A new film from Werner Herzog "From One Second To The Next"

The German filmmaker Werner Herzog has fashioned some of the most fascinatingly bizarre movies in history. From a documentary about a man who lives with grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness to the epic German New Wave picture about Spanish conquistadors searching for El Dorado he's become synonymous with art house strangeness.

Now Herzog has turned to a more quotidian subject -- the perils of texting behind the wheel. Not only that this project is funded by some of the biggest corporations in America. But don't let that stop you from watching. I confess I've been guilty of texting while driving, but after watching these stories. . . never again.

Terrence Malick's Beatific Vision cont'd

Last night I finally had a chance to watch Malick's latest movie To the Wonder (2012). If you're not a fan of Malick's fragmentary non-narrative style then this isn't for you. If you didn't like The Tree of Life (2011) you will hate this. Actually the two films form a pair. As if to make this explicit Malick includes a brief bit of footage from the earlier picture in To the Wonder, so brief that I missed it but it said so in the credits! Theological and philosophical ideas that were hinted at in The Tree of Life are explored more directly here. I don't have time to do a proper review -- and honestly one can only form first impressions on the initial viewing of any Malick film -- but this is nothing less than a continuation of the beatific vision that shows up in one form or another in all of his work, but especially so in the final pages of The Tree of Life.

Yet here that vision takes on an earthiness, a this-worldness, as explored via the character of Father Quintana (played by Javier Bardem), a priest walking through the valley of the shadow of doubt, yearning for a glimpse of heaven in the midst of the suffering and failure he witnesses all around him. Malick allows us to see that -- paradoxically perhaps -- the God that remains hidden to Father Quintana is strikingly evident in his life as he serves his community through word, deed and sacrament. God in Christ is at work in this world, heaven is invading earth, and this is happening through weak and doubting people like this priest.

To the Wonder is Malick's most ecstatic utterance so far, as exemplified by this montage accompanied by Javier Bardem's voiceover prayer. It's one you may recognize.

     

A further note on prayer (Gregory of Nyssa)

Gregory of Nyssa was one of the 4th century Cappadocian Fathers -- so called because they came from the region of Asia Minor called Cappadocia (present-day Turkey). Gregory's writings on prayer feature prominently in Worshiping With the Church Fathers. In the last post on this book I shared the Fathers' insight that the practice of prayer propels a movement from self-deception to self-awareness.

A large part of our self-deception is a misjudgment of what's really important. Even Christians can become practical atheists, leaving God out of our daily work and plans.


 Gregory described it like this. . .

For the craftsman considers that the Divine assistance is quite useless for the work he has in mind. Therefore he leaves prayer aside and places all his hopes in his hands, without remembering Him who has given him his hands. In the same way someone who carefully composes a speech does not think of Him who has given him speech. . . . everyone devotes all his energy to the work he has in hand, forgetting completely the work of prayer because he thinks that the time he gives to God is lost to the work he has purposed to do.

Thus, it comes about that life is so full of sin. . . . Everyone keeps forgetting God, and people do not count prayer among the good things worth pursuing. Covetousness enters together with trade; but covetousness is idolatry.

Gregory diagnoses this busy forgetfulness as a "spiritual sickness" because it leaves Christians vulnerable to the schemes of the evil one. If this was a danger in his day how much more so in a society characterized by the urgent imperatives of the moment. Rightly ordered reality -- which is what worship is (thank you for reminding me of that Pastor Dan!) -- reorders our priorities. Instead of forgetting God we begin to practice a constant awareness of him.

For when the consciousness of God is firmly established in the heart, the devices of the devil remain sterile.

Quotes by Gregory of Nyssa from pp. 146-7 of Christopher A. Hall, Worshiping With the Church Fathers (InterVarsity, 2009)

Culture and Agriculture. . .100-proof Berry

It's been a while since I posted anything from Mr. Wendell Berry, who had his 79th birthday on Monday of this week. I just began reading The Unsettling of America. This is the book that put Berry the essayist "on the map" so to speak, and it's a book that continues to have legs almost forty years after it was published.

In some ways this is the work of an angry young man (if you consider being in one's 40's young). There's a perceptibly sharper edge than what comes after. If I'd read The Unsettling of America before some of Berry's later nonfiction I might not have liked him as much as I now do. For instance, a statement like the following might seem too strident and over the top, as Berry inveighs against an "era of absolute human sovereignty" and "absolute human presumption. . . the flag of Ferdinand and Isabella in the hand of Columbus on the shores of the Indies becomes Old Glory in the hand of Neil Armstrong on the moon. An infinitely greedy sovereign is afoot in the universe, staking his claims." (p. 55)

Really? Can't we find any redeeming quality, any nobility, in mankind's impulse to discover new frontiers which led Columbus to discover a New World, and inspired a nation to put a man on the moon?

