Nailsea Fresh Expressions

Cafe Create

2008-07-23T16:18:00.007+01:00

A few photos from Cafe Create last Friday.

Steve does an impression of an old git with backache.

Tash headlines and sings like an angel.

Spanner reform after fifteen years in the wilderness.

The S Club 7 fanclub perform their covers.

Ed tells us a story.

Big thanks to Chris M for the photos.

Cafe Create

2008-07-18T07:48:00.002+01:00

Cafe Create in the Trinity Centre tonight. Fair trade drinks and coffees. Live music from local talent and guest headliner Tash; poetry, stories and comedy if I can think of something funny by then. 7.30 - 11.00. Donations not prices.

What Women Want

2008-07-12T12:17:00.003+01:00

Here are the closing thoughts from last night's Film Club Extra:

What Women Want

Our eyes meet across a crowded room. There is a sparkle. We engage each other in conversation. I hear, you say, ‘I like your shirt.’ In fact you are thinking, ‘I’m not sure I could live with a nose that long.’ Which of the two sentences is likely to prolong the relationship?

Movies don’t necessarily answer questions correctly but they do get to ask some good ones.

· What would it be like if we could tell who would commit the crimes?

· What would it be like if a modern teenager lived in the 1950s?

Two questions recent movies we have watched here have posed, and attempted to answer.

And so to the question many men, no, make that all men surely, have asked since, ooh for ever. What do women really want?

Writer and director Nancy Meyers (yes this film has a strong female hand behind it) uses the simple narrative device of an accident to enable Nick Marshall to hear the thoughts of the women all around him. And they aren’t always that complimentary.

He discovers that people he thought liked him are tolerant at best. He discovers that those he thought doted on him never think about him at all. He discovers that during love-making his partner is thinking about what’s on TV.

Bit of a jolt. Is this a skill that is as helpful as you might have thought?

A survey published in the Independent recently concluded that ‘Bad boys, it seems, really do get all the girls.

‘Women might claim they want caring, thoughtful types’ the accompanying article went on to say, ‘...but scientists have discovered what they really want – self-obsessed, lying psychopaths.

‘A study has found that men with the ‘dark triad’ of traits – narcissism, thrill-seeking and deceitfulness – are likely to have a larger number of sexual affairs.’

Now I can see a slight flaw in the logic there. Whilst such men may have more sexual relationships that is not the same as saying that they are doing what women want. They may be employing a succesful, evolutionary strategy, but the strategy of leaving, bonding and sticking seems to produce succesful offspring too.

Further more, in the chilling world of the Film Club Extra speaker’s research, I also found articles that suggested that my chances of getting a date improve if I touch a woman gently on the arm for a couple of seconds when engaging her in conversation, that women want less judgementalism about their looks, especially in the media, that women want their views listened to on national issues and, well guess what, to be listened to more.

I wouldn’t dare suggest that I knew what the truth was.

Perhaps one general answer might be that there is no more one answer to the question ‘What do women want’ than there is one answer to the question, ‘How do we run the economy?’

In the complex world of relationships a rash generalisation might be that men share too little. Men bottle it up. What Women Want tells us that whilst women are free with their emotional sharing and, if anything, do the opposite of bottling, they are not telling the world the truth. Not the whole truth anyway.

Trying to get to know someone when one partner keeps their thoughts bottled up and the other shares less than the full truth is the way soap operas have worked for years.

In reality a gentle move towards each other might be helpful, is helpful, but the gift of telepathy might stop a lot of potential partnerships at the outset and might cause untold damage to some long-standing ones.

‘Does my bum look big in this?’

‘Darling your bum looks big in ... everything.’

To quote another movie. ‘Truth. You can’t handle the truth.’ Can we?

Maybe we should reflect on the fact that tact, diplomacy and sensitivity are all loosely related to lies.

I was given a prayer once which a woman in a previous church I worked at saw on the wall of another church whilst on holiday.

It was by the pulpit. ‘May I open my mouth and speak the truth. If it is the truth may it be the whole truth. If it is the whole truth may it not be merciless.’

There’s the rub. We live our lives with more principles than simply, ‘Truth at all costs.’ Mercy, grace, loyalty and honour are also in there somewhere. We need to weigh them up too.

Oh and by the way... What do men want? That might be quite a short film.

Please don’t argue on the way home. Month off next.

See you in September.

Coming Shortly

2008-07-03T08:08:00.003+01:00

A couple of manic weeks of Fresh Expression activity coming up then as we have:

Film Club Extra. Friday 11th July with a new, improved, stereo sound system.

3.08 at Kingshill. Alternative, all-age mayhem for under an hour at Kingshill School. Sunday 13th July. Theme: Go to all nations.

Cafe Create. Arts-based fun in the context of a fair trade cafe/bar. Adults only. Live music, story-telling and poetry this time.

Following these events Fresh Expressions stuff will disappear for August and rise up like a thing that rises up (Phoenix/Messiah/home made bread - pick your own metaphor) in September.

Erin Brockovich

2008-07-03T08:01:00.002+01:00

Last month Film Club Extra enjoyed Erin Brockovich. Here are Rosey Lunn's closing thoughts:

Erin Brokovich - the story of a woman who had all the odds stacked against her, but who found a cause worth fighting for, and won: PG& E, and the battle of the chromium in the water supply.
What did you think of her? 'She had her Beauty Queen days', says someone of her - and at first it seems that appearance is everything; how does she come across - a tart? Provocative? Someone who uses her sexuality to get what she wants - or tries to.

She certainly knows how to use language!

