On the First of the Year…
George Winston’s Winter Into Spring plays on the turntable, and the sun shines with that same January crispness it did a decade ago through the windows of my dorm room the semester after I’d received the album for Christmas. I was arranging my (now private) room. For the first time I had a space that was entirely my own. I was a freshman, and so much lay ahead.
So much has changed since then, some I’m good with, much I’m not. My life in no way resembles where I thought I would be at this point, in any area. It’s easy to dwell on that, lose myself in melancholy, and cling to the past. But the past few years have taught me that doing so only stretches wide old wounds and magnifies pain.
I’d like this year to be different. Not in the sense that I try to rush to some lofty, external goal, but that I be who I want to be, with out compromise to anyone save Christ. I begin the year with some of Paul’s words that have stuck in my mind, especially when read in context:
…for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty of and being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. – Philippians 4:11-13
No More attempting to play catch-up, or running to or from old expectations. Now, only an assured, better way forward.
The Tree of Life and the Reason for Everything
For the first hour of Terrence Malick’s newest film, The Tree of Life, I literally didn’t move one inch. It’s so visually and emotionally arresting and haunting that calling it a “religious experience” doesn’t quite do it justice. The majority of the film centers on a simple coming-of-age story about a little boy and his family growing up in Waco, TX in the 1950s. Intercut with this thread is this same family learning that one of their sons has died at the age of 19, the boy now grown and wrestling with the meaning of life and the past death of his brother, and oh yeah–the Big Bang and the beginnings of life on Earth. The latter is used mostly in the beginning of the film, creating a sense of where these characters (and humanity itself) fit into such a big picture. A film has never made me feel so small. It prepares us for what follows–a film yearning to understand the point of it all.
Malick’s universe is one giant cathedral filled with slices of our lives where God moves and lives. Every now and then, a small beam of swirling, misty light appears on screen and the camera dwells on it as we hear characters from the film quietly whisper prayers to it–to God. And that’s what this film basically is–a prayer to God from humanity itself. For example, when the son talks about the memory of his mother to God–”You spoke to me through her before I believed in You.” And like a prayer, the film frees itself from an obvious narrative–flowing memories, images, orchestral music, whispers, visions, and dreams collide as the film composes a meditation on what life is and humanity’s relationship to God and to ourselves. Epic sounding? You’re damn right.
It is, by far, the most spiritually honest and vibrant film I’ve ever seen. God is in every single frame, even as humanity wrestles with the tough questions about God. The mother and father in the film present two different ways of parenting and how this one sons sees himself through them as he whispers, “Father. Mother. Always you wrestle inside me.” Early on in the film, the mother is teaching her children that there are two roads to take in life, “the way of nature or the way of grace.” Their father represents “the way of nature”–commanding, domineering, obsessed with rules, and a betterment of oneself. The mother represents “the way of grace”–loving, compassionate, merciful, selfless. Both parents love their children more than life itself, but it’s the way they show that love that is so conflicting. The parents seem to represent God as the child represents humanity. At one point in the film, the son demands from his father, “Why should I be good when you’re not?” Those hard questions again. And I wonder if part of what the film is asking is–Which of these two parents is the way we, personally, see God? Is God strict and rules-obsessed like the father or is God loving and full of mercy like the mother? Is there a possibility that the two sides can exist together within God?
Many people will hate this film and that’s okay–It wasn’t made for them. Some people just want entertainment in their movies. Again–that’s fine. But for those of us who yearn for our films to mean something as well, to invoke the biggest questions in our souls, to reach into our hearts and pull out longings we may have never even known where there–then The Tree of Life is one of the biggest gifts we could receive. It’s an awe-inspiring piece of art that these silly words typed out on a keyboard don’t even begin to represent well. It’s a film that takes the weight of the world upon its shoulders as it wrestles with God and the meaning of life. It refuses to proclaim an answer which is the most truthful thing it can do. Because the answer is not the point, the wrestling is the point.
