For some reason my mind has wandered to Heaven today. Much has been said of Heaven and it's anti-thesis of Hell. Much has been said lately on Hell and Heaven by church-folks Rob Bell and John Piper and, well everyone. I have little time for them. It'll do me little good to focus on what they're saying even if we are in any sort of agreement, which we may or may not be. I truly don't care. Heaven will be what it is. Hell will be what it is. We can think what it is. We can hope what it will be. But that allays nothing in this life. It'll just make you a visionary.
But yet my mind wandered to the possibilities of Heaven this morning as I drove the the kids to school. Overhead the sky was painted blue, splattered with the white paint of the clouds. Billowing clouds too. Spread out in clumps like mud across the sky. But as the sun broke through them bright and yellow, it had all the effect of appearing like a split atom. Parts scattered asunder, ripped and torn by supremely fast collisions. The sky, the clouds, the sun, the detritus of something split apart.
Yesterday Isaac and I wrestled across the living room while it thundered and showered and the dark room was rent by bursts of lightning. We wrestled. He was flung from couch to couch. Flipped and torqued and hurled. He jumped and grabbed and giggled. And then, just as suddenly as the collisions we were engaging in had happened, he curled up in my arms. He closed his eyes and we just laid together on the floor. Him snuggled up against me, breathing hard, eyes closed shut, squeezing and holding me, laying eternally still on my chest. I remain unable to explain the giant-esque of that moment. Except to suppose upon you how suddenly something so perfect had been assembled out of something so completely the opposite.
Maybe these thoughts are connected. I'm no pastor. But I will say as I drove home from school, the car empty except for the blazing sunlight, my thoughts connected it somehow with Heaven. That the beautiful sky will be something I will forget. Maybe even by the end of the day. Yesterday I don't suppose I'll ever forget. Such was the crater it left upon my memory. Our lives are detritus if we think about them. Our memories yield us only bits and pieces of our experience that time has split apart and cast about. We remember bits. We remember pieces of certain moments. But we very seldom remember the whole moment. And so what if that's Heaven. What if Heaven is that which makes us uniquely human: the ability to remember. And so in Heaven we remember, with exactitude, every moment. Some experiences we could stand to forget. Others we could die again and again to be able to remember just once.
But somethings been split apart. I am sure of this. And I much think it's time that's rent us. As C.S. Lewis supposed himself, “Do fish complain of the sea for being wet?... Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time… In heaven's name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something about us that is not temporal.”
How we will be restored? When. Where. I don't know. But in certain moments, like yesterday, like this morning, I feel a shudder of that restoration. Maybe that's Heaven. Perhaps it's Hell. But today will go on. The memories dance behind me mockingly, knowing I can never experience them wholly in this life again. Heaven will be what it will be. So as I move forward in this day, I have this quote from the movie "Leaves of Grass" in my mind: "We break the world. But it's also up to us to repair it."
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Part III: On Being Grafted
Part I: Why I Wanted to Write
Part II: A Long Road in the Same Direction
So I've been accepted into my top choice for graduate school. To study at a school that has, for me, resonated everything I've always thought. The way faith has synthesized with art has, for even before I wanted to be a writer -- since I first read Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton -- been immeasurably important to me. But in words I've never been able to express. That's why writing as a television producer never satisfied me at my inmost. Never resolved that long-plucked note. You just can't fathom things like filioque and Incarnations and Atonements in twenty-second, less than 15-words-a-sentence news copy. But in fiction, after reading O'Connor, I had arrived at the conclusion that it was possible in fiction. And having always been a lover of theology and "deep-thinking", a kind of syncretism became, for the first time, a quantifiable reality. I could become a writer.
Five years later, in at Seattle Pacific for degree a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, I'm still not anything like a writer. More like I'm this wild branch that's been granted this opportunity to be grafted onto this well-producing, abundant branch (read your Bible if you think I just came up with that). But that's really a good way of explaining where I find myself this morning. And how I feel about how things will now proceed for two years. It's just simply that: I've been grafted onto this tree of well-producing, inspiring fruit. And that I know have an incredible responsibility because who is to say that I can't just as easily end up un-grafted from it all. Don't think I haven't been on my knees in this past week expressing my utmost to God. At the joy. At the blessing. And for the hope of what now happens. Last night, in my devotions, I read this whole metaphor for Romans and it's hard not see it applying to me in this sense, considering where I am right now. And I got this sense of my new responsibility to being grafted onto this incredible community of writers to whom faith and art are not so much grafted, but have grown up from the same roots.
Part II: A Long Road in the Same Direction
So I've been accepted into my top choice for graduate school. To study at a school that has, for me, resonated everything I've always thought. The way faith has synthesized with art has, for even before I wanted to be a writer -- since I first read Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton -- been immeasurably important to me. But in words I've never been able to express. That's why writing as a television producer never satisfied me at my inmost. Never resolved that long-plucked note. You just can't fathom things like filioque and Incarnations and Atonements in twenty-second, less than 15-words-a-sentence news copy. But in fiction, after reading O'Connor, I had arrived at the conclusion that it was possible in fiction. And having always been a lover of theology and "deep-thinking", a kind of syncretism became, for the first time, a quantifiable reality. I could become a writer.
Five years later, in at Seattle Pacific for degree a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, I'm still not anything like a writer. More like I'm this wild branch that's been granted this opportunity to be grafted onto this well-producing, abundant branch (read your Bible if you think I just came up with that). But that's really a good way of explaining where I find myself this morning. And how I feel about how things will now proceed for two years. It's just simply that: I've been grafted onto this tree of well-producing, inspiring fruit. And that I know have an incredible responsibility because who is to say that I can't just as easily end up un-grafted from it all. Don't think I haven't been on my knees in this past week expressing my utmost to God. At the joy. At the blessing. And for the hope of what now happens. Last night, in my devotions, I read this whole metaphor for Romans and it's hard not see it applying to me in this sense, considering where I am right now. And I got this sense of my new responsibility to being grafted onto this incredible community of writers to whom faith and art are not so much grafted, but have grown up from the same roots.