'You look like someone who has a lot of fun,' says someone - with a touch of envy? Or is that a disparaging remark? Perhaps our attitudes to her at that stage are ambivalent.

But beneath the appearances, we learn that although she has no qualifications, she always wanted to go to medical school. 'I thought I was going to do something with my life - something important. I thought I was someone...' Here's one of the themes of the film: the development of this woman's potential, the emergence of her hidden identity.

What, then, was it all about?

'It's about respect, it's about being valued.' she says. When first applying for a job with the law firm, she felt neither of those things - and was mad about it. 'The two things that annoy me are being ignored and being lied to.'

Because she had to fight those battles for herself, she became empowered to fight them for others... the victims of PG & E, who had been ignored and lied to. Later she says, 'For the first time I've found people respecting me' - and as that happens to her, so she, in turn, makes it happen for the people whose cause she is fighting.

But the personal cost was great - was it worth it?

Ask anyone whose work /mission /vocation in life makes huge demands on them, and they'll agree - it costs! A mission like this demands a certain ruthlessness, single-mindedness, and others may have to make sacrifices for 'the cause' - is that fair? Erin lost out on many precious moments - not least the moment when her youngest child began to speak.

But who knows, perhaps her children grew up to be proud of her, glad to have a parent who gave them a broader perspective on life than a narrowly domestic one.

So, who are the people who get the world changed?

Powerful people? Experts? Governments and institutions? Celebrities?

What about a man with no academic qualifications, who grew up in an obscure Middle eastern village; who liked the company of disreputable types of people; whose values - manifesto - could be summed up in the words of a song that was composed to celebrate his coming:

'He has shown strength with his arm:
He has scattered the proud with all their plans,
He has brought down the mighty and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.'

I think he would have enjoyed Erin's company; and I'm sure he would have approved of what she did.

Discussion Questions
1. Did you enjoy the film? What was your favourite moment?
2. Did your view of Erin change as the film progressed? How?
3. 'I thought I was someone; I thought I was going to do something with my life - something important' says Erin as she looks at her Beauty Queen tiara. How do you feel about the kind of people who want to do 'Something important'?
4. How do you think her children rated her for what she did?
5. 'You look like someone who has a lot of fun' - was that attractive (why?) or threatening (why?)
6. What does this film say about respect / being valued?
7. If you could engage in a battle with a big corporation / organisation, which would it be and what would be your mission?

Cafe Create

2008-05-18T16:40:00.021+01:00

Here are a few images from Cafe Create, Nailsea, launched last Friday night. Firstly notice the beauty of the transformed and decluttered Trinity Centre.

Let there be light.

And a stage ready for live performers. Watch your head now.

The team nervously await the first punters.

And along they came. Hooray. Maximum hooray.

Let's make sure they are all welcomed and greeted.

Waterintofunk. Keyboard player in silhouette only to preserve youthful feel of band.

Ah yes. Full glory. A band in which hair is largely over-rated.

Very arty shot from Ali Jones (who took all these).

Steve shows why Vogon poetry isn't all that bad.

Richard Calverley brings a spot of real talent onto the stage.

And makes sure his mates are there to go wild.

Ewan Jones tops the bill.

Cafe Create, Nailsea

2008-05-15T09:40:00.001+01:00

The third location of this franchise opens tomorrow night, Friday 16th May, 7.30 - 11.00 p.m. at the Trinity Centre, Church Lane Nailsea. Those who are familiar with the decor in there, watch for the transformation. The vibe will be chilled but the music will be varied - not just bargrooves stuff.

There will be a fair-trade, juice, coffee and wine bar on a donations basis and the costs of the evening will be covered by donations too.

There will be live performances. These will include

Stories Steve Tilley
Water into Funk (newly formed band just for the occasion)
Poems Steve Tilley

Music from Richard Calverley
Ewan Jones (guest from Cheltenham - excellent singer/songwriter)

Cafe Create is a project designed to attract those who engage with life mainly through the arts. It is an event run by Christian adults for people of any or no faith. There is no preaching apart from the occasional content of a song, story or poem. There are no limits to what constitutes 'the arts' and previous cafes have included electric and acoustic, solo and band, popular and classical music, short films VJs, DJs, stories, comedy, fire-eating, fire-twirling, sketches and poems. It is intended to be a safe place to have a go, perhaps for the first time, at performance.

Minority Report

2008-05-09T22:44:00.001+01:00

Here are the closing thoughts from tonight's Film Club Extra:

‘It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.’ The perennial cry of the wronged sibling.

But how about. ‘You can trust me. I wouldn’t do a thing like that.’ Trust brings a whole new perspective into play. The cleaner won’t steal my things. The baby-sitter won’t abuse my children. The treasurer won’t steal the money. The minister won’t abuse young people.

All these break-downs in trust have occurred. They have occurred recently. And they have occurred not so very far from here.

Philip K. Dick’s short story, set in 2054 and directed by Steven Spielberg, appears to be set a long time in the future but let’s recall, some of us, reading the novel 1984 and feeling it was set a long time in the future. The future creeps up on us. Philip K. Dick also wrote the short story ‘Do robots dream of electric sheep?’ which became the cult classic movie Blade Runner. The future in that story, is very bleak. In Minority Report, whilst still set in a dark world, they seem to have a key to making the future better.

Films set in the future, often in the genre called ‘Science Fiction’ are good at asking ‘What if’ questions.

What if we could stop crime before it happened? But push it a bit and you get, ‘What if we could stop every wrong before it happened?’ What if we could stop selfishness, greed, sin? What if we didn’t have free will? How far do you want to push?

But, says the film to us, doesn’t a system that allows us to know, in advance, who will do these things and stop them seem brilliant. Well yes. Yes but...

