, no. I say, let’s put a “Based on a true story” tag on our Bibles, open them up, and immerse ourselves in the story, just like we do Band of Brothers or Fargo. The fullness of God is not contained in Scripture, but mediated through it. After all, aren’t we invited to pass through the text and into another realm, what Jesus called, “the kingdom of heaven”? I want to make my reality congruent with this one, not the other way around.

Water

2007-10-30T00:58:00.001-07:00

Do yourself a favor: rent Water and watch this film. I saw it at the recent City of Angels film festival and thought it was entirely good. Strong performances, potent visuals and an extremely compelling story make this one of the best movies I've seen in a while. It's a movie about the mistreatment of widows in India during Gandhi's peaceful movement for liberation. The film raises issues of universal import, including the nature of God and truth, the roles of women and the dangers of fundamentalist religious dogma. I realize the preceding description may lead you to believe the film is heavy-handed or esoteric, but it's really quite accessible.

Comment

2007-10-05T01:30:00.000-07:00

Before I forget, I went to Pasadena Mennonite Church last Sunday. It's a close-knit church, not too big, not too small. They operate simply without any pretense of performance. There are dozens of Fuller students and faculty among the members. On Sunday, several people were baptized. Like a number of churches I've been to, the act of baptism is an intimate and important event in the life of the church. The people at PMC take baptism and fellowship in their community quite seriously. About ten people placed their membership and gave testimonies regarding their decisions. One of these new members, a middle-aged guy, made a classic comment. He began to explain why he and his wife had chosen PMC, paused for a moment, and confessed, "We liked PMC because we didn't get mad every time we came to church." A great, honest comment, I think. I can relate. Thank God there are real communities of faith out there exhibiting genuine commitment to the way of Jesus.

Insensitive Christians

2007-09-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this one for a while, but never written it down. It has to do with a Christian quality I believe is too frequently overlooked or disregarded in the Church: sensitivity. I believe a lack of sensitivity is tied directly to an overdeveloped sense of Self and usually results in contempt. Here's an example:

I used to work at a big huge church somewhere and I directed the "show" on Sundays, which we called IMAG, or image magnification for the congregation and a live cut to DVD. I'd sit in a darkened room in the back of the church (the "production booth") with four or five other people ("technical ministers"). Many of these technical people were volunteers who simply wanted to "do something" for the church. This involved a great deal of turnover within the "tech team."

One week, a likely homosexual came to the booth to run the CCU's (camera control units), which meant three big knobs that remotely controlled the aperture on our video cameras. Not only was he probably gay, but this man was also African-American, making him one of a handful in the whole church (of about 2,500 weekly). He did his duty that week somewhat clumsily, and it was my job to sort of "disciple" him in the technical ways. I always tried to treat our service with a light heart and with some measure of joy, while certain others frequently treated their obligations with a dire dread of mistakes and extreme criticality. As such, I would try to talk to these passers-by and learn a little about them each week. This man was friendly but shy, a little nervous perhaps. At the end of the day I thanked him for his contribution and he left. No big deal.

When he had left, the floodgates opened, as if everyone had been holding their breath for hours, waiting desperately for a chance to unleash. There was talk about his apparent homosexuality. This was "verified" by another volunteer who said the church elders had gone to his home to investigate his morals (why they have not done the same with our senior pastor, I will never know). There they found some "questionable" videos and pictures (maybe he'd rented "Brokeback Mountain," I don't know) and asked him about his orientation. There was all manner of sentiments about how uncomfortable people had felt to be in his presence and the guy in charge even decided not to let him come back, uh, but only because he was pretty clumsy on the CCU's.

I sat there on the verge of tears and nausea all at once. "This is the church," I thought. "This is no 'ragamuffin gospel,' this is a gospel of judgment, intolerance, self-assurance and condemnation." I never saw the guy again in the control room. Whether I ever saw him again at church, I don't remember.

In The Divine Conspiracy, author Dallas Willard explains that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, exerts a great deal of energy to combat what is potentially humanity's greatest sin: contempt. He states bluntly: "It is not possible for people with such attitudes towards others to live in the movements of God's kingdom, for they are totally out of harmony with it" (154).