Part I: Why I Wanted To Write
Five years ago this month I put down a short story by Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", and I know it sounds trite but I knew in that moment I wanted to be a writer. For reasons I can only now see can I ascertain the validity in that revelation. Because it was a revelation. Because I was already a writer. I wrote television news copy. I produced hours of live, breaking and recorded news every day. And I was damn good at it, especially the writing side of it -- I even won an in-house "Best News Writer Award"! -- but it was ultimately un-fulfilling. Then I read a biography of some Catholic writers. One of them O'Connor and then I read O'Connor and then what fell on me fell on me hard and fast and I knew becoming a writer was my new goal. To write with such a manner and means (yes, that phrase is borrowed) as to include my faith, my observations of the world, to have those ideas that have always struck me be inhabited by worlds and plots, characters and settings. Becoming a writer. Yes. That's what I wanted to be.
Skip ahead a year. Skip over that theology class on the Problem of Evil I took. Skip over the long hours trying to write. Trying to make something out of nothing. Skip over the doldrums of work, and the applying to switch jobs to become a television director. Pause and join me for this moment. Skip the applications. The scrambling to get recommendation letters and write and write and write.
It's now March of 2007. Isaac James Guest is due. Any day I'm about to welcome my son into this world. I am writing. But mostly I am waiting. Waiting to officially switch jobs. Waiting to go house shopping. Ohio State has rejected my application for grad school. But I am still waiting. Waiting for Isaac and waiting for Dayton. Dayton comes first. Acceptance to the M.A. program (I am still thinking maybe I'll duel degree with an MTS at this point and Dayton has a great theology program). But there are stipulations. I need to take two more English classes somewhere and do well in them.
But still. Acceptance. Still. It felt like morning had broken. Jen and I hugged and cried and were excited as we lay on our bed that Saturday morning before Isaac came.
It would take an entire year. A whole long year of a new job, a new son, a new house. But I completed the classes. Even re-applied to OSU (rejected!). And so with the classes under my belt I trucked down to Dayton for a Q&A with the director. I left. Drove home. Unsatisfied and confused and not really sure if the incredible sacrifice it was going to take with our family was going to be worth it.
Jen and I had a long discussion. Laid every possibility out. And the bottom-line was that it didn't feel right. Though I had worked and worked hard. Written and gotten better. Was ready to quit my job and head back to school. Though it all seemed aligned and strung up taught on the neck of a guitar, something was out of tune still. It wasn't right. Not yet.
Read Part II: A Long Road in the Same Direction
Skip ahead a year. Skip over that theology class on the Problem of Evil I took. Skip over the long hours trying to write. Trying to make something out of nothing. Skip over the doldrums of work, and the applying to switch jobs to become a television director. Pause and join me for this moment. Skip the applications. The scrambling to get recommendation letters and write and write and write.
It's now March of 2007. Isaac James Guest is due. Any day I'm about to welcome my son into this world. I am writing. But mostly I am waiting. Waiting to officially switch jobs. Waiting to go house shopping. Ohio State has rejected my application for grad school. But I am still waiting. Waiting for Isaac and waiting for Dayton. Dayton comes first. Acceptance to the M.A. program (I am still thinking maybe I'll duel degree with an MTS at this point and Dayton has a great theology program). But there are stipulations. I need to take two more English classes somewhere and do well in them.
But still. Acceptance. Still. It felt like morning had broken. Jen and I hugged and cried and were excited as we lay on our bed that Saturday morning before Isaac came.
It would take an entire year. A whole long year of a new job, a new son, a new house. But I completed the classes. Even re-applied to OSU (rejected!). And so with the classes under my belt I trucked down to Dayton for a Q&A with the director. I left. Drove home. Unsatisfied and confused and not really sure if the incredible sacrifice it was going to take with our family was going to be worth it.
Jen and I had a long discussion. Laid every possibility out. And the bottom-line was that it didn't feel right. Though I had worked and worked hard. Written and gotten better. Was ready to quit my job and head back to school. Though it all seemed aligned and strung up taught on the neck of a guitar, something was out of tune still. It wasn't right. Not yet.
Read Part II: A Long Road in the Same Direction
Part II: The Long Road In The Same Direction
Read Part I: Why I Wanted to Write
Apologies to Nietzsche.
Dayton was not going to work. So I trekked on. In 2008 I didn't reapply. I didn't hardly write much that year. Instead trudging along with work. With trying to write at work as a director. I think that year I wrote a lot though. I wrote a lot about Isaac. I've gone back over some of that writing. And while long term it wasn't at all what I hoped to write about (fiction vs non-fiction), it embodied a lot of the type of writing I wanted to explore. This idea that there is and was something large and ineffable at work in small moments. Read it all here. I am glad I did that writing. That I have a record of those experiences with Isaac that I have now almost all but forgotten. By the end of 2008 we were expecting Lucy. And so looking back not going to Dayton was absolutely the right decision. Things worked out immeasurably well.