Cultural commentator Nick Pollard argues that once upon a time most philosophical enquiry took place in universities and most spiritual reflection in churches. Today, he says, most philosophical investigation and spiritual enquiry takes place in the cinema.

The real heart of this film’s philosophical investigation is the exploration of questions about freedom and identity. Are we able to choose our future? If we are, are we morally accountable for it? Or are our actions in some way determined for us? This is the philosophical problem of determinism.

All parenting, training and teaching is a counter to determinism. We believe that people act wrong because they don’t know right so we educate them.

There was an accusation at the time of the murder of Jamie Bulger in Liverpool that the church had failed to teach people the difference between right and wrong. But the killers went to jail because the court found they did know the difference but still did wrong.

Education doesn’t solve everything.

However much I try I always seem to end up at movies which have eye surgery in them. It’s grim. But the film asks the question, ‘Do you see?’ Do you see what life would be like, how grim it would be under the surface, if we behaved like this? A vision of a crime-free utopia has an underside of back-street eye surgery. The same argument is often used in the matter of abortion.

If we could know so much by pre-cognition or genetic analysis would we simply swab a baby and decide to keep or discard? We stray into the world of the film Gattaca which raises these issues and we may watch together some day

So is the future fixed? Determined? Am I the luckless, or lucky, product of my genes, my environment and the quality of my education?

St Paul beat himself up about this a lot. ‘Oh wretched man that I am,’ he said, ‘I can’t stop doing what I don’t want to do and not doing what I do want to do.’ If St Paul lived in the world of Minority Report he would have been taken out before he supervised the first murder of a disciple of Jesus, would never have become a follower himself and most of our New Testament would have been missing. Unless someone or something was determining his future perhaps, at which point I get brain ache.

A few weeks ago a man finally went to prison for his 52nd driving offence. Are we as a society leaning in the opposite direction to the film? Are we too lenient?

But is there a place in the world for repentance? If I stand over someone with a knife raised is it inevitable that I am going to kill them?

The message I want to shout at the screen is this; people change. So we must allow them to live in a world of second chances. However awkward that makes it that I am, from time to time going to be the victim of sin. And of course, occasionally the perpetrator.

But I won’t commit the sin of going on any longer so have a great weekend, whether someone is watching you or not.

3.08 at Kingshill

2008-05-08T12:07:00.002+01:00

Quick reminder that 3.08 at Kingshill School, 45 minutes of all-age worship, prayer and organised mayhem, has continued on the second Sunday afternoon of each month. It is therefore this coming Sunday, May 11th. It's Pentecost so a lot of Holy Spirit stuff with balloons and wind and well you'd better come and see. Tea and cakes after as ever. Children, you can't come alone. Bring a responsible, well-trained adult with you.

That's eight minutes past three on Sunday afternoon. Don't you miss it

American Beauty

2008-04-12T17:16:00.002+01:00

Here are the closing thoughts from last night's Film Club Extra.

There is a very fine line between tragedy and comedy. You may well have been to some gruelling films where a lighter moment had you laughing even though it wouldn’t have been that funny out of context. So was American Beauty a comedy or a tragedy? Perhaps the answer is its genius. It was both.

We laugh at Lester’s problems – they are so ridiculous. Yet we identify with his comi-tragic failure to deal with them sensibly. After all we live in a culture that gets more than usually uptight about consistent sporting failure, where our best selling books include:

· The Book of Heroic Failures
· Why is everything a bit shit?
· Crap days out
· Grumpy old men (and women)

And we laugh at our failure to make airport baggage systems work or trains run on time. We are not that good at putting things right without chuckling at our errors. There are parallels between Lester’s world and ours for sure.

Veteran movie reviewer Roger Ebert says, ‘The movie is about a man who fears growing older, losing the hope of true love and not being respected by those who know him best. If you never experience those feelings, take out a classified ad. People want to take lessons from you.’

In a world of rampant consumerism we are called to buy more and more. To replace the obsolete devices after months not years. To show we have no fear of terrorism by shopping as normal the following day. To colour co-ordinate everything – even our shears with our shoes. To update our car and buy a gym subscription. The film helps us question this by showing it to us.

‘Will you walk?’
‘Hey it’s like a mile.’

This from someone who has been doing an energetic cheer leader routine.

And so to lust. Forty something men fancying teenage girls is unavoidable. Acting on those feelings is. We see. We react. We edit. That is the proper way. Jesus said any man who looks at another woman with lust in his heart commits adultery. And all the men know what he meant. It is what you do with the desire for sex that demonstrates maturity, not having the desire in the first place.

Those of us who are male and the other side of our personal mid-life crises will have shuffled a bit as Lester made his decisions. A job with less responsibility but that he enjoyed. A sports car. A get fit campaign. Been there and got the T-shirt.

American Beauty is a powerful film full of pictures and metaphors. Even a bag blowing in the wind is made attractive.

Most notable of all the images is colour - a deep rich red. This is the colour of the door to the Burnham's house, the roses in the garden, the rose petals which figure in Lester's fantasies and in Lester's blood which is splattered across the kitchen wall and drips onto the floor. Is Mendes telling us death is actually beautiful and lamenting the way we hide it away and somehow make it clean, hygienic and detached? Since all this is narrated by a dead man this movie is all pathology – emotional pathology.

Clearly there is much in American Beauty that resonates with those who, like Lester, feel that they are living an empty life. Deep within us is the knowledge that there must be more to life than this, and that somehow discovering a new life is linked to the death of our old life. Like the film Pleasantville told us, that some of us watched last year – we need to see things in colour.

