screening: fpn's "35 Seconds- Short Stories from Haiti"

My documenteur friend and his co-conspirators went down to Haiti a few months ago to bring back some stories from the folks drastically and tragically affected by the earthquake.  The result is this 13 min. doc about the 35 seconds of crisis: literally the fault-line between normal and the rest of their lives.  Amidst some heartbreakingly beautiful photography and music, there  are some surprising accounts (in Creole, subtitled in English) of just what went through some folks' heads when their world came crashing down and glimmers of hope for a people and a country rebuilding from the rubble.

http://www.fleshprofitsnothing.com/

http://erichires.com/

http://nathanblewis.com/

jamming: Mumford and Sons- The Cave

I can't really get enough of any part of this:

"So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the Maker's land"

Johnny Cash: The Revelator

Resources for presentation given in Dr. Hays' Revelation Exegesis class.

Download the Powerpoint.

Download the Handout.

When The Man Comes Around J.R. Cash  (American/Lost Highway/Columbia 2002) Spoken: And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder: One of the four beasts saying: "Come and see." And I saw. And behold, a white horse.  There's a man goin' 'round takin' names. An' he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around.  The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. For you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around.  Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singin'. Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum. Voices callin', voices cryin'. Some are born an' some are dyin'. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come.  And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.  Till Armageddon, no Shalam, no Shalom. Then the father hen will call his chickens home. The wise men will bow down before the throne. And at his feet they'll cast their golden crown. When the man comes around.  Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still. Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still. Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still. Listen to the words long written down, When the man comes around.  In measured hundred-weight and penny-pound. When the man comes around.  Spoken: And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him.

Revelation 6:1-2a “There's a man going 'round taking names (taking names)/He's been taking my fathers name/an' he left my heart in vain/there's a man going 'round taking names” (Leadbelly) Gen 28:12 Jn 1:51 Mt 27:7 Also: Mt 27:9; Jer 19 Mt 24:31 Also: Rev 1:10; 4:1; 8:13 Rev 1:8, 21:6, 22:13 Job 38-40 Mt 25:1-13 Paul’s conversion in Acts 26 Rev 22:11 Rev 16:16 Lk 13:34 Rev 4:10/Rev 7:15/Mt 2:7-12 Rev 4:10 Rev 6:6 Revelation 6:6a, 8

Johnny Cash Playlist

Further Listening: 

American Recordings (I-VI)

Unearthed (Box Set)

Personal File

My Mother’s Hymn Book

Live from Folsom Prison

Further Reading:

Johnny Cash, Man In White (Thomas Nelson, 2008).

Johnny Cash, Cash: The Autobiography (HarperOne, 2003).

Antonino D’Ambrosio, A Heartbeat & A Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears (Nation Books, 2009).

Leigh H. Edwards, Johnny Cash and the Paradox of American Identity (Indiana University Press, 2009).

Michael Streissguth, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece (Da Capo Press, 2005).

Steve Turner, The Man Called Cash (Thomas Nelson, 2005).

Dave Urbanski, The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash (Relevant Books, 2003).

Further Viewing:

Gospel Road (1973)

Walk the Line (2005)

The Johnny Cash Show: 1969-1971 (2007)

screening: Spoken Word, Preaching Visuals, & Prophetic Jesterdom

Topics from today's preaching class:

Spoken word poetry as embodying and unleashing the Word.

Anis Mojgani performs Shake the Dust at HEAVY AND LIGHT. from To Write Love on Her Arms. on Vimeo.

Using visual media to deliver and enhance the message.

Lump (Rob Bell - Nooma)

Using humor/satire/fable as a subversive, prophetic, surprising alternative.

mewithoutYou - The Fox, the Crow, and the Cookie from David Bell on Vimeo.

Easter!

Intro to Tom Wright's Easter sermon yesterday titled, "Resurrection & Rock'n'roll.":

The taxi driver looked back at me in his mirror. His face was a mixture of amusement and sympathy. We were stuck in traffic and he’d asked me, as they do, what I did for a living.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you Church of England people’ (having told me he was a Roman Catholic himself). ‘You’re still having all that trouble about women bishops, aren’t you?’