To begin 2009, my sister-in-law and her three kids moved in with us for four months. I did almost no writing, but my reading habit improved. And though Jen and I had been talking about it before, we now became certain that once Lucy arrived in the summer I would quit my job, stay home with the kids and write and get into grad school the following year. And so Lucy came. And so I quit my job. And so I stayed home. It was an easy decision and a hard one. But I am blessed with an amazing wife who works harder than anyone I've known and who loves her job but loves her family with an incredible devotion and passion. And the opportunity to still live within our means and not have to put our young, young kids in the care and possession of somebody else has been a blessing, and it has been Jen's sacrifice. There were a number of reasons we decided on this course of action, in truth. We always talked about it being my sacrifice. My giving up my promising and steady, well-paying job in a horrible economy. But in truth it has not been my sacrifice. It has been my joy. And I know, as a result, it has been her joy as well. Not having to worry about the kids in someone elses care. To raise them like we have wanted to raise our kids has been the immeasurable blessing that I can't even now account for.
So I stayed home. Wrote and wrote. Got back from a weekend in Iowa and wrote and wrote more. And I applied to graduate school. And I didn't get in. Not anywhere. Not at any of my six schools. And so the next year, 2010, progressed along. A long road. I tried to write in different ways. To write in different places. I read more books than ever last year. Wrote more than ever. But after the sting of rejections. After the re-lacing of the bootstraps and sucking of it up, I enrolled in an online class through Image Journal and Seattle Pacific University. The school has a renowned MFA program -- though they were one of the six that did reject me -- and was where I wanted to go. So I enrolled in a class on Magical Realism with Gina Ochsner.
I cannot begin to account for the ways I suddenly became a better writer -- or at least feel like a better writer. That would probably take too long. Only know this: I saw my abilities as a writer could involve those same qualities I once wrote about with Isaac. That the infinite could inhabit the finite. That magic and hope and faith and joy are ultimately tied up in the same stuff. Gina was effusive and encouraging and inspiring. And I began to truly love what I was writing about, even if it stretched me more ways than I could imagine. Even if it became incredibly tough to write, I began to love and love and love writing. And so everything changed last year.
A year and a half at home with Isaac and Lucy was an incredible experience. I got to write about Isaac as a one-year-old and I got to spend my days with Lucy as a one-year-old. It has been a long journey. It has been a long road. From O'Connor to quiting my day job. From no kids to one kid to two adorable and joy-filled children. One year to two years and now going on five. Over 100 books read. More than fifty stories written. Isaac turns four on Saturday; Lucy turns two this summer. Jen is out of her residency and though working less hours, is still working harder in many other ways that have not been easy.
On this long road, nothing is ever easy. Nothing just comes upon us as simply as finishing a short story and in a Eureka! moment. Even if it did. Even if it was that easy it just isn't that easy. Because where you invest yourself, where you invest your love so you invest your life (I borrowed that too). And that's life. An investment of love. Easy in a moment, hard as hell over the months and months. A long, long road journeyed, steadily, unswervingly in that same direction.
On March 4th, 2011 I received a call from Greg Wolfe, the director of the Seattle Pacific University MFA program. He was calling me to tell me I've been accepted into the graduate program. To tell me that great writers like Gina Ochsner and Bret Lott will be my teachers. That locations like Santa Fe and Whidbey Island outside of Seattle will be my residency locations. That the past five years of this journey has reached something very much like a mountaintop.
Jen came home from work. I had already called my family. My friends knew. Only she didn't. She had another rough day at work. And as she was about to kick off her own well-trodden shoes I whispered in her ear that I had gotten a call from Seattle. And that was all I needed to say to her as she kicked off her shoes and jumped into my arms.
Read Part III: On Being Grafted
Apologies to Nietzsche.
Dayton was not going to work. So I trekked on. In 2008 I didn't reapply. I didn't hardly write much that year. Instead trudging along with work. With trying to write at work as a director. I think that year I wrote a lot though. I wrote a lot about Isaac. I've gone back over some of that writing. And while long term it wasn't at all what I hoped to write about (fiction vs non-fiction), it embodied a lot of the type of writing I wanted to explore. This idea that there is and was something large and ineffable at work in small moments. Read it all here. I am glad I did that writing. That I have a record of those experiences with Isaac that I have now almost all but forgotten. By the end of 2008 we were expecting Lucy. And so looking back not going to Dayton was absolutely the right decision. Things worked out immeasurably well.
To begin 2009, my sister-in-law and her three kids moved in with us for four months. I did almost no writing, but my reading habit improved. And though Jen and I had been talking about it before, we now became certain that once Lucy arrived in the summer I would quit my job, stay home with the kids and write and get into grad school the following year. And so Lucy came. And so I quit my job. And so I stayed home. It was an easy decision and a hard one. But I am blessed with an amazing wife who works harder than anyone I've known and who loves her job but loves her family with an incredible devotion and passion. And the opportunity to still live within our means and not have to put our young, young kids in the care and possession of somebody else has been a blessing, and it has been Jen's sacrifice. There were a number of reasons we decided on this course of action, in truth. We always talked about it being my sacrifice. My giving up my promising and steady, well-paying job in a horrible economy. But in truth it has not been my sacrifice. It has been my joy. And I know, as a result, it has been her joy as well. Not having to worry about the kids in someone elses care. To raise them like we have wanted to raise our kids has been the immeasurable blessing that I can't even now account for.
So I stayed home. Wrote and wrote. Got back from a weekend in Iowa and wrote and wrote more. And I applied to graduate school. And I didn't get in. Not anywhere. Not at any of my six schools. And so the next year, 2010, progressed along. A long road. I tried to write in different ways. To write in different places. I read more books than ever last year. Wrote more than ever. But after the sting of rejections. After the re-lacing of the bootstraps and sucking of it up, I enrolled in an online class through Image Journal and Seattle Pacific University. The school has a renowned MFA program -- though they were one of the six that did reject me -- and was where I wanted to go. So I enrolled in a class on Magical Realism with Gina Ochsner.