Engagement in life and its many hardships and struggles along with its joys and beauty is what makes us human. It’s what brings us closer to God and to each other. We mean something. God means something. And that’s the biggest life lesson of all. But still only a starting point…
As Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect: Brennan Manning, Jesus, and the Homosexual Community
From Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning…
“‘But what should the Christian posture be toward the gay community?’ one evangelical demanded of me. ‘In one of Jesus’ parables,’ I replied, ‘He enjoined us to let the wheat and the weeds grow together. Paul caught this spirit when he wrote in 1 Corinthians, ‘Stop passing judgment and wait upon the Lord’s return.’ The sons and daughters of Abba are the most nonjudgmental people. They get along famously with sinners. Remember the passage in Matthew where Jesus says, ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect?’ In Luke, the same verse is translated, ‘Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.’ Biblical scholars say that the two words, perfect and compassionate, can be reduced to the same reality. Conclusion: To follow Jesus in His ministry of compassion precisely defines the biblical meaning of being perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect.’”
This passage resonates with me as I look around and see a nation where Christians refuse to allow gay people to have the same marriage rights as they do because of the believed “sanctity” held within those bonds while these same people just give a flippant eye role to Kim Kardashian’s latest mockery of it. Saying that you love a person and then denying them the rights that you enjoy doesn’t work. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s like saying a slaveholder is okay as long as he says he loves his slaves.
The debate over whether homosexuality itself is a sin or not has grown tiresome and gotten no one anywhere. Perhaps because it’s a strange argument to have–sinners who sin debating sinners who sin on whether or not sinners who sin are, in fact, sinning. The answer is yes. Homosexuals are sinners. As are heterosexuals, bisexuals, transexuals, and metrosexuals. We’re all sinners. Jesus is the Great Equalizer. We are forced to each meet each other exactly where the other is in life. One thing I think we can all agree on as we page through the Gospels is that Jesus cared much less about what sinners were doing and more about how “the religious” (also sinners) treated their fellow sinners. So perhaps we’re asking the wrong questions to the wrong people. Should we be asking if homosexuals are denying Christ by being gay or should we be asking ourselves if we’re denying Christ by how we respond to the homosexual community?
Who is more in danger of not following Christ?
Episode 32 – Two and a Half Mad Men
In which…
The British and American versions of The Office are compared, we ask “what’s the weirdest thing you ever eaten?”, the most obscure joke ever is issued, a recent Twitter war is recounted, Peter Weir’s Fearless is re-visited, 9/11 is remembered, and the beginnings of the new TV season are reviewed…
GUEST POST: Melia McFarland – “Ultimate Justice?”
Last week I sat down to watch the GOP debate. I was curious to see what all the media frenzy surrounding the debate was all about. I had seen Perry in the spotlight for weeks. Interviews leading up to his day of prayer ― “The Response” ― that drew over 20,000 Christians/Evangelicals from all over the nation. The Response. Subsequent television news appearances. And finally, last week’s debate.
I sat on my sofa, listening to each GOP candidate as they spoke about homeland security, the environment and social security. But it was their discussion of capital punishment that really caught my interest. Perry began talking about his track record in Texas ― the 234 death row inmates that have been executed, the “ultimate justice.” At this, the audience expressed their approval with the loudest applause of the night.
I can’t really explain my confusion or disgust at that moment. How chilling and unsettling it was to hear. All I could think of was 234 people dead and a room full of people cheering. Cheering. For murder.
Now, before you get all into whether you are pro or anti capital punishment, let’s just concentrate on what is coming out of Perry’s mouth. For the purpose of my writing, the point is not whether a candidate is for or against the death penalty. It is that Perry has gone to great lengths to place himself in the Christian limelight, and America is watching as he proudly presents the tally of his state’s executions. Does anyone else find that unsettling?
Perry has found his niche as the quintessential Evangelical candidate, hasn’t he? The host of an enormous prayer event. A self-professed man of God. But does it scare anyone else that the number of executions during his tenure as the Governor of Texas incited long-lasting applause from the audience?