I had to admit that that was indeed the case.

‘The way I look at it,’ he said, ‘is this: if God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, all the rest is basically rock’n’roll.’

Rob Bell's (dynamic, as always) new work, "Resurrection":

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

"Forgiveness is the Final Form of Love."

"Forgiveness is the final form of love." -Reinhold Niebuhr

About this time of the year last year I went and watched a film about forgiveness (actually in the same room that we’ll remember Christ’s sacrifice and forgiveness next week!).  As We Forgive is all about the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide that took place, ironically enough, during Holy Week in 1994.

If you’re unfamiliar with the history of this recent atrocity- neighborhoods, churches, communities, and, in some cases, families were ripped apart by mass-scale bloodshed.  The film focuses on putting the pieces back together.  Forgiving (but, certainly not forgetting).  Moving on.  Together.

Perhaps the strongest part of this film was its concreteness. It’s easy to get hypothetical about this sort of thing.  We tend to boil these topics down to some far-fetched example where it eventually seems fair not to forgive.  (“If my spouse ______, there’s no way I could ever forgive him/her.”)  In a lot of ways, that seems to be a cop-out.  If we imagine a situation, where forgiving is unimaginable, then all of the sudden its okay for us not to forgive something petty.  What if, as Christians, we lived as if forgiveness was not only imaginable, not only possible, but normal?

By normal, I don’t mean average or easy.  Everyone knows what a crazy thing it is to forgive.  Everyone knows what it feels like to be wronged.  By normal, I mean our default.  What we do.  How we live.  Together.

How is this possible?  Where does this vision come from?

It has to be God.  It has to be how He treats us.  It must be how Jesus teaches and practices this radical forgiveness.  We’re in bad shape trying to come up with this kind of thing on our own.  We’ve learned (and taught) plenty of ways to get around forgiving others, even when we claim God’s forgiveness for ourselves.  The movie portrayed this.  It showed folks sitting down with the people who killed their loved ones and finding a way to live together.  It showed the God-kind of forgiveness.  The kind of living that is both free and costly. 

Free, because we’ve already been infinitely outspent.  Costly, because it requires us to lay down our pride, cop-outs, and hypotheticals and deal with the messiness of hurt and healing.

I pray that as we remember God’s forgiveness through Christ’s faithfulness, we consider places in our lives that need forgiving and people who we need to forgive.  Prepare us, Lord, for the cost of this forgiveness.  We thank you for your free forgiveness that we live in.  Amen.

Original Post at allgather.org.

last blog post for a while.

And It's a doozy. For you AJ, enjoy:

screening: JJ Alvaro's Confession

Confession from John Jay Alvaro on Vimeo.

The text is from a Mennonite worship service for the Iraq War. The images are edited from originals online. The music is Feist.

praying: Psalm 40

A beautifully poetic and likely unfamiliar version.
Robert Alter's Translation from The Book of Psalms (2007)

I urgently hoped for the LORD.
He bent down toward me and heard my voice,
and He brought me up from the roiling pit*
from the thickest mire.
And He set my feet on a crag,
made my steps firm.
And He put in my mouth a new song-
praise to our God.
May many see and fear
and trust in the LORD.
Happy is the man who puts
in the LORD his trust
and does not turn to the sea monster gods
and to false gods.
Many things You have done- You
O LORD our God- Your wonders!
And Your plans for us-
none can match You,
I would tell and I would speak:
they are too numerous to recount.
Sacrifice and grain offering You do not desire.
You opened ears for me:
for burnt-offering and offense-offering You do not ask.
Then did I think: Look, I com
with the scroll of the book written for me.
To what pleases You, my God, I desire,
and Your teaching is deep within me.
I heralded justice in a great assembly.
Look I will not seal my lips.
LORD, You Yourself know.
Your justice I concealed not in my heart.
Your faithfulness and Your rescue I spoke.
I withheld not from the great assembly Your steadfast truth.
You, LORD, will not hold back
Your mercies from me.
Your steadfast truth
shall always guard me.
For evils drew around me
beyond count.
My crimes overtook me
and I could not see-
more numerous than the hairs of my head-
and my heart forsook me.
Show favor, O LORD, to save me.
LORD, to my help, hasten.
May they be shamed and abased one and all,
who seek my life to destroy it,
may they fall back and be disgraced,
who desire my harm.
Let them be devastated on the heels of their shame,
who say of me, "Hurrah! Hurrah!"
Let all who seek You
exult and rejoice in You.
May they always say, "God is great!"-
those who love your rescue.
As for me, I am lowly and needy.
May the Master account it for me.
My help, he who frees me You are.
My God, do not delay.