No, you won't find nuance here, but you won't find it either in prophetic writings going back to the Hebrew prophets and psalmists of old. The Unsettling of America isn't that kind of book.

The subtitle "Culture & Agriculture" points to this then unknown author's audacious aim, and he begins to bring the two together in Chapter 4: "The Agricultural Crisis as a Crisis of Culture." It begins as Berry recounts the history of his beloved Henry County, Kentucky -- a county that was in Berry's childhood a rural farming community, but which was becoming in the 1970's merely rural. Once-cultivated land was succumbing to neglect, and farms that remained were increasingly owned by out-of-town operators who were able to adapt to the "get big or get out" imperative of government and agribusiness. (Here's a clue to what separates Berry's approach to the land from most "environmentalists" -- a term he dislikes. Rather than the environmentalist goal of preservation, i.e. keeping the wilderness in a pristine state, Berry is an advocate of wise use.) Berry's anger is incandescent as he describes the effects of the absolutizing values of efficiency and bigness on the farming economy of Henry Co.

And nowhere now is there a market for minor produce: a bucket of cream, a hen, a few dozen eggs. One cannot sell milk from a few cows anymore; the law-required equipment is too expensive. Those markets were done away with in the name of sanitation—but, of course, to the enrichment of the large producers. We have always had to have "a good reason" for doing away with small operators, and in modern times the good reason has often been sanitation, for which there is apparently no small or cheap technology. Future historians will no doubt remark upon the inevitable association, with us, between sanitation and filthy lucre. And it is one of the miracles of science and hygiene that the germs that used to be in our food have been replaced by poisons. (p. 41)

Along with "efficiency" and "bigness" Berry indicts the mania for specialization in agriculture and education. This results in government bureaucrats telling farmers to eschew diversity in what they grow, and universities becoming places where one goes to learn a "profession," what Berry calls "fragmented, one-eyed specialties." An absolute faith in technology, and oversimplification, has replaced a holistic complex approach to the problems of agriculture and culture. Berry eloquently argues that the same values which nourish a healthy farm culture also make for a healthy culture. And what is that healthy culture? In offering a tentative answer to that question Berry's parochial concern for his native Kentucky soil takes on wings and soars.

A culture is not a collection of relics or ornaments, but a practical necessity, and its corruption invokes a calamity. A healthy culture is a communal order of memory, insight, value, work, conviviality, reverence, aspiration. It reveals the human necessities and the human limits. It clarifies our inescapable bonds to the earth and to each other. It assures that the necessary restraints are observed, that the necessary work is done, and that it is done well. (p. 43)

Quotes from The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture (Sierra Club Books, 1977)

The End of Growth (our luck is running out)

My response to this TED talk by economist Robert Gordon? Precisely.




via Rod Dreher

The Church Fathers on prayer

What reason is there to go to prayer with hands indeed washed, but the spirit foul?

- Tertullian

A while back I wrote about Worshiping with the Church Fathers by Christopher Hall (InterVarsity, 2009). Reading this book opened a window on ideas about worship, and practices of worship, that I wasn't all that familiar with. Some of these ideas and practices might seem alien to a contemporary Christian's experience, but that just might be a clue that our experience would be enriched by tapping into this formative period of church history.

My previous post dealt with the fathers' approach to the sacraments (as sketched out by Hall), now I share some thoughts on their approach to prayer. The fathers took with literal seriousness the biblical command to pray without ceasing. They saw constant communion with God, and experience of his presence, to be something within reach. Granted, they didn't have the same obstacles that we modern always-plugged-into-the-grid people have, but the problem remained -- how does one overcome the distractions that keep one from praying?

Hall draws heavily in this chapter from a Syrian desert father called Abba Isaac. He recommended picking a verse of scripture to use as a "tether" to keep a wandering mind tied to the "perpetual awareness of God." The verse Isaac selected was Psalm 70:1 -- "Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me!" The urgency of the Psalmist is a reminder of the constant peril we face and the moment-by-moment salvation we need. There's also a confidence that God will hear and is close at hand to offer the deliverance we need. I have this verse taped to my computer at work.