At All Saints Church in Pasadena, there is an environment of welcome for all peoples, even (gasp) homosexuals . I've sat right behind openly gay couples there, and I think: this is right. I'm not attempting here to defend homosexuality in all its forms, I'm trying to understand what the kingdom of God is like. In the Beatitudes, Jesus shatters his disciples' perceptions about who is welcomed into his kingdom: all of the lowly, dejected and rejected and lonely and contemptible people. The church is an assembly of sinners under the grace of Jesus Christ (right?). Shouldn't all the rest of us closet sex addicts and alcoholics and thieves and liars and fibbers and tax evaders and lazy people and judgmental people and porn addicts and racists and bigots and perfectionists and self-haters and so on understand best of all that a homosexual deserves every bit as much love as we deserve, not only from God but from ourselves? One of my favorite professors at Fuller, Dr. Stassen, claims that many problems arise within the church because there is not a deep enough understanding of sin.

To conclude, I think sensitivity is just another word for "other-centeredness," which may be just another word for "kingdom-centeredness." I pray that I and my fellow disciples would be a community of mutuality and grace, that we would "enter into" the tumultuous lives all around and let the bodily presence of Jesus--the church--embrace the most contemptible among us.

Round 2

2007-09-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

I talked to the Mormon missionaries again today. Good conversation on the whole, as before, without any startling new revelations. Before they arrived, I spent a good amount of time today reading the Book of Mormon and taking some notes, filling out a pamphlet and praying as they asked me to do. However, I have yet to convert.

The main unresolved issue for me is the reliability of the Book of Mormon as a source of revelation or correction to my beliefs (which are apostate). Like the Qu'ran, there is no record of original manuscripts and no context in which they were written. Instead, they were handed down to a single prophet and a few lucky onlookers who attest to the miraculous and divine nature of the documents as well as their reception and transcription. Redactors throughout history have tried to edit difficult texts in the Bible, and it may be the case that Joseph Smith fits into that lineage with one of the greatest examples of oversimplification in history: the Book of Mormon. The sheer straightforwardness and simplicity of the text was enough to make me doubt it from the start. In short, it's an "easy" Scripture, and that rings alarm bells in my head.

I read through the three books of Nephi in the Book of Mormon, which recount how a Jewish man and his family sail from Palestine to somewhere in South America and begin a new, flourishing civilization that expresses faith in the (yet to come) Messiah, Jesus Christ. This, because special prophecies had come to the patriarchs providing extremely (and suspiciously) specific details about the coming of Jesus, and all this covering a period of about 600 years B.C. and some 400 years beyond. But, I thought, how on earth could a Christian civilization thrive in the Americas for a thousand years and leave no discernible trace of its existence? Shouldn't there be monumental evidence of a Hebrew people who worshiped Jesus and encountered the risen Christ after his Resurrection? I mean, what happened to these people? How could Christ and his disciples (in Israel) change the course of human history and leave a tremendous wake in the ocean of humanity for going on 2000 years, yet leave no evidence of their presence in the Americas until 1820? Curious.

So this led to a discussion on the nature of "faith," which was described to me as "a burning feeling" or "a feeling of conviction" or the "fruits of the Spirit" or "hope." However, there was nothing very substantial to faith as they described it. I, on the other hand, think faith is quite substantial and based on demonstrable acts of integrity, grace, provision, etc. The example I concocted on the spot was of a little boy standing at the edge of a pool while his dad encourages him to jump in because, after all, he'll catch him. If the father is a good man who has demonstrated time and again his strength, protection and reliability to his son, the boy will put his faith in him and jump. However, if dad is abusive, apathetic or easily distracted, the boy would have no faith in him. The simple fact that dad is dad means nothing. The term is loaded with freight, either good or bad, prompting either faithfulness or faithlessness in his son. If his dad really isn't reliable or "true," but the boy nonetheless places all of his hope in him, when he jumps, he'll still drown. Hope can be an empty and lifeless thing. Discussions about justification aside, this is what I believe James is talking about in his epistle: "Faith without works is dead." So in my understanding, faith is really more like trust than hope, and it is certainly not blind. In fact, I believe faith is clear sight. In short, I don't think I'd have faith in Jesus if it was devoid of substance, if there was nothing demonstrably good or trustworthy about Him, or if I'd never seen or known anything on a profound level.