American Beauty maybe tells us that we need to change, to turn around, if we are to experience real life. And that process of turning involves some form of death, but a death which is beautiful and liberating; not ugly or pointless.

The philosopher’s words in the Old Testament were that the many things people pursue are meaningless, useless and a chasing after wind. Money, achievement, relationships, pleasure. All what management guru and philosopher Herzog called hygiene factors – their absence demotivates; their presence doesn’t motivate.

And artists down the ages, not just the writer of Ecclesiastes, have written and sung about it, about change, about turning around and seeing things the way they’re meant to be. Even St Paul had a go with his idea of seeing in a mirror dimly and looking forward to the day he would see face to face. Crystal clear next life communication was anticipated.

The film asks us all to be willing to change but not reckless with it. And the best sort of change would be the change that takes place before we get into the sort of mess the film’s characters are in. That way our lives would be very sorted, very fulfilled ... and would probably make a rubbish movie.

Time for us all to review and learn.

Have a beautiful weekend.

Chocolat

2008-04-12T17:06:00.003+01:00

Here are Rosey Lunn's closing thoughts following February's Film Club Extra.

When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Fr. Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock – especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer’s wares as the ultimate sin.

Suddenly Vianne’s shop-cum-café means that there is somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne’s plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates into a ‘Church not Chocolate’ battle. As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate eclair?’

Which one of us here has not resorted to chocolate in a moment of stress, a time when we were in need of comfort, when we felt ‘down’ and in need of a lift?

The image of chocolate is powerful and seductive; dark and bitter, rich and creamy:

Dairy Milk, Green & Black, Thorntons, truffles, caramels, fruit & nut, flakes, Mars Bars, Yorkies (not for the girls!), brownies, Mississippi mud pie...

It is significant that many people give up chocolate for Lent – and then celebrate Easter with an almost sickening overdose of it.

On one level, this film is a seductive celebration of the ‘if it feels good, do it’ philosophy of life, which is very much in the spirit of our times – enjoy life, give yourself a treat, let go of negative attitudes, learn to be yourself; it is a ‘feel good’ experience. How do we feel about that? On the one hand, it’s all lovely and positive and life-affirming (and everything that religion in the past has often not been!).

On the other hand, perhaps we should hesitate before abandoning the idea of self-denial; after all, there is a new puritanism very much in evidence in society today: a frugal minimalism pervading many aspects of modern life, from diet to design.

Is this the Shaker movement of the 21st century – a reaction to the affluence of the late 20th century. (‘Affluenza’) So in one sense, the ethos of chocolate could be said to be passe?

There is also the disquieting thought that most of the chocolate we eat in the West is produced in the 3rd world, in conditions of near slavery.

So that’s the issue of chocolate – but of course, there’s much more to this film than that.

There is the theme of people, relationships, community: there is a strong sense of community in Lansquenet when Vianne arrives – but it is a small, enclosed community, in which people have to conform if they are to fit in. There is a strong sense that undesirables must be kept out. Vianne is a liberator, an enabler, whose chocolate-café brings a new kind of openness into the confined stuffy atmosphere of Lansquenet – a place where people can meet and talk and make relationships which are more than superficial. Everyone is welcome – even those who would rather she hadn’t come to Lansquenet, even Reynaud, who mistakes her warmth for a calculated attempt to lure his parishioners away from the church. In fact, she is merely offering the hand of friendship to those who often find themselves on the chilly fringes of the community through no fault of their own. The shop becomes a refuge for those who do not meet with the expectations of Lansquenet society – Josephine, a battered wife, Armande, an elderly lady who refuses to give up life’s pleasures for the sake of her health; and Roux, a homeless village gypsy. For some, this itself is threatening – especially when Vianne and her friend Armande welcome the invading community of the river-gypsies whom the villagers despise and fear.

‘I want to give, to make people happy; surely that can do no harm?’

But Fr. Reynaud protests:

‘Why can’t they see what the woman is doing to us? Breaking down our community spirit, our sense of purpose... Earning for herself a kind of affection, of loyalty which – God help me! – I am weak enough to covet. Preaching a travesty of goodwill, of tolerance, of pity for the poor, homeless outcasts on the river while all the time the corruption grows deeper…’

All of which leads us to ask ourselves: what exactly is ‘community spirit’? Which community spirit was genuine – the sense that existed in the village before V. arrived? Or the challenging ideas she brought which blew a blast of fresh air through those village streets? And how does that relate to us – our families? Church communities? Nailsea?

V. speaks at the end of the novel of the neediness of the town having gone – what was that neediness? What is ours – in terms of our relationships? And how would we react to / welcome a Vianne? She goes on to say: I can feel satisfaction in its place – a full-bellied satiety with no more room for me. (She has done her work.) In homes everywhere in Lansquenet, couples are making love, children are playing, dogs barking, televisions blaring…

The theme running through the whole film is that of change: what does it take to bring about a radical change in the lives of individuals / in a community? What is the secret? What is the cost? What are the rewards? Linked with this is the issue of control: in Lansquenet, as with most communities, there is an unspoken pact between those who control and those who allow themselves to be controlled; and the routine of the place is ruled by habits and customs, and the church, of course, is the focal point of this control. The arrival of V, the stranger who refuses to accept these norms, throws everything into confusion.

Was the tranquility, so valued by the people of Lansquenet, in fact a way of being controlled?
For V. life was lived very differently: the only constant thing in her life was change. As a child she was always on the move – her mother’s desire to live in many places took them all over the world. It seems, when she arrives in Lansquenet, that her growing urge to settle in one place may at last be about to be satisfied – but for the people she has come to live with, this is the beginning of the most unsettling time of their lives. The wind of change was about to blow.