I don’t think that Jesus would have been cheering in that audience. In fact, I think it would grieve him to see people taking joy in the death of another person (let alone 234), no matter what that person had done in his/her life. Jesus refused to meet hate with hate and violence with violence. And he certainly did not invest human representatives with the power to torture and kill.
I know we could have the grandest back and forth of Bible verses in the comments section of this post. There are Bible verses that can be interpreted as for the death penalty and Bible verses that can be interpreted as against. However, when it comes to people that say they love Jesus, but move forward with their own version of human justice, it just hits me funny in the gut.
I am open to hearing what you think, because I just don’t get it. When a “Godly” man receives applause because he has executed “more [inmates] than any other governor in modern times,” it just seems wrong and really makes me wonder. Does it make you wonder?
Follow Melia on Twitter…
Episode 31 – Homeless Ghost Raccoon
In which…
Chris buys a house, Apocalypse Now is revisited and leads into a discussion about King Ralph, and a crap is taken on the lawn of the political landscape.
There is this recent characterization in many “coming-of-age” films that has obtained the moniker of the “manic pixie dream girl.” You probably already realize what I’m talking about. Girls like Sam in Garden State, Penny Lane in Almost Famous, Rachel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. These girls serve as the end-all, be-all for their male counterparts. They are everything these guys have ever wished for, perfectly suited just to them. They are also complete bullcrap and don’t exist in real life. Relationships aren’t that easy. In fact, a long-term relationship is one of the hardest things two people can attempt. And it’s because the other one in the relationship wasn’t made just for you, they are their own person with their own ideas, their own loves, their own hates, their own plans, their own sense of humor. This is where conflict comes in and this is where so many people divorce or just let their marriage die under its own weight because they don’t want to struggle and fight for that other person anymore, they just want that person to be their everything, instead of striving to be everything to that person.
And we play this exact same game with God.
“Orthodoxy” has recently become a shining, triumphant word for many while others have come to see it as a dirty word. I think both views tend to be correct at one time or another. On the negative side of things, orthodoxy has become this false idol of ideas worshipped and defended by intellectuals who have lost sight of the dynamic personhood of God, for fear of their own orthodoxy falling down around them. Orthodoxy is a fine thing, we all have our own set of beliefs. But that’s all they are–beliefs. Beliefs about something, by our own admission, so much bigger than ourselves. But I think something crucial has gotten lost as we’ve all taken up armaments against any who dare to challenge our already-set and held beliefs. We live so defensively toward others for fear that they might (gasp!) bring a new idea into the mix. And when we live like this, not only do we “protect” ourselves from our brothers and sisters, who we should be learning from and inviting to challenge us (iron sharpens iron), but we also end up defending ourselves from God.
Kenneth Leech says orthodoxy “is about being consumed by glory: the word means not ‘right belief’ (as dictionaries tell us) but right doxa, right glory. To be orthodox is to be set alight by the fire of God.” So many of us have replaced the living, breathing, dangerous God with a list of rules and facts. Do we love God? Or do we love regulations? Do we love Christ? Or do we love propositions? You have to admit, one is much easier to love than the other. Our Western upbringing doesn’t much care for devoting oneself to something so abstract as the idea of God, but if there are lists of organized thought and ideals, why that’s much easier to worship.
We are all brought up in a specific culture. We are taught things from an early age. One thing I always wrestled with in high school was if I really believed in God or not. Because it occurred to me, I’ve been told to believe in God my whole life, been shown the historical evidence of the stories in the Bible, had Christian apologetics hammered into me again and again–Did I really and truly believe God existed or was I just taught to believe God existed? I was taught many other cultural things as well concerning politics, my own nation, homosexuality–you know, all the hot button issues. And how convenient it was that God backed up those beliefs. God fit right into my little cultural bubble just as easy as that one last puzzle piece.