One of the last questions I asked concerned an upsetting text I ran across in 2 Nephi 5:21, which describes the American Israelites as "white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome." A group of faithless people are cursed by God with "a skin of blackness," and made to be "loathsome," and God cursed the "mixing of their seed." I brought this up with the disclaimer that I'm well aware of uncomfortable texts in the Bible as well, and that this might well fit into the category of misunderstood texts. One missionary explained that it was not meant to be a racial thing, that it was merely a curse which was eventually lifted. This was a satisfactory explanation to me, but with one important qualifier. I proposed: what if this book was not the work of a 6th century B.C. Jewish prophet in Central America but the work of a 19th century North American white guy from New York? If so, that would make a text like this a powerful justification for bigotry. The missionaries wholeheartedly agreed, granting that if the Book of Mormon was a human product, then the entire enterprise of their faith was a sham and something like 2 Nephi 5:21 would be a very disagreeable text. Though again, faith had disallowed any such notions.

Another question I asked that generated an interesting response was: "Is the Book of Mormon an accurate historical record of an ancient peoples of the Americas?" The answer: yes. So, this could be taught to children in school about American history? Again, after some thought, yes. Now, I know that there are plenty of Christians out there who would say the same thing about the Bible, but I would not. The Book of Mormon is apparently deeply entrenched in its historicity, yet there is no discernible evidence of the reliability of its text (as it was taken from a single set of unavailable plates) or the presence of a Judeo-Christian civilization in the Americas that spanned a millennium. The Book does bear some important insights into the nature and failings of the Christian church, but that in itself is not nearly enough for me to stake my life in its claims. The Book of Mormon seems meaningful in the same way that the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Qu'ran or the Dhammapada are filled with beauty, mystery, and (yes) truth but lack a substantial basis for faith. As I said previously, it's precisely the historical, contextual, geographical and human construction of the Bible that compels me to put my trust in it and give my life to the Jesus within (and without). I believe Jesus provides the clearest image of God and teaches us the best way to live, which is life in the "Kingdom of Heaven."

I hope I haven't trivialized the matter in any way, but those are my thoughts for now... Grace and Peace.

Post-Meeting Thoughts About Mormonism

2007-09-19T16:52:00.001-07:00

I just spoke to a few Mormons for an hour in my living room. It was quite interesting. As a person relatively ignorant of Mormon theology, I was legitimately interested in hearing them out, learning what they believe and why, not counter-proselytizing them. These young guys were very well informed, humble and gracious. Overall, I was very impressed with them and genuinely grateful for their time.

While I could tell they were accustomed to following a routine of sorts—explaining the Bible’s gospel message at first, then moving on to how that was corrupted during the apostasy of the church and how God finally restored the church in 1820 through the prophet Joseph Smith, I kept on butting in asking tough questions. However, I intended to do so without any agenda or intent to make an “apology” for my own faith. This would be a simple theological discourse. I wanted it to be as free from scripts or formalisms as possible, and for both "sides" to approach the topic with openness.

As they presented the Mormon story, I noted the similarity between Joseph Smith’s revelatory episode that restored the true church and subsequent miraculous translation of a second revelation (the Book of Mormon) and the story of Mohammed and the formulation of the Qu’ran. I asked why I should believe Joseph Smith and not Mohammed. Related to this topic, I asked about which translation of the Bible they used and why. They use the King James Version because it is the most accurate. I explained that this is plainly false, according to my understanding, because the KJV is based on more recent manuscripts, while newer translations draw from far older sources that were discovered post-King James (and Joseph Smith for that matter). The sheer quantity of manuscripts and variant redactions of the Biblical text lends itself to its reliability, I explained. What accounts for the reliability of the Book of Mormon, which essentially anathematizes 1800 years of church history and my own faith in Jesus Christ (apparently, but I’m not sure—I hope to get some clarification of this on Friday) was the authority of the prophet Joseph Smith, as evidenced in the Book of Mormon itself.