*He mentions, "literally, 'the pit of noise'"

And perhaps a more familiar version:

preaching: I Am the Bread of Life: The Giver is the Gift (Jn 6:35)

Sermon given on 09 August 2009 (Proper 14, 10th Sunday after Pentecost) @ Allensville/Trinity UMC Roxboro, NC Lectionary Texts: Psalm 34:1-8 * Ephesians 4:25-5:2 * John 6:35, 41-51

We live in a society largely void of hunger. Let me clarify that. We live in a nation that is voraciously hungry, each of us is hungry, but in many ways are incredibly equipped to deal with that hunger. Many off us, myself included, have never, or rarely felt true hunger pangs. We have access like no other time or place to cheap food in abundance. We bask in the red heat lamps of buffets, around family tables, at intern-honoring covered dishes, and in the comfort of our driver’s seats awaiting our order from the clerk behind the sliding glass window. Our stomachs love food, our taste buds delight to be teased, our days are ordered around our next provision. We “do” hunger, but we “do” fulfillment of that hunger better. Or so we assume.

As we’ve been hearing from the gospel of John the past few weeks, we sit listening, daydreaming, or somewhere in between thinking about the breakfast we’ve just eaten or ready for the lunch we will soon sit down to. We can’t help think about food and hunger, void and satisfaction.

We recall...

· Two weeks ago, we heard of the unlikely feast on the hillside, feeding five thousand folks from a lunch pale.

· Last week, prior to sharing the Eucharist together, we heard Jesus’ prompting the people away from the food they relied on that goes bad, and towards the everlasting food God gives, a sort of divinely preserved, original “Wonderbread.”

· This week, we find the continuation of this conversation. Jesus has pitched the importance and superiority of this bread God gives such that his audience is asking, begging for this bread, now and always.

I know all week you’ve been hanging on this suspense. What does Jesus have here behind his back? What does he offer, so as not to disappoint? How does he top the previous signs of God’s glory he produced (feeding & walking on water)? What is the punch line?

He simultaneously offers nothing and everything. His hands are empty, but he points to himself, to God. He says confidently, “I am the bread of life.” Just when they are convinced that Jesus shall and is able to give them the forever cure for their hunger, he says this. They want physical, they want now, they want something that they can have, hold, devour, and hoard. I’m sure we can’t identify at all with that mentality, can we?

But Jesus gives himself. All of himself, for their life, their nourishment, their growth, their sustenance, their pleasure and fulfillment. The crowd to which Jesus speaks seems to have a taste for bread; they have a desire, and a hunger to be met. This hunger though is two-fold. They can answer the bell of their stomachs and that is their primary concern. But do they understand here the call of their hearts, the desire of their souls? The one overarching desire which all their other desires mimic?

Reminding us of Saint Augustine's famous Confession, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God. And our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." Likewise, in realizing Jesus as the Bread of Life, we declare, "Our hearts are dead & hungry until they find fulfillment from the Bread of Life."