I don’t believe I truly began an honest relationship with God until I started letting God define and augment my own culture as opposed to letting my culture define who God is. At first, it was frightening. My whole life seemed to be coming unglued because I started seeing the hypocrisies in so many of my firm beliefs. There are things Christ said numerous times that I just flat-out ignored because it didn’t fit my own paradigm, my own orthodoxy. But I slowly grasped the freedom of Christ and the relationship (or wrestling match) God always yearned to have with me. I went from living defensively to living freely. Sure, if we live defensively we’ll definitely be blocking out “wrong” thinking, but the kicker is we’re also blocking out God in our fear to let go of our own “right thinking.” I even believe there were times in college where God purposefully led me to believe something I now believe to be theologically false only to bring me out of it with a different understanding–ready for a little bit closer to Truth.
Because it’s not about right thinking, it’s not about rules, it’s not about regulations, it’s not about propositions. It’s about God. Period. Just like we have to let go of other things in our life to make room for God, we have to let go of our human beliefs. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t have beliefs. Beliefs are natural and you’ll find the more you wrestle with God, the more that will slowly begin to mold in your mind. I am saying that God is always bigger than those beliefs. So when we live in defense of those beliefs, we’re putting those beliefs above God. If we’re to have an orthodoxy, it must be a fluid one open to what God wants to teach us on a daily basis. An ever-changing belief system that slowly gets closer and closer to who God is, not a stagnant, rigid, defensible position that we have locked up in a room deep inside our hearts never to be touched. It’s the difference between knowing the “little g” and daily wrestling and seeking to understand the “Big G.” Because there is never going to be a point in your life where God isn’t bigger than everything in your life.
C.S. Lewis wrote many books about God, but he always understood that even his own brilliant analytical mind could never completely grasp or understand the vastness and the bigness of God. He understood the kind of reverence and humbleness that was vital to anyone’s own orthodoxy, that God is bigger than even our own language we use to debate about God with. Here is one of my favorite Lewis poems called “A Footnote to All Prayers…”
“He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.”
Epsiode 30 – Babjärm
In which…
Chris has a birthday, Sean explains babyarms, Barry recounts the plot to THIS IS SPINAL TAP, Chris revisits bad past memories at Hurricane Harbor, and Michael breaks his coccyx bone at Six Flags and has an eventful night out in Dallas.
Episode 29 – Barry, the Drug Mule
In which…
A very haphazard review of Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL is attempted, Barry’s hairless face freaks everybody out, it’s asked whether or not Donald Trump is commencing a period of idiocracy, our reactions to the death of Osama Bin Laden are discussed, and the most over-the-top Facebook reactions are read–all the while, accidentally saying “Obama” instead of “Osama.”
There’s an old staple in dramatic films where one character selflessly gives up his life for another. While the savior lies dying in the arms of the person saved, they look into the eyes of the individual who will go on to live because of what they did and, with their dying breath, they say something along the lines of, “Don’t waste your life.” In other words, don’t render the sacrifice I just made completely meaningless by throwing away the precious gift of live given to you now. These kinds of scenes always hit me right in the gut. And for good reason. You see, this has literally happened to me. And if you profess to be a follower of Christ, it’s literally happened to you as well. Christ died so that we may live. His last words to us were those three precious years of ministry recorded in the Gospels. Commands of selfless love, mercy, grace, and peace. He wanted to share with us who God is. And as it turns out, God is love, mercy, grace, and peace.
In the pages of the Gospels, Christ presents some amazing commands that are difficult to rectify with our own lives–things like the love of your enemies. And remember, this was not a time where when Jesus said “enemies,” he meant that neighbor you can’t stand who turns his music up way too loud at night. No, in that time period, your enemies were the men who wanted to kill you, wanted to rip you limb from limb, and spit on your dead corpse. Jesus commanded us to love these people. Like many things Christ said, it was an astounding thing to even propose. Thankfully, Christ truly believed in the power of love, grace, and mercy as he hung from a cross and bled out for every single human being to have ever and will ever live–Each of us full to the brim with sin. No man more pure than another. All living in absolute and complete depravity due to their own selfishness.
