The film, The Lives of
Others (2006) takes us into the dreary, loveless existence of an East
German Stasi officer as he follows orders to spy on a couple who the State
deems dangerous dissidents. They are artists, to whom beauty has revealed that
life consists of more than duty and that to be just law must nurture human
flourishing not suppress creativity and true community. So the officer begins
his grim task, but as he listens in the music and conversations he overhears
begin to awaken something deep within his soul. The beauty of art is shown to
be not neutral but a powerful expression of grace.
This video, simpler yet equally moving shows an old man in a
nursing home, unresponsive and uncommunicative. Until the staff decide to use
an iPod to let him hear “his” music.
Yesterday was Sunday, and I was impressed more than is usual
by the time of Confession in the liturgy. I was raised in a tradition where
this is not included in church meetings, the argument being that no biblical
text can be named that commands its inclusion. No one seemed to notice that the
order of service we followed was as I see things now, painfully human-centric,
nor that the historic liturgy we rejected was shaped by the demands of the
gospel. So, Confession usually catches my attention but yesterday it did so
rather sharply. “We are a mess,” the pastor said, “and making a mess,” and then
drew our attention to Titus 3:2. There we are told, “to speak evil of no one,
to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all
people.” Surely the apostle didn’t mean for us to apply that during a
presidential primary season.
A friend mentioned that he has taken to asking a question
before meetings, discussions, and classes begin: “What will you do in order to
be fully present while we are together?” Recently I have noticed elders FaceBooking
during a worship service, friends checking email on iPhones during
conversations, people Tweeting during discussions, and others surfing the
Internet on laptops that were supposedly there in order to take notes. In each
case their actions had an effect on me, convincing me that they were
intentionally only partially present though each would insist, I am certain,
that they be taken fully seriously as a participant.
I turned on the car radio only to discover NPR was in a
membership drive, which is fine, except that it makes for poor listening, which
is, I suppose, the point. The commentator, needing to fill airtime, had
repeated the phone number to call with our pledge several times and clearly
needed to say something else, so mentioned, “NPR news is your compass in a
world of information.” I thought that a bit weak and wondered if telling jokes
wouldn’t raise more money, but then got to wondering what served as a compass
in my life. What helped me sort out fact from fiction, the important from the
merely urgent, the deeper things from the ubiquitously loud. I decided the
answer was Creation, Fall, Redemption & Restoration—the four part melody in
the great orchestral suite of life that grounds us in the grand story of
reality. Without it acting like a GPS to point to the hope of home, I am
lost in the cosmos.
My blog today is simple: just two quotes, both wise I think,
that I hope you will reflect on and then leave a comment about what comes to
mind.
Both remind us of truths that are often forgotten today in
the church, if not heatedly refuted. Both are vital, for the health of our
spirituality and for what the watching world sees in us concerning our faith.
To believe both and try to live accordingly will perhaps result in criticism
from fellow Christians. To believe both and live accordingly is to go against
the flow—to resist the most common thought forms and dominant practices
embraced by the wider evangelical community. So it takes courage to do so, and
care that we don’t slide into a smug pride that we aren’t like all the rest.
What is at stake is the gospel.
“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what
they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by
showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to
know the source of it.” (Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water
: Reflections on Faith and Art; page 122.)
: Reflections on Faith and Art; page 122.)
“To identify the church as the sole locus of God's
redemptive concern is badly to misunderstand the scheme of salvation. Indeed,
it is to invert it. God wants the whole world back, not just a selection of
human beings. And he wants it back not to bask in the eternal adoration of the
redeemed saints, as per the vision offered at the end of Dante’s Paradiso and in countless lesser
depictions of heaven, but to enjoy the give-and-take of shalom with all his
creatures and among them as well. To repeat, therefore: the church performs its
distinctive redemptive calling within, and in the service of, the general call
of God upon humanity to be stewards of the whole earth God loves.” (John
Stackhouse, Making the Best of It
:
Following Christ in the Real World, p. 237. Thanks to my friend Steve
Froehlich for this one.)
:
Following Christ in the Real World, p. 237. Thanks to my friend Steve
Froehlich for this one.)
I look forward to reading your reflections and reactions in
the comments you leave.
Pearl Diver is a film about two sisters for whom one night, long ago, propelled them into very different paths. A night of tragedy, it left deep scars that could not be erased. One sister left the Mennonite community and faith in which they were raised to become a writer, hoping to purge the hurt by telling the story. The other held onto her faith and community, hoping to forgive by holding onto long-held traditions that bring comfort and a sense of belonging.
The story told in Pearl Diver is a good one, raising issues that matter. Do faith traditions provide a community of safety where our deepest wounds can find healing? Can ancient traditions be fully embraced authentically in our modern world? Can families fragmented by tragedy find a way back together? What cost does violence wreck in human lives?
I can understand how those with a Mennonite background might be attracted to this film. There is a gentle presentation of that tradition that does it honor. The difficulty with Pearl Diver is that, like so many “religious” films, the production values are so poor as to be embarrassing. Wooden dialogue, poor editing, slow pacing (there were six—unbelievably!—six sunset scenes), uncreative cinematography, bad acting, and direction that seemed unable to realize the poignancy of their own plot. It was so bad I only watched the first third of the film and then skipped the majority of the rest. The sad thing is that though I skipped most of it, I seemed to miss nothing.
There are two ways, artistically, to discredit the notion of redemption in our sadly broken world. One way is the way of the skeptic who claims redemption cannot be found. The other way is the way of the believer who presents redemption as forgettable.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which of the two represents the greater sin.
Yesterday we drove (nearly) the length of Minnesota, from our son’s home near the Canadian border back to Toad Hall. We left a day earlier than we had planned when a blizzard started moving across the Dakotas, threatening our path with snow and subzero wind chills.
Our trip home was under a heavy, slate gray sky. A light freezing drizzle covered the windshield with a thin coating of ice and transformed the trees and bushes lining the road. The woods were encased in frost, the air heavy with mist, a sense that behind the beauty lay danger. I imagined yellow eyes watching as we passed; one thing is certain: it is a place where getting lost is easier than being found.
“I do not think the woods feel evil,” Legolas, an elf says in Tolkien’s Two Towers (p. 119). “No, it is not evil; or what evil is in it is far away. I catch only the faintest echoes of dark places where the hearts of the trees are black. There is no malice near us, but there is watchfulness, and anger.”
The metaphor is powerful. Somehow a sense of evil has penetrated into the depths of woods so that hidden places of beauty are tinged with danger. Appropriately, the hope of redemption is promised by an ancient Hebrew prophet.
“I am the Lord; I have spoken,” Ezekiel records. “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods” (34:24-25).
