Thanks to one of my followers on twitter
Tag Archive for 'movie'
Nick Vujicic was born 4 December 1982 in Melbourne, Australia, to a devout Serbian Orthodox family. He lacks both arms and legs, and has two small feet, one of which has two toes. Victoria state law forbade him from attending a mainstream school because of his physical disability. But he overcame this and then was bullied. He grew extremely depressed, and by the age of 8, started contemplating suicide. After begging God to grow arms and legs, Nick eventually began to realize that his accomplishments were inspirational to many, and began to thank God for being alive.
Now Nick is a preacher, a motivational speaker and the director of Life Without Limbs, an organization for the physically disabled. He regularly gives speeches on disability and hope. He holds a degree with a double major in Accounting and Financial Planning. He has spoken to over two million people so far, in twelve countries on four continents.
The post on balancing East and West in our Christian devotion was received with much enthusiasm. Here is a beautiful example of chanting by nuns in a Monastery of northern Greek Mainland (Hsuxastirio Timiou Prodromou Akritoxoriou Sidirokastrou Serron). The Hymn is an extract from a book called “Theotokario” and it is dedicated to the Theotokos, Mary. It is usually chanted in Greek monasteries during the afternoon (after Vespers). The pictures of the video come from a different monastery of Northern Greece (Giannitsa/Pella, Iera Moni Agiou Georgiou Anudrou).
I first read about the Australian Fr Lazarus, living in the cave of St Anthony, in the book Desert Father: In the Desert with Saint Anthony
The monk mentioned at the end of the above clip is Fr Lazarus.
Now I fell over this youtube video of archaeological and restoration work at this ancient monastery, at one of the sources of Christian monasticism. Fr Maximous el-Antony describes the work and the possibility of discovering St Anthony’s tomb:
Up in the Air 2009 movie – some thoughts
Central to this film (spoilers warning) is a scene with Jim Miller (Danny McBride) in a Sunday school classroom reading the classic The Velveteen Rabbit. The story of The Velveteen Rabbit is a story of a toy rabbit who becomes real by being loved – loved so much that his fur is rubbed off in the process.
In the scene I mention, Jim explains his thoughts about what his life is going to be like: house, children, jobs, losing his hair, and then dying. He wonders what the point of life is. IMO it is a key moment in the movie.
The film focuses on Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) who lives out of a suitcase, employed to travel around the country firing people. We see the reaction of people being “let go”. With a few exceptions of well-known actors, the scenes of people’s reactions are not with actors, but the reaction of actual people recently laid off. (And here’s an important movie-going rule: always stay through the credits. In one case a thriller’s conclusion changed completely after the credits. Often there is a humorous bit, or the hint of a sequel. This time there is a significant song).
Ryan Bingham is a commitment-phobe:
Ryan: How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. … I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.
Ryan’s one-night stands give way to a developing relationship with what he perceives to be a female version of himself, Alex (Vera Farmiga). There is an interesting reflection here on sex as sacrament. Some people may think that sex does not connect us as people – but here there is an argument that we can let that wall slip. Sex with Alex is where Ryan’s walls begin to crumble.
Ryan: I thought I was a part of your life.
Alex: I thought we signed up for the same thing… I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You’re a break from our normal lives. You’re a parenthesis.
Ryan: I’m a parenthesis?
There is a memorable scene where Ryan is looking at the myriad of flight options on an airport screen. It is a metaphor of the commitment-phobe. In our culture in the past we used to tell lots of people we loved them, but only had sex with someone significant. Now our contemporary culture has reversed this totally to having sex with lots of people – and telling someone we love them is regarded as very significant (and saying “I love you” during the climax of sex doesn’t count!) Our culture has shifted, without much reflection, from focusing on the positive of marriage, allowing one to now “have and to hold”, to its negative – the realisation that in marriage one ends up “forsaking all others.” It is little wonder that divorce is so prevalent. With compassion towards those who have genuinely found their commitment impossible to maintain, one wonders at Christians, even clergy, moving through their third or more marriages. Anyway, when it comes to sex, Christianity has a pretty bad track record currently – riddled with scandals, obsessing about sex as a primary issue, and generally giving a negative impression about sex (why is the term “living in sin” associated with sex, and not, say, anger, or video piracy,…). It is understandable Christians cannot be heard about a positive attitude to sex. Maybe Christians need to be silent about sex for a generation. And after that slowly begin talking about sex again, but solely in a positive, encouraging way,… starting with the Song of Solomon. Visually illustrated…
At the start of the film Natalie (Anna Kendrick) looked like a younger version of Ryan. Turns out she is not:
Natalie: Don’t you think it’s worth giving it a chance?
Ryan: A chance to what?
Natalie: A chance to something real.
Ryan: You’re definition of real evolves as you get older.