For Josephine, change meant becoming strong enough to move out of the abusive relationship with her husband, whereupon she blossomed into a beautiful young woman, thus embodying , in a way, what the whole film was about.

Vianne compared the town with an old clock, frozen in time. Armande later speaks of the changes that have happened:

‘Look at all the changes: Luc, Caro, the folks out on the river… All of us changing. Speeding up. Like an old clock being wound up after years of telling the same time.’

How do we accept change? Are there times to resist it? What things need to change? How did she do it? How could we bring about change - in our lives? In our communities? Who could bring about change? Could it happen here? What would we have to let go of? What would it cost? Who could blow like a breath of spring wind in our lives this Easter? Would we dare to let it happen?

Cafe Create

2008-02-26T08:30:00.001Z

We've decided to go for it. Cafe Create will be launched in Nailsea on Friday evening May 16th in theTrinity Centre, Church Lane as part of the Nailsea Arts and Music Festival. 7.30 - 11.00 p.m.

No tickets will be necessary, although there may be a house limit on numbers around 120 or so. All payment for refreshment will be on a donation basis. It will be for over 18s.

There will be chilled music, a fair trade coffee/wine bar, a cafe atmosphere and two blocks of 'performance.' For those scared about such things when they happen on church premises I can assure you there will be no preaching.

Here's where you come in. Ever fancied trying five minutes of stand up? Reading a short story or a couple of your poems? Performing a short music set? Escapology? Juggling? Drama? Let me know.

We will also need people to give up a day's work and carry small objects to help with the set up. Start to be excited, in a chilled sort of way. This post is also on Trendleblog and Mustard Seed Shavings

Film Club Extra

2008-02-09T09:53:00.001Z

Lovely to have a record attendance of 63 people last night to see Sliding Doors and discuss the issues raised. David's final thoughts follow for those who would like to study them some more.

Final thoughts – Sliding Doors (Feb 2008)

That split second in which you can catch or miss a train can make all the difference. Many years ago now I took the funeral service in Southampton of one of those who was tragically killed in the Clapham Train Crash. And in a packed crematorium were many of his fellow passengers, including one person who normally sat with him, but on that particular day had been delayed and had missed the train. And he was now pondering as he stared at his friends coffin how thin is the dividing line between two very different outcomes.

In what is a light hearted and gentle comedy, the director Peter Howitt the former star of the sitcom Bread, explores how life itself can take two very different paths. In many ways it’s a fairly conventional love story of boy meets girl and other girl discovers that boy has met this girl and then she herself re-meets a boy that had previously passed her by and then the first boy loses both girls and wants to wind back time. As I say pretty standard stuff - popular since the time of Shakespeare. But within that basic premise we do begin to explore the much deeper question of 'What if?' What would our life have looked like if a decision that we made, or one that was made for us, had been so very different?

So think for a moment. What have been the key moments in life and love, in work and play that have taken us down a particular route and determined all our future options?

And can we ever know whether the decision made at that time was the one we should have made; which of the alternate realities that we see Helen living out on screen was the one that should have been and which was the aberration? All things being equal was it better that she caught the train and discovered the truth, or that she missed the train and continued in blissful ignorance? Who were you hoping she’d end up with and why?

Well in this case it’s pretty black and white. We know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is, and who is the scarlet woman for that matter. So does the romantic in us simply long for a happy ending? But in many other decisions in life it's not so clear cut - more shades of grey. And what is right and therefore good may not be so obvious. How do we decide what the best option is, how can we tell what is right, and what is good, not just for us but for others who may be deeply affected by our choice? It can all get pretty complicated, and you can see why some people feel the need to pray for guidance, when faced with such matters.

Is there someone out there who understands all the possible routes that life could take based on this moment of decision, all the possible ramifications of that decision and then in some way can help us to choose the better way?

Some having asked for such greater wisdom through prayer then carefully go back over all the options and make their choice based on the logic of what they now see. Others are guided at this stage more by a gut reaction and follow their heart doing what now seems to be right. Our spirit making these choices, being guided by the one to whom we pray probably needs to be fed by both a changed mind and a changed heart to make the best possible choice.

For Christians the prayer at such times of great decision, indeed at all times really if we can be bothered to stop and ask, is for the mind of Christ, in other words the priorities of Jesus the attitude that he had, his vision of the greater good which he called the Kingdom of God. It is that mind, that heart that could lead us to do what is best in the broadest sense.

Having said that, we watch this film at the start of Lent in the run up to Easter and it may be important to note that one of the choices that Jesus made, in his God given wisdom, was to invite Judas Iscariot to be on his team, the man who would in time betray him and hand him over for execution. But maybe in the fullness of time that was still for the best.

So far I’ve been talking about when we have the luxury of the choice being in our hands with time to weigh up all the options, but sometimes as with Helen getting on that train, or not, the choice is determined by random chance, or the actions of others. What then? Can we still check out whether we are in the right reality or do we just make the best of the hand that life has dealt us?

They say the grass is always greener on the other side. And a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, half a loaf is better than no bread and better the devil you know, all bits of folk wisdom that encourage us to be content with what we have, and not spend our time dreaming of what might have been. But can’t we be a bit more positive than that? Are there not ways to develop and improve whatever we have chosen or been dealt, and find within it - a deeper and fuller experience of loving and being loved? If we are as I believe, all made in the image of God, in other words if we all have a spiritual nature that gives us the capacity to love and be loved, then whatever our circumstances we can grow and develop in that capacity.