I cannot begin to account for the ways I suddenly became a better writer -- or at least feel like a better writer. That would probably take too long. Only know this: I saw my abilities as a writer could involve those same qualities I once wrote about with Isaac. That the infinite could inhabit the finite. That magic and hope and faith and joy are ultimately tied up in the same stuff. Gina was effusive and encouraging and inspiring. And I began to truly love what I was writing about, even if it stretched me more ways than I could imagine. Even if it became incredibly tough to write, I began to love and love and love writing. And so everything changed last year.
A year and a half at home with Isaac and Lucy was an incredible experience. I got to write about Isaac as a one-year-old and I got to spend my days with Lucy as a one-year-old. It has been a long journey. It has been a long road. From O'Connor to quiting my day job. From no kids to one kid to two adorable and joy-filled children. One year to two years and now going on five. Over 100 books read. More than fifty stories written. Isaac turns four on Saturday; Lucy turns two this summer. Jen is out of her residency and though working less hours, is still working harder in many other ways that have not been easy.
On this long road, nothing is ever easy. Nothing just comes upon us as simply as finishing a short story and in a Eureka! moment. Even if it did. Even if it was that easy it just isn't that easy. Because where you invest yourself, where you invest your love so you invest your life (I borrowed that too). And that's life. An investment of love. Easy in a moment, hard as hell over the months and months. A long, long road journeyed, steadily, unswervingly in that same direction.
On March 4th, 2011 I received a call from Greg Wolfe, the director of the Seattle Pacific University MFA program. He was calling me to tell me I've been accepted into the graduate program. To tell me that great writers like Gina Ochsner and Bret Lott will be my teachers. That locations like Santa Fe and Whidbey Island outside of Seattle will be my residency locations. That the past five years of this journey has reached something very much like a mountaintop.
Jen came home from work. I had already called my family. My friends knew. Only she didn't. She had another rough day at work. And as she was about to kick off her own well-trodden shoes I whispered in her ear that I had gotten a call from Seattle. And that was all I needed to say to her as she kicked off her shoes and jumped into my arms.
Read Part III: On Being Grafted
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
On Writing and Bookclubs
So I've joined a local book club. Last month we read Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close". And that was the reason I joined it. I liked Safran Foer. I wanted to read his second book.
So I joined this book club. Nervous and anxious about this as I was I made bad jokes about bringing my shawl. I pointed out my lack of manhood when it became clear that a dinner party we were invited to the same night as book club wasn't going to happen because one of the invitees had a hockey game to play in. Yeah. Well. I had book club. But I had book club. I went to book club. I liked book club. So I'm going back this week.
"Cry, The Beloved Country" is the book for this month. It's about South Africa. I didn't know that. Having been there, anything about South Africa stirs up intense nationalism in me. I watched Invictus. It sucked from being a bad film. From not quite understanding the country completely. But I knew that story so well. It was one of the first stories I heard in South Africa. The only story I heard repeated over and over everywhere we went.
I watched the World Cup this year with that same nationalism ricocheting in my breast. They had just received news that they were getting the World Cup when I was there in 2000. They were ecstatic. Exultant. Prideful. I played soccer everywhere I went. A little cricket and saw a rugby match, but I played soccer everywhere I went.
Three years ago I wrote a creative non-fiction piece about that summer mission trip to South Africa. I read it this morning, after reading "Cry, The Beloved Country". So far I have been rejected from two schools of my seven for graduate school for an MFA in fiction. But I read my piece on South Africa. It's not perfect, but it is good. Now I can see the flaws, the places where the narrative suffers. But I can see the heart of what I was writing about. I can feel it. And though I wrote the ending, I was utterly moved by the ending. Is that vain? To think I'm a good writer? Or even a better writer now? I've been silently rejected by two schools (neither my top choice). My confidence is waning -- writers are a sensitive bunch. But I read something I wrote and I really liked it. Even if it was hard to read because it was all about how I failed that summer.
So I'm in this book club and we're reading this book. So I've been in this country where the book takes place. So I've written a story about being in this country where the book I'm reading takes place. And I'm thinking I've always been a part of some story. And maybe I'm only in the middle of one right now, not at the end.
I've got five more schools still to hear from.
So I joined this book club. Nervous and anxious about this as I was I made bad jokes about bringing my shawl. I pointed out my lack of manhood when it became clear that a dinner party we were invited to the same night as book club wasn't going to happen because one of the invitees had a hockey game to play in. Yeah. Well. I had book club. But I had book club. I went to book club. I liked book club. So I'm going back this week.
"Cry, The Beloved Country" is the book for this month. It's about South Africa. I didn't know that. Having been there, anything about South Africa stirs up intense nationalism in me. I watched Invictus. It sucked from being a bad film. From not quite understanding the country completely. But I knew that story so well. It was one of the first stories I heard in South Africa. The only story I heard repeated over and over everywhere we went.
I watched the World Cup this year with that same nationalism ricocheting in my breast. They had just received news that they were getting the World Cup when I was there in 2000. They were ecstatic. Exultant. Prideful. I played soccer everywhere I went. A little cricket and saw a rugby match, but I played soccer everywhere I went.
Three years ago I wrote a creative non-fiction piece about that summer mission trip to South Africa. I read it this morning, after reading "Cry, The Beloved Country". So far I have been rejected from two schools of my seven for graduate school for an MFA in fiction. But I read my piece on South Africa. It's not perfect, but it is good. Now I can see the flaws, the places where the narrative suffers. But I can see the heart of what I was writing about. I can feel it. And though I wrote the ending, I was utterly moved by the ending. Is that vain? To think I'm a good writer? Or even a better writer now? I've been silently rejected by two schools (neither my top choice). My confidence is waning -- writers are a sensitive bunch. But I read something I wrote and I really liked it. Even if it was hard to read because it was all about how I failed that summer.