Natalie: Can you stop being so condescending for one second or is that one of your principles of your bullshit philosophy? The isolation? Is that supposed to be charming?
Ryan: No, it’s simply a life choice.
Natalie: It’s a cocoon of self banishment.
There is a bit of a transformation for Ryan as he allows himself to make some real connections – but…
Relationships are messy. Love in real life isn’t neat, tidy, well-organised, in the way that Ryan’s flying life appears. Love is much more like the story of The Velveteen Rabbit. It wears our fur off. It also makes us real.
Last week a flight from New York to Louisville was diverted to Philadelphia when the flight crew saw a 17-year-old Orthodox Jew wearing a pair of tefillin (phylacteries) while praying. The flight attendant asked for, and received an explanation. Nonetheless, fearing a terrorist attack, police, officials from the FBI, and Transportation Security Administration stormed the plane, at gunpoint ordered everyone to put their hands up, and handcuffed the lad.
Jesus, it seems had tassels on the four corners of his outer robe (Mt. 9:20; 14:36; Mk. 6:56; Lk. 8:44), Jesus most probably wore tefillin (phylacteries) while praying, and almost certainly the Pharisees who disputed with him would have worn them all the time. Is this your image of Jesus? And if not, why not? Do we make Jesus into our own image, forgetting that he would feel pretty much at home in contemporary Jewish or Eastern Orthodox worship, and might feel a bit out of place in the “non-liturgical” worship that maybe most of those on the plane are used to?
It fascinates me, that as I was looking on the web for an image of Jesus wearing tefillin to add to this post: I could not find a single one {other than this one by (the Jewish) Chagall}. I asked my 46,000 followers on twitter. Not one of them could find an image of Jesus wearing tefillin either. Reinforcing the point of my above paragraph.
And if (as Christians) we don’t recognise the tefillin (phylacteries) from our interest in Jesus (and at least our reading of Matthew’s Gospel), what about our knowledge, respect, and understanding of other great World Faiths, not least the Jewish religion? Jews regularly wear tefillin (phylacteries) on planes flying into New York from Israel. New York is well known for its large, significant Jewish population. Surely knowing about Jewish prayer practice is an essential part of well-educated general knowledge?
In this video, Shmuly Tennenhaus demonstrates how one might pray using tefillin on an aeroplane without frightening ignorant passengers and crew. As always, beneath good humour is a serious point. Enjoy.
Kippah/zuchetto/yarmulke tip to Seven whole days
Tom Shepherd on a comment on singing in tongues on the facebook Liturgy page drew attention to the above video clip of the well-known SDA minister, Wintley Phipps, highlighting the place of the pentatonic scale. If you missed the pentatonic scale video on the singing in tongues post, it is worth going back and seeing that also (I’d like to think every post here is worth seeing 
)
If you have ever been present in a service where a congregation “sings in tongues” and you have been surprised at the way the “random” singing of many voices harmonises – you may not have the musical insight to have realised that the congregation was singing using the pentatonic scale (all the black notes on a piano form a pentatonic scale). Any combination of a pentatonic scale sounds great. Enjoy this video:
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
This video was sent as a comment to my previous post on Haiti where I am collecting resources for prayer and donations. In case readers skimmed over that, I am embedding it here. It is an orthodox Christian response from an Episcopalian church to the totally unacceptable claim by Pat Robertson that this earthquake is a result of a nineteenth century pact that Haitians made with the devil.
A week before Christmas, when Christians celebrate God’s incarnation in Christ, the 3D movie Avatar (warning: spoilers follow) took movie-going to a new level in a similar way that Star Wars did in 1977. Although there has been criticism of Avatar’s story content, and even Vatican panning of its spirituality, it is IMO worth drawing ideas from it for Christian spirituality. It may also help in clarifying our own positions.
In this movie, set in 2154, an avatar is a remotely-controlled body. This avatar is composed of human DNA mixed with Na’vi DNA. Jake becomes one of the Na’vi in order for them to understand him better and he them. He falls in love with the Na’vi and specifically with Neytiri. He is willing to give the ultimate sacrifice to save them. There are clear allegorical parallels with the incarnation. But some significant differences, also, that can help clarify Christian understanding of the incarnation.
This is an avatar of an other sentient race – not of God (called “Eywa” by the Na’vi). Often there is confusion about Christ’s incarnation. Many think in terms of Jesus being “son of God” because of the virgin birth story – imaging Jesus as being half human, half divine. The early church settled that Jesus is fully human. All 46 of Jesus’ chromosomes (using contemporary understanding unknown to the biblical writers) are fully human chromosomes. In the movie’s avatar, Jack’s DNA is mixed – human and Na’vi. (As a result of this mixing, the avatars are certainly not fully Na’vi. Avatars have five fingers and toes on their hands and feet. Na’vi only have four.)