We will never know what might have been, nor do we know what is yet to be; what we do know is what we have and are. And if we cherish that which is, then it can only get better as we draw out of one another the very best that we are capable of. And one of the signs that we are in a healthy relationship is that we bring out the best in each other and not the worst.

There’s a classic quote on being good for each other in the film 'As good as it gets.' Perhaps we’ll watch it and discuss it together in a future showing. In that film, Carol, a waitress played by Helen Hunt pleads with Melvin, an obsessive compulsive, played by Jack Nicholson, to give her just one compliment and Jack Nicholson, who’s not used to all this romance stuff, thinks for a moment and then says in all sincerity , 'You make me want to be a better person.' We see then that these two most unlikely characters are indeed good for each other, meant for each other, and that is ‘as good as it gets’. Our Helen, catching the train, or not, is like all of us searching for the one who will bring the best out of her and help her to be the very best that she can be. And at the end of the film we are left with the hope that come what may she may yet find that person.

Good night and God bless.

David Bagwell. Feb 2008

Damaris

2008-01-16T08:20:00.000Z

Damaris is an organisation which helps Christians to get to grips with contemporary culture. It is the brainchild of Nick Pollard, based in Southampton. They have just launched Pollardonfilm They say:

'Please do take a look at this - and particularly the launch programme on Charlie Wilson's War. We really believe this will be a valuable resource for people - because it is free to view AND republish (we hope many will put programmes on their church websites, blogs etc etc) - and the downloads are free to anyone with a subscription to Tools for Talks. Could you please join us in a 'viral campaign' by telling as many people as possible about this - and inviting them to tell others?'

Steve

Film Club Extra - The Truman Show

2007-12-17T18:19:00.000Z

Final Thoughts – The Truman Show Friday 14th December 2007

This is a film that has many different targets and many different layers – it was written by Andrew Niccol who also wrote Gattaca which, like the more popular Minority Report, explores whether we are just the product of our genes or whether we can rise above our circumstances. In this film the question is asked - can Truman escape his artificial life and find something better? Can one man rise above his fears to find true love and a life with someone who loves him for who he really is? And like the audience who watch his every move we want him to make it, for deep in our own hearts we want to make it too.

So the self realization and the journey of true man is about the self realization and the journey of everyman… and for that matter every woman too.

But there is also a swipe at the kind of candy coated unreal world that we saw last time in the idealised setting of 1950’s Pleasantville. This time that world is represented by Disney whose studios along with those of Warner Bros, NBC and most other studios apart from Paramount are in the area of Burbank California. Hence the surname Truman Burbank, and so the dog that greets him when he leaves the house is of course one of the 101 Dalmatians and unsurprisingly named Pluto, the dog’s owner looked a bit like Walt Disney as well and the streets where Truman lives certainly look like a glorified Disney world with everything practically perfect in every way. And you noticed the incessant advertising through product placement to fund this nightmarish world.

But at the very start of the film of course Truman thinks it’s all just fine. He knows no different. It’s only when he sees the light which falls from the sky and then hears a director’s voice on the radio that he begins to question the reality of the world around him. And then he falls in love and that wasn’t in the script particularly as Lauren is not one to play along with this charade. She is quickly written out of the story line in an effort to get it all back on track, but Truman is determined to follow his heart and find her. He finds his escape route from Seahaven blocked in ever more dramatic fashion. But eventually he escapes by confronting the ultimate fear that has been placed within him, he sets sail for a new world, eventually reaching the edge of his known world and the beginning of that which is real. At that point he hears a voice booming down from heaven in one last attempt to hold on to him. 'Who are you,' says Truman, 'I am the creator of a television show,' says the voice, 'a show that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions.'

But at the same time we see Lauren whispering in a still small voice a prayer to another God, one who will set the love of her life free. Truman pauses on the brink, and the world holds its breath, but then he makes his decision and having seemingly walked on water, climbs the hill of stairs before he turns and with arms outstretched wishes his past good bye and enters a world that is his future hope.

There are many websites that explore all of this in far more detail. Websitses such as Damaris and Hollywood Jesus to name but two, and many of course have seen within this film an obvious allegory with the Christian story, not least because the director in the sky is called Christof. Some of those who write in to post their comments on these web pages have identified with Truman and indeed speak of escaping from either the sanitized and ultimately unsatisfying disneyfied world they have been brought up in - to the harsher and yet more fulfilling world where they are free to be themselves or indeed of escaping from an oppressive view of religion where God was seen by them or the cult they were part of as an authoritarian, though usually benevolent, dictator in the sky. They speak of a new understanding of a God who is with us. A God who guides by love rather than one who controls by fear.

And some have gone even further and seen in the boat that carried Truman to his new life a direct reference to Psalm 139 in the Bible. The boat he set sail in, which was called Santa Maria, had the number 139 on the sail, and if we were to read Psalm 139 we would see phrases such as, 'Lord you know all about me, you see me when I am resting and when I am waking, you know all my actions. You saw me before I was born, your knowledge of me is too deep, beyond my understanding. Where could I go to escape from you...' and so on.

The question though remains if God, being God, is indeed all knowing and all powerful as the psalm says, is he also all controlling like Christof the TV director in the sky, or is a better representation of the power and nature of God to be seen in the love of Lauren which fills the spirit of Truman with that which will help him to overcome his fears and ultimately set him free to really live?

Religion has been called the opium of the people, and like materialism can be dangerous and debilitating, lulling us into a false sense of security, where we believe that everything is taken care of and provided for us. Real faith works better in the real world where things may be a bit more haphazard, and less ordered but where people can be more real and where our choices have real consequences and where relationships can have real depth.