So I'm in this book club and we're reading this book. So I've been in this country where the book takes place. So I've written a story about being in this country where the book I'm reading takes place. And I'm thinking I've always been a part of some story. And maybe I'm only in the middle of one right now, not at the end.
I've got five more schools still to hear from.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
An Old Song, An Old Verse, A New Experience
So tonight my devotions led me to what is probably my favorite lyrical passage in the Bible. Romans 8:31-39. Anytime I think of Romans I think of the final verses of this passage. How absolutely grand in scope and idea it is, how poetic and exacting it was (for the Jewish people of the time especially), and how it first overwhelmed me.
I first heard about this verse through a song (Cue: 90s Christian Alt/Rock in the background). One of my earliest encounters with music that differed from my parents was The Kry, introduced to me by a man who helped shape me spiritually during my formative years, Bob Underwood. Himself a recovered alcoholic with a startling and inspiring testimony, Bob was a music lover, having been formed himself by rock bands of the 70s and 80s. So upon his conversion, he became an aficionado of all things Christian music -- especially along the Metal and Heavy Rock side of the niche industry (at that time; now Christian music is out of control -- I heard a lyric the other day that talked about giving "God a fist bump"? Really? Not that it's any worse than the drivel on any other radio station though. But this is another issue entirely.).
Back to Bob. So Bob, as our instructor in church doctrines, he also versed us in the music arena. Everything from White Heart and White Cross to other bands I can't even remember now. He gave us tapes of all kinds of bands. Issues of HM Magazine (Heaven's Metal Magazine). Most I never could get into. Heavy Rock and Metal is really not my thing. But the Kry I could get into. More stripped down Rock, or fossilized Rock. Rock music that sounded old and tired. But I liked their lyrics. I liked their melodies. In particular I liked two songs off their self-titled album from '94. "Take My Hand" (which I wrote about here once) and "I Believe in You". At the end of the latter song a child's voice drifts in as the rock chorus/guitar solo/orchestra fades dramatically. The child reads the verse from Romans. And that verse has stuck with me ever since.
Tonight I read the verse. I listened to the song again. Sure enough, it doesn't really hold up musically. Quite dated. Even lyrically it's not at all to my tastes these days. But something resonated anyway. I still knew all the words. Instantly. From the first overture of the melody in the :30 prelude of the song I was singing the words. And just as eagerly as I listened 17 years ago I listened again tonight. And I was still awestruck by the reciting voice at the end. Still simple. Still powerful.
This idea of being inseparable...stretching the neck on it a little. Humming the tune, the words, the scriptures in my head. Moments that mold us we can't ever seem to separate ourselves from. It's the microcosm of the idea Paul had in mind. That we are always connected. Always. Not only not able to be separated, but always connected. To those individual spiritual experiences, those individual life experiences that impact us in a moment, impact us billions of moments later.
And also this: That Love itself is a great thing to be unable to be separated from.
I first heard about this verse through a song (Cue: 90s Christian Alt/Rock in the background). One of my earliest encounters with music that differed from my parents was The Kry, introduced to me by a man who helped shape me spiritually during my formative years, Bob Underwood. Himself a recovered alcoholic with a startling and inspiring testimony, Bob was a music lover, having been formed himself by rock bands of the 70s and 80s. So upon his conversion, he became an aficionado of all things Christian music -- especially along the Metal and Heavy Rock side of the niche industry (at that time; now Christian music is out of control -- I heard a lyric the other day that talked about giving "God a fist bump"? Really? Not that it's any worse than the drivel on any other radio station though. But this is another issue entirely.).
Back to Bob. So Bob, as our instructor in church doctrines, he also versed us in the music arena. Everything from White Heart and White Cross to other bands I can't even remember now. He gave us tapes of all kinds of bands. Issues of HM Magazine (Heaven's Metal Magazine). Most I never could get into. Heavy Rock and Metal is really not my thing. But the Kry I could get into. More stripped down Rock, or fossilized Rock. Rock music that sounded old and tired. But I liked their lyrics. I liked their melodies. In particular I liked two songs off their self-titled album from '94. "Take My Hand" (which I wrote about here once) and "I Believe in You". At the end of the latter song a child's voice drifts in as the rock chorus/guitar solo/orchestra fades dramatically. The child reads the verse from Romans. And that verse has stuck with me ever since.
Tonight I read the verse. I listened to the song again. Sure enough, it doesn't really hold up musically. Quite dated. Even lyrically it's not at all to my tastes these days. But something resonated anyway. I still knew all the words. Instantly. From the first overture of the melody in the :30 prelude of the song I was singing the words. And just as eagerly as I listened 17 years ago I listened again tonight. And I was still awestruck by the reciting voice at the end. Still simple. Still powerful.
This idea of being inseparable...stretching the neck on it a little. Humming the tune, the words, the scriptures in my head. Moments that mold us we can't ever seem to separate ourselves from. It's the microcosm of the idea Paul had in mind. That we are always connected. Always. Not only not able to be separated, but always connected. To those individual spiritual experiences, those individual life experiences that impact us in a moment, impact us billions of moments later.
And also this: That Love itself is a great thing to be unable to be separated from.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
On My Perception of Inception
Let's be clear: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. A great movie experience. Thoughtful and wholly unique. Rousing effects and chase scenes. Great directing, writing, editing, etc. Thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie.