Let’s not be too hard on these guys though, after all, the story keeps bringing up Moses and their ancestors in exile. If we remember correctly, one of the things the Israelites were taught by the manna is that they were dependent on the God who provides, and knows best. The Israelites were both physically nourished and spiritually taught by this bread. They were not to take too much, they would never have too little, there would be plenty for all, and no room for selfishness. To be sure, the Israelites grumbled their way through the desert even though they had God leading them, keeping them, providing for them. They grumbled despite their guarantee of manna, they grumbled while a bread from heaven was in their midst. Why shouldn’t these folks in our gospel reading still grumble while THE Bread of Heaven is in theirs? These explicit parallels between the mysterious “bread from heaven” of Jesus’ mysterious seaside-smorgasbord, and the enigmatic “manna from heaven” back in the day don’t end here though.

While Jesus’ reference to the manna becomes more and more obvious as the story continues, the showstopper occurs in verse 35. Jesus’ words are, “I am the bread of life.”

· For us, a clear statement.

· For those familiar with the gospel of John, this is the first of a string of seven “I am” statements (bread of life, light of the world, gate, good shepherd, resurrection & life, way/truth/life, true vine).

· For those in Christ’s presence, this was a scandalous identification with their God (the Great “I am”).

This jumps of the page in its original Greek (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς). ἐγώ εἰμι= I am: God’s calling card, given to Moses at the burning bush. The Creator, the God of their ancestors, their provider, the personal God in covenant with them. Jesus reminds them in their amnesia, that they are re-living the story they think they know so well. They are neglecting the Giver for the gift. They are grumbling while being showered with bread from heaven. To phrase it according to this morning’s psalm reading: they have ceased to allow themselves to taste the Lord’s Goodness, instead they pass on it altogether.

One Hebrew commentator adds that the word used for “taste” in Psalm 34 has the sense of “trying something by experiencing it.” How often do we decline the best experience of God in favor of our grumbling or presuppositions, our own tastes or perceived desires?

So here we find an intersection of two stories. This is one of the artful and beautiful things that I love about the Forth Gospel’s account of Jesus: irony. Jesus teaches them a story that they already know, that is etched in their heritage- who they are, and what they already understood. Just like them, we assume that we know what we need. That we are the bosses of our hungers, desires, wants, dreams, fantasies. That we understand our history and our tendencies, that we can put a lid on the “what I need and how I get it” story the way they thought they could close the book on Moses & the manna.

In the same way Jesus jars this image of the Moses story open for them, reminds them of their ancestors in the desert, whose assumptions of need were turned upside down by God’s generosity and provision, I am reminded of a very important story of my youth. The popular 1973 illustrated children’s book, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein comes to mind. I remember reading and having it read to me until I could nearly recite it by heart.

It tells the story of a tree and a boy. The boy spends his youth delighting in the tree, gathering its leaves & apples, laying in its shade and climbing on its branches. As the boy grows, he distances himself from the tree, neglecting it for other, “better” sources of fun, food, and leisure. The tree waits. As the boy grows older and returns the tree beckons him to come again, and find the fulfillment of his youth in its branches, trunk and fruit. The boy responds not with delight, but by taking.

· He takes the apples to eat in his twenties.

· He hauls off the branches to build a house in his thirties.

· He even saws down the trunk at retirement age to build the boat of his desired leisure.

· He returns in very old age, assisted by a cane, the tree having been depleted to a mere stump.

It was that mere stump that the tree was able to offer saying, “Come boy, Come sit down and rest.” The leisure and delight of the boy’s youth returned as he again partook of the tree, not in a misguided or selfish way, not in a way that overlooked the relationship, generosity, and abundance offered, not in a way that haves, holds, devours, and hoards. But in a personal, interactive, and intimate way.

The way in which the psalter entreats, “Taste and see that the Lord is good, happy are those who take refuge in him,” (ps 34:8). The way in which Christ beckons, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” (Jn 6:35).

Accordingly we must ask ourselves:

· What am I praying for if not that God be my provider?

· What am I looking for if not the Thing behind the sign, the Giver behind the gift?

· What are you hungry for if not the true Bread from Heaven, the Bread that God Gives, the eternal Bread of Life?

· Do we satisfy those grumblings, not of our stomachs, but of our distracted and misguided souls, with filler, with bread that is not eternal?