And why show this film in the run up to Christmas? Well the story of a baby born in a stable in Bethlehem is at its heart the story of how a God who was once only perceived to be a distant voice from on high, became known, humbling himself out of love to be, God with us, relating to us in a real way in the real world.

Happy Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in the new year if not before with a film on the 11th January about how in that real world, life ain't always that easy. Till then, good night and God bless.

David Bagwell Dec. 2007

Pleasantville

2007-11-11T07:37:00.001Z

We enjoyed this movie at Film Club Extra on Friday night. Here is the text of my closing thoughts.

Cultural guru Graham Cray analyses where we got to in the 1990s as follows. Once upon a time people looked to their roots to find their identity. From the mid 20th century onwards there was so much technological and cultural change that enthusiasm was only for the future. It was bound to be better. But this too changed. The onset of the cold war and the possibility of mutually assured destruction, the break-up of the family and a rising divorce rate, more and more natural disasters and famines being televised (if not actually happening) and optimism retreated. All that was left, he suggested, was to live for today and go shopping.

It is in this world that David sits, a world where the school asks about famine and poses worrying statistics about the job market, watching his Pleasantville marathon and wondering, as the circle comes round again, if the past wasn’t better after all. He sees a perfect family. Meanwhile his Mum squabbles on the phone with her ex about who is to look after him and his sister this weekend.

Director and writer Gary Ross has a go at answering the question by throwing his 1990s teenagers into a 1950s world through the screen. He compresses the big leaps of cultural change over the last seven centuries – books, art, liberation in gender and racial issues, jazz, rock and roll and fashion into 112 minutes and lets his characters jump.

So everything changes. And the movie asks us how we would react to change.
Do we welcome it? Are we to give in to it? Or maybe we chain ourselves to the old ways so we can’t be made to let go.

Pleasantville celebrates change - as flowers, people, scenery and even books turn into colour. Joanna Wood says in her Damaris culture watch article on the subject, ‘... who wants to be in black and white when you could be in colour? Black and white is continually associated with an old style of life (e.g. black and white TVs, photos, etc.) and the arrival of colour heralds a new way of thinking within the film.’

Lots of changes start happening as David and his sister Jennifer hit town. Holding hands turns to sex. Art and literature are discovered. But the basketball team start to lose. David’s Mum begins looking for more to life than greeting her husband from work but finds liberation in a sensual bath and the suggestion of leaving. Joanna Wood again, ‘Perhaps the film is trying to indicate that the choices we make in 'black and white' and the changes that we instigate now may result in 'joyful colour' for a while but have implications further down the line. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for...’

How would we react to colour coming into our black and white world? Would we embrace it or side with the rioters, vandals, book burners and segregationalists? How eerie was that first hint of racism in the line ‘What are you doing with a coloured girl?’ And the response we heard to the idea of women actually thinking for themselves, ‘This is not about George’s dinner or Roy’s shirt; it’s a question of values.’ Everyone used to think that. Not so long ago. We still encounter such prejudice today.

Pleasantville helps us examine our own attitudes to changes around us - whether we like the change or not? What has changed us in our lives? What inspired our passion? The film is happy to say that sex may be a blind alley. Jennifer is coloured by study. In her 1990s world she had been aggressively pursuing a mate. David had been timid. His colour comes from a willingness to fight to protect.

I think this film speaks about and celebrates our individuality. We are all unique and therefore inspired by different things. Do you know what turns you 'into colour', what makes you passionate? How will you allow that to change your life and the world around you?

Pleasantville also asks us questions about holding on to the past. What are the principles, the values, the certainties which we should never let go of? What is the wrapping paper, the tradition or illusion of permanence, the cultural baggage which we should jettison?

Once upon a time there was a first opening of eyes. Pleasantville reprises the story of Genesis, showing us a woman giving an apple to a man and him eating. As the man says he didn’t do anything wrong we see blood, destruction of art and book burnings. The narrator says ‘You don’t deserve to be in that paradise.’

In a brief discussion of change we hear this:

What went wrong?
Nothing went wrong. People change.
People change? Can they change back?
I don’t know. I think it’s harder.

The Bible’s words that in Christ we should know neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew nor Greek set the bar high for avoiding prejudice. But we might ask, do you have to lose your innocence in order to be prejudiced? Or are we all just drawn that way?

See you next time.

Steve Tilley

Film Club and 3.08

2007-11-05T18:50:00.000Z

This Friday (9/11) night sees the second Film Club extra. Doors 7.00 p.m. Movie at 7.30.

Then Sunday afternoon (11/11) the second 3.08 at Kingshill all-age extravaganza.

Movie lovers or conventionally-timed-church haters? Find someone to bring.

The Shawshank Redemption

2007-10-13T09:47:00.000+01:00

It was a good evening last night as about 40 of us gathered for the first meeting of Film Club Extra, to watch The Shawshank Redemption and then chat it over. Here is the text of Methodist Minister David Bagwell's excellent closing thoughts. Chat further in The Old Barn, Wraxall on Friday 26th October 8pm for an hour if you want.

Shawshank Redemption

Final Thoughts

Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks was the film that pipped The Shawshank Redemption for the Best Film Oscar back in 1994, and in some ways it had a similar theme as one man overcame adversity but Shawshank is a film about hope itself – the hope that sustains us through difficult times, or when it is lacking steadily destroys us even if things around us don’t seem that bad.

Andy had that hope, they couldn’t take it from him, they being the prison system. And more than that he was able to give that hope to others, notably Red and Tommy. Brooks on the other hand sadly did not have that hope, and even when free, especially when free, wasn’t able to live with hope.