As I logged onto Facebook last night after the announcement from President Obama about the killing of Osama Bin Laden, I was astounded at what I saw. So many followers of Christ rejoicing in cavalier, sometimes downright sadistic, ways at the death of another human being. Yes, this human being had become a monster and had gallons of blood on his hands. But nothing Osama Bin Laden did in life makes him any more unloved by God. Thankfully for all of us, God’s love is unconditional and even a man so sadistic and violent as Bin Laden falls under that category. But the truth of the matter is, compared to the glory of God as shown through Christ, none of us can stand before the throne and claim to be better than Osama Bin Laden. All are guilty. All have fallen short of the glory of God. When our deaths come, even we deserve people streaming into the streets with celebration.
What I saw last night from many Christians was pure and unadulterated hate, a glaringly obvious bloodlust flowing through cavalier jokes and joyful glee at one of God’s lost sheep. So many Christians had an opportunity to show what Christ is all about–through love, mercy, and grace. But so many missed that opportunity, instead showing that even Christians can take joy in death and their own hatred. Thankfully, there were also many Christians reacting to the bloodlust with words of peace, hope, and the unabashed love of all of God’s creations. But, of course, these people were quickly put in their place by others. I witnessed some amazing high schoolers speak to the Jesus they know last night, a God of love and grace, only to be slapped down in their “idealistic thinking” by others–some even Sunday school teachers.
I can’t help but think that every time we sacrifice an opportunity to love for the god of Hate, we are participating in the crucifixion. Almost as if every waking moment of every day is an opportunity to participate in one of two things–crucifixion or resurrection. When we denounce love and embrace hate in moments like last night, we truly become no better than those who killed the embodiment of love up on that hill. That night, they rejected love and embraced hate. When we participate in those kinds of activities, we waste what Christ died for so we could have the gift of life–not just our souls saved, but our lives saved from having to participate in hate and death. We now have the ability to participate in the resurrection. We now have the opportunity to tap into that love that embodied Christ because it now embodies us. But last night, so many of us betrayed our own salvation for the god of Hate and Fear.
I completely understand the yearning for justice. I completely understand that this was Osama Bin Laden’s deathbed that he made for himself a long time ago. I don’t seek to denounce those who are glad that horrible, horrible man can no longer hurt people. Of course that’s something to be glad about. But with any kind of violent justice also comes a price. And I don’t think many of us rightly understood that price last night. Perhaps when necessary justice is done, it’s not a time for celebration, but for mourning. Mourning of a world in which we live that strives on the currency of hate, fear, and violence. Sadness at the inevitability of having to participate in such a world while clinging to the opposite things that Christ was. Many are throwing that word, “justice,” around today. Some claim they understand it’s true meaning, while others are wrestling with what that word means and how it should be approached in such a bloodthirsty world. How do we reconcile our want of justice with the peace of Christ? Like Nicholas Knisely said last night, “Emotions are what they are. They’re not moral or immoral. They come from deep inside us. Morality hangs on what you do with them.”
This is a hard thing to do. And I think a lot of us chose the wrong thing to do with our emotions last night. I, for one, was incredibly conflicted with how to feel. After seeing the hatefulness on Facebook, I literally didn’t move for a good half hour, my jaw never leaving its dropped position. And I began to pray without really knowing the proper words to convey what I was feeling as I saw more and more brothers and sisters of the same embodiment of love speak joyful words of hate. The feeling was something akin to being betrayed by your own family. And I began to cry. Not for Osama Bin Laden, but for another death–The death of a great opportunity to show what our God is all about. My entire body ached as I wept at the realization that I can’t force people to see the love and grace and peace of my savior. It doesn’t work that way. My only refuge was to think about the last prayer Jesus prayed as he was hung on a cross to die, the God of Love joyfully murdered for our god of Hate–”Forgive them, Father. For they know not what they do.”