They were exceedingly gracious, as I explained, and took all of these questions in stride. They talked a lot about evidence but could provide none—though they were humble enough to admit it, to their credit. The evidence for the veracity of the Book of Mormon, they explained, had come to them individually through prayer answered by the Holy Spirit, providing a kind of spiritual “stamp of approval” to their faith. This seemed to me dangerous, as self-verification seems like little proof of anything’s reliability, as it is cyclical (“the Book of Mormon is true because Joseph Smith received a revelation because it says so in the Book of Mormon”). This is one of the major problems I have with flat readings of the Qu’ran, the Book of Mormon and the Bible. If these Scriptures are believable based on their own account, then I’m not buying it. I think Mormons have accounted for this by interjecting the “feeling of faith” instilled by the Holy Spirit to prove the text’s believability. Again, I appeal to the historical, contextual, temporal, geographical and human construction of the Bible as proof of its reliability. I think because it is NOT simply handed down from a divinity as though off a heavenly bookshelf or ratified by a singular prophet or leader, but was canonized by the discernment of the Church in conjunction with the Holy Spirit that I find Orthodox faith and the Jesus of the Bible reliable and sufficient--the best Way to live.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say this Friday after our second meeting. An additional cool thing: they gave me a Book of Mormon for free, which they asked me to read and pray about... I plan to do this. In all, I found it entirely enriching (hopefully for everyone involved), and I sincerely pray for our collective guidance on this road of faith in obedience to Jesus Christ our Lord.

Heinz!

2007-08-10T21:11:00.001-07:00

Haven't posted in a long time, so I thought I'd use this platform to showcase my latest commercial-making endeavor:

Religionless Christianity

2007-05-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something I wrote on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison for my ethics class with Dr. Glen "Pure Playa" Stassen. It's a response to the question, "What does Bonhoeffer mean by religionless Christianity?" I hope the answer is self-explanatory, though a quarter's-worth of reading and reflection lay behind it.

When Bonhoeffer describes “religionless Christianity,” he is speaking about a faith without boundaries. The concept of the “boundary” can be found throughout Bonhoeffer’s works in various contexts. In the present context, the boundary is one between the “world” and that which is beyond the world, namely, the things of God. Religion had become a kind of buffer between Person and Spirit, between the world of tangible, verifiable, propositional realities and the ineffable kingdom of the heavens. In other words, religion is a means of filling of the void within human understanding, of appropriating the things beyond comprehension (282). The danger inherent to this religiosity is that the boundary constantly flexes to accommodate humanity’s cognitive or experiential faculties. Therefore, the boundary between God and humanity expands with human understanding, pushing God further and further away.

Bonhoeffer vehemently opposes any such construction that separates reality into two spheres, one worldly and the other divine. Instead, all of reality is bound up in Jesus. The incarnation of God in Christ draws together the two spheres of reality—wrenched apart by religion—and sets the divine within the world. Bonhoeffer puts it plainly: “God is beyond in the midst of our life” (282). So the religion Bonhoeffer advocates is one that is worldly. He makes no allowance for a separation between God—that is, beyond the world—and God’s activities within the world, such as miracles and the ascension (285). God entered into the world in the incarnation, destroying the boundary religion seeks to erect. Humanity is not to be drawn up to some disembodied spiritual existence at the end of time, to a heaven in the clouds. The kingdom of heaven on earth is the focus of God’s work in the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (286). At the same time, Bonhoeffer protects against a kind of reductionism that would exchange the boundary on humanity’s understanding for a limiting boundary on God, so that the divine is made finite. Bonhoeffer criticizes Barth’s “positivist” doctrine of revelation because it leaves no room for the infinite, for mystery (286). This “positivist” view relegates all of reality to something that must be accepted either completely or not at all.

Taking all of this into account, it follows that there cannot be a “secular” world and the “world of faith,” or any other manifestation of a two realm split. The incarnation draws the two together. The God beyond comprehension is concerned with this world “created and preserved, subjected to laws, reconciled, and restored” (286). Therefore, when Bonhoeffer advocates a “religionless Christianity,” he is talking about drawing all of life into one realm: the Kingdom of God. There is no distinction between secular and divine, only life within the Kingdom, with Jesus Christ as Lord.

Bethge, Eberhard, ed. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953.

My Brain

2007-05-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what kind of garbage is constantly floating like silt on the waters of my mind? Let this be the answer. The following is the result of a late-night writing marathon for Dr. Thompson's Patristic Theology class last fall during which I lost control of my brain. Though I posted this elsewhere several months ago, I figured I would share it here too.