The church fathers recognized that a primary obstacle to prayer was the problem of self-deception. Hall writes:

We are deeply, horribly, infinitely self-deceived. And our fundamental self-deception manifests itself in a deep-seated tendency to lie about the true state of affairs in our lives. We imagine ourselves generous yet rarely give anything away. Pure in our thinking yet addicted to a weekly jaunt through the Web's darkest corridors. We can blithely assassinate someone's character and five minutes later be sitting in a worship service or retreat center, praying for the very same person whose character we murdered earlier. Our habituated thoughts and behaviors are who we are—they are us, our character. And it is our character that we bring into prayer with us.

Tertullian (as evidenced by the quote above) and others of his contemporaries didn't think it was possible to separate one's "spiritual life" from his or her "everyday life." We can't leave our dirty laundry outside when we come in to pray. "What's going on outside of prayer invariably leaks into prayer itself." However, "This doesn't mean that we should stop praying, for prayer is a principal means of healing and reshaping our character into the image of Christ." The fathers viewed prayer as a movement from self-deception to self-awareness. They remind us that in the practice of constant prayer we are transformed.


All quotes from p. 87 & 135 of Worshiping with the Church Fathers (InterVarsity, 2009)

Dealing with spousal and child abuse in the church

I found this weeks episode of the Mortification of Spin podcast helpful and thought-provoking. It gave me some suggestions that I'll be passing on to the pastors and session of the church in which I serve as an elder. In fact, I think this is pretty much required listening if you are a pastor, elder, or church leader of any kind.

You can find it on iTunes or listen here.

They always get away

Rather than offering my two cents on the George Zimmerman trial and verdict (which I didn't follow closely) here are some worthwhile words from my friend Chris -- a brother in Christ and a young man wise beyond his years. He posted this on social media earlier today.

"'They always get away.' These were the words George Zimmerman uttered as he followed and later shot Trayvon Martin -- words that reflected his belief that Trayvon was one of "them," the kind of person about to get away with something. How ironic these words sound now in light of the jury verdict acquitting Zimmerman."

Do I agree with the verdict of Zimmerman: Yes. In the context of Florida's legal system, Zimmerman was not proven guilty, not even close--there was simply too much ambiguity on any of the considered positive evidence for Trayvon, and there was positive evidence against Trayvon to justify Zimmerman's claim to self-defense.

But this quote portrays what bothers me the most, my friends--i.e., certain dispositions Zimmerman revealed (which were, might I mention, completely false and unjustified) that led to the unfortunate death of Trayvon Martin.

Speaking from my experiences, I have been on the bad end of several instances of racial profiling. While occurring, I often think to myself "These people have no idea who I am." I love the same Christ which these white people probably find themselves worshipping in their churches on Sunday. I also find myself with an unswerving passion for philosophy of religion and philosophical theology--because of this, I mostly study dead or dying white men. I also am far from the biggest fan of rap music, preferring to listen to indie and classical instead.

Yet, no matter how much I might distance myself from stereotypical caricatures of black men in America, I've still faced the same, tired racial profiling.The frustration in enduring this is difficult to communicate, yet it, undoubtedly, shapes how I, along with others of similar experiences, view cases like Trayvon's. It is this aspect of experience which colors our conscience, and it is this which we ask for sympathy and understanding toward.

You can find more of Chris' writing at the blog Christ, My Redeemer

A pro-life story

The other day Rod Dreher wrote: "Argument has its place, but story is what truly moves the hearts and minds of men." An example . . .

Embracing "radical ordinariness"

This piece by Tish Harrison Warren resonated with me. Perhaps it will with you. Here's an excerpt: 

A prominent New Monasticism community house had a sign on the wall that famously read “Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” My life is really rich in dirty dishes (and diapers) these days and really short in revolutions. I go to a church full of older people who live pretty normal, middle-class lives in nice, middle-class houses. But I have really come to appreciate this community, to see their lifetimes of sturdy faithfulness to Jesus, their commitment to prayer, and the tangible, beautiful generosity that they show those around them in unnoticed, unimpressive, unmarketable, unrevolutionary ways. And each week, we average sinners and boring saints gather around ordinary bread and wine and Christ himself is there with us.

And here is the embarrassing truth: I still believe in and long for a revolution. I still think I can make a difference beyond just my front door. I still want to live radically for Jesus and be part of him changing the world. I still think mediocrity is dull, and I still fret about settling.

But I’ve come to the point where I’m not sure anymore just what God counts as radical. And I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I’m short on sleep and patience is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I’ve lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day — an afternoon with a colicky baby where I’m probably going to snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbor — without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough.

So, so true.