· Are we, like the child in the storybook, eager to move onto bigger, better, and more fulfilling things only to later realize where our delight, our true life & savor, comes from?

Attempting to answer these, I invite you

to taste and see that the Lord is good;

to share in the Bread of Life broken for you;

to eat and not be hungry, to believe and never again thirst.

teaching: Mandela ESPY video for the Arthur Ashe Award

I'm showing this video at our weekly "Reconciling All Things" book study tomorrow as an example of Chapter 6's Hope in a Broken World. It seems these stories of faith and counter-intuitive/-cultural brave moves give us hope, encouragement, and example for our ministry of reconciliation to God and others.

screening: Man From Plains; Bigger, Faster, Stronger; Son of Rambow

Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains
This Jonathan Demme documentary focuses on Former President Carter's book tour for the controversial book on Palestine & Apartheid. Being born under the Reagan administration and due to the apparent unpopularity of Carter following his only term, I had little to no knowledge about the man. The doc reveals a candid, genuine, relentlessly active, and graciously peace-seeking man. Perhaps the most gratifying moments come when he is asked about his wife, of whom he beams with affection, or when we see his yound publicist scramble to keep up with such an old timer as he builds Habitat homes, grants endless interviews, flys around the country in coach seating, teaches bible study at his church in Americus, or attends a pig-picken. Carter must forever beheld as the gold-standard for post-term presidential activity.

Bigger, Stronger, Faster
This gem of a documentary features the rare blend of satire and sarcasm along with honesty and charity. Exploring not only the Western (mostly American, but also Ben Johnson) fascination with and dependence on steriods and their benefits. The director details he and his bookend brothers' childhoods and their divergent paths to strength and fitness (his brothers chose roids, he despises them). He remembers watching Hulk Hogan intently as he was promised all of his childhood dreams as long as he ate right, exercised, and said his prayers. The film's fulcrum is not on some sort of demonozation of anabolic steriods but rather an examination of why we do what we do and why what we say we value and what we actually do tend to play out quite differently. Quite a provocative and enjoyable watch for sports fan or social psychologist alike.

Son of Rambow
I wouldn't have initially said that I would have shed a few tears at a movie combining the brit-innocence of Millions with the playfullness of Be Kind Rewind, but I did. This charming little indie film portrays the Plymouth Brethren raised (and repressed) Will and his blood brotherhood with the mischievious Lee Carter (his full name is always said by Will). Both kid actors are engaging, subtle, and hilarious. The script is imaginative and interesting. And the final product of their "Screen Test Contest" sequal to Rambo: First Blood, is brilliant. I have such an affection for sweet, simple, creative movies like this. You walk away with great appreciation for what you actually saw and the questions raised, rather than all the distractions and cheap short-cuts taken with blockbuster actors and cookie cutter plots.

screening: Synecdoche, NY; Doubt; Diving Bell & The Butterfly

Synecdoche, NY
First of the 2 Phillip Seymour Hoffman films. I didn't really appreciate the scattered and seemingly pretentious musings of Charlie Kaufman. It had all of the weirdness of his other ones without the charm and humor. Maybe I just missed it altogether or maybe I turned it off too soon, either way, though I really looked forward to this one, I was heartily disappointed.

Doubt
Awesome. Hoffman utterly redeemed himself. Streep and Adams were perfect. This really strummed the right note of my parochial school upbringing. I highly recommend this one mostly for its acting and ability to leave a sticky ethical situation to the viewer's imagination, and it's final conclusion that that imagination and those things left unsaid is perhaps the harshest judge of reality. No need to be explicit when you can craft a complex story and characterization, which in the end teaches at a deeper and longer-lasting level.