But like any good book I enjoy, I find weaknesses in them. Points and plot direction that fail to work. And I realize with Inception that I am in quite a minority. So though I enjoyed the movie, it didn't resonate to me as being one of the great movies of all time (And mind you I'm hedging that category to blanket movies of this nature: with sci-fi bends and twists, action and philosophy. Matrix-y type movies.) I also didn't think it was even one of the best movies of the year. So let me tell you why....
Sure the plot was intricate. But it wasn't tough to follow. Nolan, much to his credit, realized the nuances and took the time to explain them. And he did so rather eloquently with the Architect. So much so that I could have tolerated an entire movie about the designing of dreams via the Architect. That was fascinating to me. But the movie didn't stop to enjoy the view, instead opting to climb higher (or lower as it was) to get a 'better view'. The nature of dreams explained, our belief wonderfully and subtly asked to be suspended to allow for the merry-band-of-dream-invaders to easily parade in and out of dreams, the movie then veers to nothing more than a heist kind of movie. And this is where Nolan truly lost me. He had this wonderful, amazing idea and then degraded it into a heist flick. Making the Fischer character completely one-dimensional as the villain/target/mark by his easy acquiescence to everything Cobb told him. Sure there were too many other twists and turns to have Fischer be anything but easy to convince. But if I can't feel the catharsis for Fischer's character then how can I be expected to feel rewarded as a patron.
This leads me to other character problems because this is where the movie disappointed me. Arthur, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was too shallow and gave off an air of discontent without every truly allowing him to rebel like his character needed too. Ariadne was also too shallow. We are introduced to her with the promise of genius and then nothing. At all. And I am still not clear on exactly how she was so easily allowed to challenge Cobb. What right did she have? I know it's movie-making, but it's also story-telling. And there was more story that needed to be there for that to work. Characters were way to shallow for a movie as literally deep as this. Way too shallow. Even Cobb didn't quite work out. Almost. But not quite. The only character truly penetrating and real was Mal. You felt her anguish. Her isolation. Her rage.
All this said, Inception did challenge some ideas. Like how memories and dreams are different. And how memories can penetrate dreams. Also about ideas. How they are solely unique if they are truly ideas -- I could've used a lot more on this concept.
As for that controversial last scene: eh. It was an utterly shameful break from the narrative. An outright challenge to the viewer. And that. never. works. You can't break from the Voice in the final shot. You can't issue a challenge, a talking point completely out of context within the movie, the only commentary on that challenge being a lingering shot of the top and the scene going to blank. It's shameful and it left me viscerally upset as a story-teller. Like the time I immediately put down "The Shack" on page 63 because the narrative broke completely as the author clearly interjected his own voice and commentary into the scene devoid of any of the other characters present in it. I'm not a perfect writer myself, I do similar things sometimes. And it never, ever works.
For what it's worth, I would've written that last scene to show Cobb pulling the top out of his pocket, look at it and contemplate spinning it, look at his kids playing, look back at the top and then put the top back in his pocket. Because whatever was real at that point truly didn't matter to Cobb. And so it shouldn't matter to us whether it actually was real or not, because to Cobb all that mattered was that he was with his kids, wherever he was. We still could've debated it like it's been done, but the narrative wouldn't have been broken and the scene would've been more poignant. In my mind.
Still a very good movie. At one point I found it better than Memento. Now I'm not so sure. Both will need repeated viewings. And in my book, a movie I must return to means it's something special, even if flawed -- which maybe the only way it can be special. Who wants perfections anyway? That's a crazy idea...
For further reference on EXCELLENT movies dealing with mind, philosophy, dreams, love, loss, memories: see Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Synecdoche, New York)
But like any good book I enjoy, I find weaknesses in them. Points and plot direction that fail to work. And I realize with Inception that I am in quite a minority. So though I enjoyed the movie, it didn't resonate to me as being one of the great movies of all time (And mind you I'm hedging that category to blanket movies of this nature: with sci-fi bends and twists, action and philosophy. Matrix-y type movies.) I also didn't think it was even one of the best movies of the year. So let me tell you why....
Sure the plot was intricate. But it wasn't tough to follow. Nolan, much to his credit, realized the nuances and took the time to explain them. And he did so rather eloquently with the Architect. So much so that I could have tolerated an entire movie about the designing of dreams via the Architect. That was fascinating to me. But the movie didn't stop to enjoy the view, instead opting to climb higher (or lower as it was) to get a 'better view'. The nature of dreams explained, our belief wonderfully and subtly asked to be suspended to allow for the merry-band-of-dream-invaders to easily parade in and out of dreams, the movie then veers to nothing more than a heist kind of movie. And this is where Nolan truly lost me. He had this wonderful, amazing idea and then degraded it into a heist flick. Making the Fischer character completely one-dimensional as the villain/target/mark by his easy acquiescence to everything Cobb told him. Sure there were too many other twists and turns to have Fischer be anything but easy to convince. But if I can't feel the catharsis for Fischer's character then how can I be expected to feel rewarded as a patron.
This leads me to other character problems because this is where the movie disappointed me. Arthur, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was too shallow and gave off an air of discontent without every truly allowing him to rebel like his character needed too. Ariadne was also too shallow. We are introduced to her with the promise of genius and then nothing. At all. And I am still not clear on exactly how she was so easily allowed to challenge Cobb. What right did she have? I know it's movie-making, but it's also story-telling. And there was more story that needed to be there for that to work. Characters were way to shallow for a movie as literally deep as this. Way too shallow. Even Cobb didn't quite work out. Almost. But not quite. The only character truly penetrating and real was Mal. You felt her anguish. Her isolation. Her rage.
All this said, Inception did challenge some ideas. Like how memories and dreams are different. And how memories can penetrate dreams. Also about ideas. How they are solely unique if they are truly ideas -- I could've used a lot more on this concept.