This is also a film about grace or unconditional giving - think back on some of the many moments of grace in this story. Andy’s six year writing project for the library, his support for Tommy and the sending in of his tossed away test paper, his gift of the harmonica to Red. These acts of kindness to others then prompted a response as Red and others gathered special rocks for Andy to carve when he got out of solitary and as they get him that Rita Hayworth poster that turned out to be so crucial in his ultimate escape. Even the guard is infected by this grace as he passes on the news to Andy that Tommy has passed - saying simply, 'Thought you’d like to know', something he’d never have thought of doing at the start of the film.

Such grace doesn’t come cheap of course, as we see from the punishment Andy takes for playing the Mozart aria, and at its best such grace is totally selfless. Remember Andy’s deal with the captain for helping him with his tax. Three beers apiece for his fellow prisoners, and that from someone who tells us he is now a nondrinker.

When the guards inspect his cell with the governor present. Andy just happens to be reading his Bible. It’s Mark 13:35 which says, 'Keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the House will come back, whether in the evening or at midnight or when the cock crows or at dawn', a verse put in perhaps to remind us that this is also a film about the ultimate hope that good will one day triumph over evil and that those who have done wrong will be fully and fairly judged.

But the main message of this film is focused not on some future righting of wrong, but on a hope that is to be sustained right now to enable us to experience real freedom in this present moment, the kind of freedom illustrated when Andy emerges from the sewer and in the rain and lightning reaches up to the sky to celebrate a new beginning.

The hope that has sustained him inside his prison is a memory of the beauty that might yet be. Instead of lamenting on the many injustices done to him both inside and outside of prison, as would be natural, he focuses on what cannot be seen and waits for it with patience and faith. Of course he does more than just wait - he actively perseveres. Paul, one of the early leaders of the Christian church spent a great deal of his life in prison, and he wrote in Romans 5:2 that with hope alive in us suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character yet more hope, and hope in Jesus does not ultimately disappoint.

For Andy, as for many before and since, it was music that played a key part in prompting that memory of this other reality and sustaining that hope. For him it was the music of Mozart that gave him a taste of that freedom that he cannot yet see, and allowed him to stay connected to that real world of beauty and love when everything around him seemed so cold and grey. And that is what music still does today whether it be sung or listened to in a church setting or played at full blast on a car stereo. It lifts us and touches us and connects us with that which is beyond what we can currently see and touch.

After his two weeks in solitary he comes out and tells Red that it was the easiest two weeks he ever did because he had Mr. Mozart for company. When Red thinks that he had a tape recorder smuggled into the cell, Andy taps his heart and his head and says that the music was inside him where they could not confiscate it. Red goes on to say that he used to play the harmonica but gave it up when he came in prison because it didn’t make sense any more. 'Here’s where it makes the most sense', Andy replies. 'We need it so we don’t’ forget'. 'Forget what,' says Red, 'That there are things in this world not carved out of grey stone, that there’s a small place inside of each of us that they can never lock away and that place is called hope.'

Few of us will wind up in prison, like Andy but we will probably find ourselves from time to time in situations that seem to imprison us – a dead end job we long to move on from, a lingering illness that seems to hang on for ever, a move to a hostile and strange place where we despair of ever finding a real friend. It is at such times that we desperately need the hope that we have seen, and talked of, tonight. Proverbs 13:12 says, 'Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life' and at the start of Hebrews 13 we read that it is faith that sustains such hope for 'to have faith is to be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.'

Having listened to that Mozart aria Red comments – 'I have no idea to this day what them two Italian ladies were singing about, Truth is I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it….It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments – every last man at Shawshank felt free.'

Good night and God bless.

David Bagwell 12.10.07

Remember, the first rule of Film Club is that you do talk about Film Club - Steve Tilley

Film Club Extra

2007-09-24T11:04:00.000+01:00

Starts
Friday 12th October 2007
FILM CLUB EXTRA
Enjoy some of the best films of recent years and then share your reactions with others.
2nd Friday of every month at 7.30pm
Nailsea Methodist Church, Silver Street
Doors open at 7pm – free entry - refreshments available

3:08 @ Kingshill

2007-08-29T15:32:00.000+01:00

How do you make sure everyone gets the start time of the meeting in their head? Start at a really weird time, that's how.

3:08 at Kingshill is an initiative of Christ Church, Nailsea. It will be a Sunday afternoon gathering to explore a new way of being church. All-age, no longer than 52 minutes and with cakes and drinks afterwards.

Our two crow puppets will be there and will need names.

The team in the natty maroon T-shirts will be commissioned at Christ Church on Sunday morning October 7th and then 3:08 at Kingshill will be monthly on Sunday afternoons on:

October 14th
November 11th
December 9th

Why not be there and join in the fun? Starts at 3:08 p.m. Kingshill School Hall. Don't forget.

Movie Nights

2007-08-29T15:24:00.000+01:00

Do you know people who engage with truth through movies but don't do church? Do you know people who would love the chance to watch some issues-raising, older movies and then talk about them?

On three autumn, probably Friday evenings at Nailsea Methodist Church we will be doing just that starting with:

The Shawshank Redemption
The Truman Show
Pleasantville

Final preparation meeting is tonight and then dates will follow.

First Post

2007-08-29T12:07:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Nailsea Fresh Expressions. This blog is here to support the efforts of the churches in Nailsea and District to explore Fresh Expressions of church and ministry. If you're doing anything exciting in this area please contact me and I'll post it up for you.

Steve Tilley
Associate Vicar
Nailsea Church of England Local Ministry Group