Here is a great clip of Hoffman at his best, behind the pulpit in a good ole fashioned Irish-Catholic homiletic attack:


Diving Bell & The Butterfly
If the first movie was too weird for me, and Doubt was perfect in its subtlety, DB&B broached some middle ground (in French) while expanding towards an abstract and non-linear presentation akin to movies like 'Big Fish' & 'What Dreams May Come'. For starters, the story is so brilliant that it could only be non-fiction: playboy Elle' magazine editor suffers a stroke leaving him essentially locked in his own body unable to translate his brilliant, literary mind and faculties through any other channel than a single eye's blink. But it is through this sharp mind and speech therapist's 'Morse code' system that he dictates an entire transcript. The result is a melancholy and poignant narrative monologue plumbing the depths of his condition via a diving bell and soaring to the heights of love and imagination on the wings of a Butterfly. Particularly resonant scenes were the Madonna of Lourdes scene and the shaving scene with his senile father.

screening: As We Forgive

This Laura Waters Hinson film was screened this past week by the Div School (Center for Reconciliation & Anglican/Episcopal House of Studies) and All Saints AMiA Church. Ironically, this coming week, Holy Week, marks the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

Strewn throughout this scant 1 hour film were several poignant quotes, here are a few:

Voltaire: “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”
Tolstoy: "Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace."
Tutu: "You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest."
R. Niebuhr: "Forgiveness is the final form of love."

Perhaps the strongest part of this film was its concreteness. There are far more comprehensive and much more effective and affective representations of this and other genocidal aftermaths. This one was actually able to show the process, with all its discomfort, of someone knocking on the door of a neighbor whose family they brutally murdered, to say sorry.

Some of the crucial take-aways of this for me, things that I hope God will continue to illuminate and refine in me, are:
-How the disconnect in our Western society disallows for this messy and clumsy process. I wrong someone or someone wrongs me, and I or they may chose never to deal with it again. In these Rwandan villages, it comes as a difficult thing to avoid dealing with this pain and forgiveness process. What a pity for us.
-The churches' compliance in this matter. History has shown time and time again (apartheid, Holocaust, racism/slavery, exploitation), how Christ's own body has compromised itself. It is interesting and convicting which tact the local Rwandan churches have taken in owning or denying their offenses.
-The pathos needed to take part in the forgiveness process. How often am I unable to feel, understand, and empathize with the daily minor hurts I cause my wife, family, and those around me. As a disciple of Christ, who took on flesh and emptied himself into the form of a servant (Phil 2), I must become a student of empathy.
-The goal of reconciliation by government. Inspiring and disturbing. Inspiring that places like South Africa and Rwanda had pioneered this process, through government channels to achieve healing, unity, and truthfulness. Disturbing that so-called advanced nations like our own are unable and virtually unwilling to recognize the merit in such an approach to handle our collective sins.

Finally, in the panel discussion in Chapel Hill on Friday night... Rector Steve Breedlove mentioned an episode from his last visit to Rwanda. He eloquently showed the universality of the human condition and our capacity for evil. He described riding in a bus, reading Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, which tells of America's narrow dodging of genocide in the new west, next to a German national living in the shadows and repercussions of the Holocaust in her land, while trucking through a land with blood still in the soil and pain still on the residents' faces. The ability to kill God's creatures doesn't belong solely to one group, place, or time.

It is during Lent and Holy week that I can shamefully, and repentantly admit that:
"...in my best behavior/
I am really just like him/
Look beneath the floorboards/
For the secrets I have hid." -Sufjan Stevens John Wayne Gacy, Jr

screening: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/Slumdog Millionaire

We went and saw Benjamin Button on Christmas Day in Indy and Slumdog Millionaire on New Year's Day back in Chapel Hill.

Both of these movies were striking in their own distinct ways. First, Benjamin Button...