Many think in terms of Jesus being “God dressed up” – they would image the child Jesus pretending to learn Aramaic at home and pretending to learn the skills of the family trade, while actually critiquing mistakes in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The early church settled that Jesus’ full humanity has no “trap door” to his divinity. He learned just like we do – he does not pretend to be human. In the movie the avatar does not have the Na’vi mind, but the human mind. It is here IMO that we need to make the most careful distinction between the Christian concept of incarnation and the movie’s concept of avatar. Jesus has a created human soul and a created human mind, the early church teaches. That the eternal Word replaced the human soul of Jesus (akin to what happens with the avatar) is the heresy of Apollinarianism. Jesus is not God pretending to be human (docetism), not actually Superman pretending to be the mild-mannered reporter, Clark Kent.
Even the death and resurrection sequence that ends the movie can be used in Christian reflection.
There is much more that is worth reflecting on:
- Our attitude to, unity with, and responsibility to nature and to all creation
- Greed
- Love
- A lot is clearly intended to be allegorical – eg. the title of the moon “Pandora”
- a holistic spirituality
- attitudes to and limitations of technology
Quotes:
“Every person is born twice. The second time is when you are part of your people forever.”
Jake Sully: “Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream.”
Sully tells Mo’at (the mother) that he is “empty”. This alludes to US Marines calling themselves “jarhead” in part to mean that their heads are empty.
“I see you” – looking inside a person, not just outside. Cf the biblical “know”.
The art of René Magritte is mentioned in Sigourney Weaver’s description of Pandora. Unacknowledged, however, is the art of Roger Dean, particularly “Floating Islands” and “Arches”:
The Na’vi language was created by linguist Paul Frommer. Around 500 words were created. You can find out more about the language here, on the Pandora wiki being developed.
Anglicans will recognise the cartwheel image of ordination at one point in the movie typical in Anglicanism.
For fun, you can make an avatar of a photo of yourself here. For better or worse, here is mine:
Allusions and connections with other movies: Surrogates, the Matrix, Dances with Wolves, Existenz, The Wizard of Oz,…
Please add your thoughts and comments…
All things came into being through the Word now made flesh
John 1:1-18
This is the Christmas Day gospel reading. The earliest occurrence I can spot is in the Würzburg Evangeliary of the mid-seventh century. Maybe you know an earlier Christmas liturgy mention?
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being
4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.
11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”)
16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Note: at 0:35 when Linus says, “Fear not!”, he drops his blanket. The story, and those words particularly, are comfort enough.
What can we do this Advent?
Be more about compassion and less about consumption.
Be more about presence and less about presents.
Incarnation isn’t about escaping from our human stresses – quite the opposite – incarnation is entering our ordinary, messy human lives more deeply…
Set up a wreath with the four Advent candles, lighting one a week.
Read an Advent scripture daily.
Give a goat, chickens, books, a well to those in need and send a card about this to the friend or family member you would normally have given a Christmas present to. You end up giving twice!
Add your comments and ideas below…
Luciano Marabese has invented an electronic terracotta holy water dispenser. It works like an automatic soap dispenser in public lavatories. A churchgoer waves his or her hand under a sensor and the machine spurts out holy water.
Following the outbreak of the H1N1 virus many churches stopped having holy water in a stoup. They feared it would spread the virus.
The water has been blessed by a priest. People entering and leaving churches normally dip their fingers into the holy water and make the sign of the cross. (source)
A new website called Purity Solutions promotes a product (shown here)
Communion Host Dispenser
“Use the the Purity Communion Host Dispensers during the cold and flu season to prevent the passing of germs or use it all year long to reduce the cost, time and personnel needed to provide communion by as much as 50 percent.” For those interested in church growth – that site believes this will increase church attendance.
This is a wonderful video explaining the product:
I suspect … I hope that this is a well-produced hoax and parody. The website is here for those who wish to pursue this. I am of the opinion that high-alcohol-content (regularly fortified) consecrated wine from a silver or gold chalice wiped appropriately is very “safe”. Clergy generally consume all of the remaining consecrated wine – and there is no evidence that they are succumbing to illness more than others. Some think that God specially protects those receiving these holy gifts – if that thought lessens a natural fear you have of shared communion, cool. Purity Solutions focuses on what I think has been the sleight-of-hand issue: it is the bread that might just be more likely to spread germs. A good lavabo tradition helps here of course. And for those who cannot afford the Purity Solutions products, here is the alternative I stole from my e-friend, Rev Scott Gunn:
I blogged about this earlier
Anybody who follows up this with Purity Solutions and does end up purchasing – please add that in a comment below.
And I think I would deserve at least 10% commission to go to my favourite charity
Update: I genuinely thought this product was a well-produced hoax. I realise now it is a genuine product that people purchase and use. Rather than rewriting this post, I have written a follow-up.
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