As for that controversial last scene: eh. It was an utterly shameful break from the narrative. An outright challenge to the viewer. And that. never. works. You can't break from the Voice in the final shot. You can't issue a challenge, a talking point completely out of context within the movie, the only commentary on that challenge being a lingering shot of the top and the scene going to blank. It's shameful and it left me viscerally upset as a story-teller. Like the time I immediately put down "The Shack" on page 63 because the narrative broke completely as the author clearly interjected his own voice and commentary into the scene devoid of any of the other characters present in it. I'm not a perfect writer myself, I do similar things sometimes. And it never, ever works.
For what it's worth, I would've written that last scene to show Cobb pulling the top out of his pocket, look at it and contemplate spinning it, look at his kids playing, look back at the top and then put the top back in his pocket. Because whatever was real at that point truly didn't matter to Cobb. And so it shouldn't matter to us whether it actually was real or not, because to Cobb all that mattered was that he was with his kids, wherever he was. We still could've debated it like it's been done, but the narrative wouldn't have been broken and the scene would've been more poignant. In my mind.
Still a very good movie. At one point I found it better than Memento. Now I'm not so sure. Both will need repeated viewings. And in my book, a movie I must return to means it's something special, even if flawed -- which maybe the only way it can be special. Who wants perfections anyway? That's a crazy idea...
For further reference on EXCELLENT movies dealing with mind, philosophy, dreams, love, loss, memories: see Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Synecdoche, New York)
Sunday, January 16, 2011
On A Weekend Of Mary Poppins
For the most part I like musicals -- provided the music is good. This idea that life suddenly is so that you just break into song... well I am infatuated by that. Life is a lyric. Sometimes a good lyric. Sometimes a not-so-good-holy-crap-did-we-just-lose-to-the-Jets-at-home bad lyric (in those moments it helps to flip on the previous night's SNL which included a particular musical performance by Cee-Lo Green). But life is sometimes best described in song. And so that much of Mary Poppins I expected to love. As a kid I watched the movie almost every time I went to Nana and Grandpy's house. But I hadn't seen it in 20 years.
The music is just great. Simple and yet rich lyrics. Catchy. Melodic. And just plain fun to sing. Already Isaac is singing "Spoonful of Sugar" and "Step in Time" and "Let's Go Fly A Kite". Lucy was bee-bopping around the room to "Step in Time". Now Isaac's not a fan of the "Feed the Birds" song. And I admit that one is a little out of place in the narrative of the movie. Too predictive of the future even for someone as magical as Mary Poppins. And mildly creepy, eerie sounding.
But where I didn't expect this movie to get me was in the idea of it all. In the magic of it. Quite simply it is an absolutely marvelous movie. Acted. Written. Directed. And the magic. Oh the magic. So inspired. So beautiful. And so seems to just creep in on you from the corners of your mouth, like that smile the Edwardian Mary Poppins can't ever keep from emitting, or tapping her foot too. It's just there. Just hidden enough and yet ready to explode, to overwhelm the reality. Like her smile. The magic in Mary Poppins is restrained just enough to not be overwhelming. To not be about the magic of Mary Poppins but about the magic of life. Of living. Of celebrating moments with family, with each other. Even between Bert and Mary I was overwhelmed by their relationship that existed, clearly, but was still on the periphery. Hidden, but curling at the corners. These things I didn't see as a child viewer but see them now as I watch it with my children beside me.
I'll admit to crying when the father has his awakening moment. I'm a dad. I'm not always a good dad. I have faults and I'm not perfect. But it's something always worth all my time. The father in Mary Poppins realized this. And it just floored me. Caught me way off guard only moments after dancing along with Isaac and Lucy to "Step in Time". How is this movie about that too? They don't make movies like this anymore.
The magic in Mary Poppins is that it's a really, really good movie. It's pure fun and pure ingeniousness (it had to improve off of Travers' book according to what I've read of it). It's Disney's crowning achievement still. Almost 50 years later. It's also profound. Simply, utterly profound. And magical. I can't say that enough because I felt it in every scene. Felt that grand sense of "what if" we could jump into a painting; "what if" we could laugh until we floated away; "what if" we could snap our fingers and watch our toys all be made right.
That's the thing about the right, good magic in books and movies. The magic that leaves you asking, "What if". When I can't help but wonder not only "what if". That it's somehow, in some way, because of something, possible.
The music is just great. Simple and yet rich lyrics. Catchy. Melodic. And just plain fun to sing. Already Isaac is singing "Spoonful of Sugar" and "Step in Time" and "Let's Go Fly A Kite". Lucy was bee-bopping around the room to "Step in Time". Now Isaac's not a fan of the "Feed the Birds" song. And I admit that one is a little out of place in the narrative of the movie. Too predictive of the future even for someone as magical as Mary Poppins. And mildly creepy, eerie sounding.
But where I didn't expect this movie to get me was in the idea of it all. In the magic of it. Quite simply it is an absolutely marvelous movie. Acted. Written. Directed. And the magic. Oh the magic. So inspired. So beautiful. And so seems to just creep in on you from the corners of your mouth, like that smile the Edwardian Mary Poppins can't ever keep from emitting, or tapping her foot too. It's just there. Just hidden enough and yet ready to explode, to overwhelm the reality. Like her smile. The magic in Mary Poppins is restrained just enough to not be overwhelming. To not be about the magic of Mary Poppins but about the magic of life. Of living. Of celebrating moments with family, with each other. Even between Bert and Mary I was overwhelmed by their relationship that existed, clearly, but was still on the periphery. Hidden, but curling at the corners. These things I didn't see as a child viewer but see them now as I watch it with my children beside me.