While this nearly 3 hour movie dragged for some (really everyone but me; I will not apologize for being a sucker for a nice character-driven film), the premise was fresh and the characters were interesting. I'll admit it smacked a little of Forrest Gump-meets-Simon Birch-with-a-tinge-of Titanic. Aside from those obvious associations, I enjoyed the way it commented on the selfless love Brad Pitt's character was required to give due to his oddity. Button's "birth defect" made him look beyond age and exterior and not only allowed a seeming octogenarian to fall in love with a pre-teen (seen in a poignant but somewhat creepy flashlight fort meeting while the rest of the house slept), but to maintain that unassuming and sacrificial love even when the tables were turned. The fact that the main story took place in an old folks home in New Orleans had several resonances. The contrast (and sometimes irrelevance) of age along with the hurting, destructed, and grotesquely beautiful cityscape during its modern flooding set the tone for the whole film. On a side note, Brad Pitt firmly places himself in a James Dean/Paul Newman type, iconic role for our generation with this one. I can't really think of anyone else that is that guy who is charming and attractive enough for the women to crush, while being tough, cool, and witty enough for guys (like myself) to admire or at least archetype him as the American man.

Now Slumdog Millionaire...

In indie (& Indian) movie featuring unknown (to us) Bollywood actors about love and loss and 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' doesn't exactly seem like a great way to spend an afternoon or 7 bucks. On the contrary, Danny Boyle masterfully weaves a story, with great technique (cinematography was brilliant), deep characters that you actually care about, and a tight, interesting storyline.

One striking element to this movie was how it was able to show the dichotomy of modern India without being overly polemic or forceful. There was an over-arching theme of old vs. new- poverty vs. wealth- virtuous brother vs. ambitious brother. In a time in which the sub-continent with some of the most dense population tries to vie for global influence- we see this zeitgeist not in newsprint or soundbite but in the unfailing love of a slumdog 'chai wallah' and the wisdom and experience gained from his seemingly 'mis-fortunate' past. The destiny of Jamal is certainly a microcosm for the fate of India. Perhaps, "It is written."

Christmas Day Ruminations...

This video is particularly poignant for today as we celebrate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords taking on flesh and poverty. The beauty of this is in its simplicity and humility.

May your Christmas day be thought-provoked, joyous, relational, hopeful, self-less, and a startling paradigmatic shift for the new year of greatest as least and least as greatest.

Thomas Merton may have coined or at least popularized the phrase the 'no man is an island', but indeed our Savior 'peninsulizes' us to our brother and most importantly to God.

Praise the Word Made Flesh.

tis the season...

for really good movies to come out.

looking forward to:

Here are some releases that I am excited about...

Music
Sept 23:
Cold War Kids- Loyalty to Loyalty
After a swell debut, these musicians "who are Christians" (as opposed to Christian Musicians) are poised for a sweet sophomore effort.

Oct 14:
Ray LaMontagne- Gossip in the Grain
Ray is a crooner, watch out ladies, plus supposedly there's a track about a fictitious romance with Meg White.

Nov 1:
Avett Family Gospel Album
Favorite sons of North Carolina team up with the rest of the fam for some good ole gospel faves. Old Rugged Cross, etc... Might have to do some work to find this as it's their last exclusive release from Ramseur until their Rick Rubin produced American Records debut!

Books
Oct 15
Eugene Peterson- Tell It Slant
Latest in the "Spiritual Theology" series. Each of the predecessors were fantastic (Christ Plays..., Eat This Book, The Jesus Way). The title apparently comes from the Emily Dickenson quote, "Tell the truth at all times, but tell it slant." This one is set to cover Jesus' words and parables and the way he told and acted as a sort of italicized Truth.

Oct 31
Ellen F. Davis- Scripture, Culture and Agriculture
My Old Testament professor previewed this the other day in class. Dr. Davis' book is bound to make an impression on and greatly contribute to scholarship and outlook concerning what our faith says about the way we eat and treat our land, as well as our neighbor. Bonus: forward by Wendell Berry.

Movies
Oct 3
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Starring the guy from Sean of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, bound for some laughs.

Nov 14
The Road
Next in a line of Cormac McCarthy adaptations. This post-apocolyptic Pulitzer Prize winner has some great ingredients and great likelihood of hanging around when the Oscar hardware is being divvied up. Director from The Preposition (see that one if you haven't!), Vigo Mortenson, plus some great cameos and a potential breakout from a young actor.

*LATE ADD (for Sridhar's sake)*
http://www.nme.com/news/ryan-adams/39832