Augustine was a wee little man who liked to eat pudding from the bottom of a lily while strolling down Crunchberry Lane, all the while twirling and spinning and twirling some more. One day he ate a bumblebee. He also liked to get his hair combed in the shape of a frigate, his favorite of the seagoing vessels. Sometimes he would attach bells to the buckle of his boots so he’d jingle and jangle and bingle and gangle. He’d skip and prance like a gazelle just to hear the noise. “Fra la la, la la tee day!” he would say. Oh the merriment! Oh the extravagance! Oh the flatulence! Pelagius was jealous especially of Augustine’s flatulence and the attention of the ladies it earned him. The ladies regarded Augustine as highly as the players of fife and pale in the town of Razzlemuffin.

Reflections on the works of director Terrence Malick

2007-05-22T01:34:00.000-07:00

Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World

Surreal. Meditative. Poetic. Tragic. Natural. Illuminated. Human. Theological. Philosophical. Transcendent. Unconventional. Watching one of director’s Terrence Malick’s films is like wandering through a dream at times both good and bad. His style is unique. Rather than giving audiences with yet another typically mundane narrative, Malick’s approach is to provide a meditative space for a viewer to hear, experience and feel a distinct world. It is our world, the real world filtered through poetry—poetry of image, character, music, and sound. All of his films are loosely historical, bearing the distinct marks of Malick’s imagination and interpretation. There is something historical in every one of his films, something distinct to a certain culture, geography, or era, but we’re not presented the flat facts. These stories are myths or parables. As any good myth does, rather than covering or diminishing clear perceptions of reality, what is true and real is engaged, enlivened, and illuminated.

The most unfortunate part about what I’m about to write is that so few people have experienced watching these films, and fewer still appreciate them. Some wonder how I could possibly count these (unbearable) movies among my favorites, and I wonder how those people fail to appreciate—even if only in a detached way—art of such depth, beauty, mystery and honest reflection. Maybe Malick’s work lacks popular appeal because of its comfort with mystery, with the undefined, the unspoken, the things that are not wrapped up into a neat package. Though I’ve watched each movie a dozen times or more, I still don’t “get” everything. Rather than diminishing my appreciation for the work, the mystery makes each viewing valuable and new. For many moviegoers, I think the overriding concern is for a palatable resolution of the story, the ultimate happiness of the protagonists, and the destruction of evil (people). Malick gives us ambiguity on many levels, with open ends and frayed edges, and seems content in doing so. Mystery leaves questions open, calls a person to probe deeper, to remain fascinated with something. Ultimately, isn’t that what the mystery in meditation is all about? Not figuring something out or encapsulating a person or idea in an easy-to-swallow capsule to consume and forget, as though the object of our meditation had been “understood”. Not making love, truth, beauty, God, and people into propositions—proposals to accept or reject. Malick isn’t comfortable to close the book on God, love, or truth within the imaginative realm of these stories nor, presumably, in the real world.

As a Christ-follower intensely concerned with the things of God, I see other values in Malick’s work as well. Constant attention is given to creation, the natural world: animals, insects, trees, rivers, landscapes, mountains, beaches, and people—these are all sanctified, touched by the hand of God. Malick loves to show us people who live simply, who lack pretension, bitterness and greed, as the native people of The New World or the Melanesian islanders of The Thin Red Line. However, his vision of earth also rightly acknowledges the ugliness within creation, the result of human sin. In The Thin Red Line, Malick provides the clearest allusion to sin’s effect on the whole of creation. Paraphrasing Augustine’s Confessions, the narrator asks, “This great evil… where’s it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who’s doing this? Who’s killing us? Robbing us of life and light; mocking us with the sight of what we might have known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow and the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you too? Have you passed through this night?”

The narrator asks this question in the midst of a chaotic village battle between American and Japanese soldiers on the island of Guadalcanal. In the scene, one side can hardly be distinguished from the other. It’s a scene of humanity caught up in a vast whirlpool of its own destruction. When the narrator asks the question, “Who’s killing us?” the intended recipient of the question is left unclear, and I think intentionally so. Are we the audience being asked? Is he inquiring after God? By framing the question in this way, we participate in asking the question ourselves, directing it in several directions at once. This is the irresistible beauty and tragedy of Malick’s work.

That's it for this woefully inadequate reflection. I intend to write some more on the specifics of the individual films at a later time, but I hope this will suffice as a brief summary or overview for now. The most important thing to do now is watch these movies!