I'll admit to crying when the father has his awakening moment. I'm a dad. I'm not always a good dad. I have faults and I'm not perfect. But it's something always worth all my time. The father in Mary Poppins realized this. And it just floored me. Caught me way off guard only moments after dancing along with Isaac and Lucy to "Step in Time". How is this movie about that too? They don't make movies like this anymore.
The magic in Mary Poppins is that it's a really, really good movie. It's pure fun and pure ingeniousness (it had to improve off of Travers' book according to what I've read of it). It's Disney's crowning achievement still. Almost 50 years later. It's also profound. Simply, utterly profound. And magical. I can't say that enough because I felt it in every scene. Felt that grand sense of "what if" we could jump into a painting; "what if" we could laugh until we floated away; "what if" we could snap our fingers and watch our toys all be made right.
That's the thing about the right, good magic in books and movies. The magic that leaves you asking, "What if". When I can't help but wonder not only "what if". That it's somehow, in some way, because of something, possible.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
On Looking Out At The World
In lieu of the recent Derek Webb brou-ha-ha on the Internets, maybe it's about time I joined the fray. Not so much because I really feel the need to opine about one of my favorite musicians and his HuffPo interview. But more because something Webb frequently says via Twitter that troubles me. And not the "troubles me for his soul" kind of troubles me -- let's be clear on that point: I'm not attacking the man at all -- just exploring something he says that has me thinking. Webb frequently says that he only "looks at the world and tells you what [he] see". It's led me to question the objective of the artist.
As I writer -- or trying-to-be-writer -- I have placed two tentative footsteps into the world of the artist. So I have pondered my new role. And Webb's outlook has certainly not been my own. While I am in agreement that an artist does look out at the world, I'm not sure that's the complete story. It seems, at least in the snipped contexts of Twitter, that Webb's response on behalf of himself the artist feels like a cop out. A way to end rather unseemly discussions -- that do, in actuality, need ending. But still. To me being an artist necessitates responsibility -- to the art form, to the subject matter, to the people we aim to transmit the art to. And merely looking and telling seems to prevent that responsibility from occurring.
It's as if the artist (and not necessarily Webb here -- I don't know him at all, just exploring his expressed position in terms of my own thoughts) is saying -- don't blame me, or don't fault me, it's the way the world is, judge for yourself. There's merit there, of course. It gets people talking. Promotes a level of discussion -- sometimes healthy, sometimes unhealthy. But how can an artist -- musician, writer, painter, etc -- remain inside his room with a view and not subject himself to the art he expresses? How can he only look and tell and not feel? Or not what to feel? Or not want to be scarred forever by it? Am I missing something? Am I not far enough inside the doorstep? Am I the young ER doctor who weeps after losing his first patient while the older partners hardly blink and look down at me?
Perhaps I'm being too nuanced about it. But it's got me asking about the life of the artist-- That it's only a look and tell approach? Not trying to bring Jesus into this, but that's not the approach He took. He added the feel. He added the "be affected by your art" when He stepped into the painting.
Tonight I stumbled across a line from the book My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, "An artist is responsible to his art. Anything else is propaganda.” That summed up what I've been thinking in my own head. Art burdens a weight of responsibility upon the shoulders of the artist. I want my art to bear something of the Artist. I want to step inside it, to feel it, suffer it's sufferings, joy in its joys, smudge in its smudges. I want to emerge from one of my stories affected, to have the taste of it remain in my mouth long after I moved on to other stories.
Where does this leave me? Where does it leave those I hope to also be affected by my art? What position does this leave me to defend my future art to critics? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
As I writer -- or trying-to-be-writer -- I have placed two tentative footsteps into the world of the artist. So I have pondered my new role. And Webb's outlook has certainly not been my own. While I am in agreement that an artist does look out at the world, I'm not sure that's the complete story. It seems, at least in the snipped contexts of Twitter, that Webb's response on behalf of himself the artist feels like a cop out. A way to end rather unseemly discussions -- that do, in actuality, need ending. But still. To me being an artist necessitates responsibility -- to the art form, to the subject matter, to the people we aim to transmit the art to. And merely looking and telling seems to prevent that responsibility from occurring.
It's as if the artist (and not necessarily Webb here -- I don't know him at all, just exploring his expressed position in terms of my own thoughts) is saying -- don't blame me, or don't fault me, it's the way the world is, judge for yourself. There's merit there, of course. It gets people talking. Promotes a level of discussion -- sometimes healthy, sometimes unhealthy. But how can an artist -- musician, writer, painter, etc -- remain inside his room with a view and not subject himself to the art he expresses? How can he only look and tell and not feel? Or not what to feel? Or not want to be scarred forever by it? Am I missing something? Am I not far enough inside the doorstep? Am I the young ER doctor who weeps after losing his first patient while the older partners hardly blink and look down at me?
Perhaps I'm being too nuanced about it. But it's got me asking about the life of the artist-- That it's only a look and tell approach? Not trying to bring Jesus into this, but that's not the approach He took. He added the feel. He added the "be affected by your art" when He stepped into the painting.
Tonight I stumbled across a line from the book My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, "An artist is responsible to his art. Anything else is propaganda.” That summed up what I've been thinking in my own head. Art burdens a weight of responsibility upon the shoulders of the artist. I want my art to bear something of the Artist. I want to step inside it, to feel it, suffer it's sufferings, joy in its joys, smudge in its smudges. I want to emerge from one of my stories affected, to have the taste of it remain in my mouth long after I moved on to other stories.
Where does this leave me? Where does it leave those I hope to also be affected by my art? What position does this leave me to defend my future art to critics? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
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