The subject of necessary awe is still one of the most fascinating subjects to me when it comes to my dialogue with those who do not hold to belief in God. The basic question is this: if awe was not there, if it was stripped away, proven to be false, not attainable, would we still live the same way? This has always seemed to me to be the question that gets us closest to some sense of transcendent and foundational truth across that divide:

“Most of us find it difficult to recognize the greatness and wonder if things familiar to us.

The biblical man has not forfeited his sense of radical amazement. That “wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder” was stated by Plato and maintained by Aristotle. “For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.” To this day, wonder is appreciated as semen scientiae, the seed of knowledge, as something conducive to cognition, not indigenous to it..Wonder is the prelude to knowledge; it ceases, once the cause of a phenomenon is explained.

But does the worth of wonder consist merely in its being a stimulant to the acquisition of knowledge? Is wonder the same as curiosity? To the prophets, wonder is a form of thinking; it never ceases. There is no answer in the world to ultimate amazement.

What is so wonderous about the world? What is there in reality that evokes supreme awe in the hearts of men? (In the prophets) it is proclaimed not as a messianic promise but as a present fact. Man may not sense it, but the seraphim announce it.”

• Abraham Joshua Heschel (The Holy Dimension)

Film Journal 2023: A Million Miles Away
Directed by Alejandra Márquez Abella


One of the most remarkable things about this space odyssey, based on a true story, is that for as many miles as this travels it never strays far from the thing that really matters- home. There are so many points in this story where the filmmakers could have been tempted towards shifting the focus away from its central character and on to NASA or the expedition itself, in this case one that took a migrant farm worker to the space station. Instead, the film makes intentional choices to constantly redirect the forward movement back on to to the family, on to the humble life this aspiring astronaut has back home. The result is a final quarter that offers one of the most beautifully captured “journey to space” sequences I can recall. There is no nail biting drama. No harrowing moments. It is simply the power of a moment, a moment the film is content to sit and linger with. And for every time it seems like the film is going to lurch forward, the filmmakers draw us back instead.

It might be easy to jump to the conclusion that this is pure sentimentalism on display, but I would argue this is simply excellent filmmaking built on an allegiance to capturing a quiet simplicity. For me, looking in from the outside at a distinctly American story, it provided a stark contrast between two commonly associated aspects of the American dream. When I think about what that dream is in the American ethos, I either think about the narrative of progress that it tends to attach itself to, such as NASA, or about the land of opportunity, such as the immigrant farmer to astronaut motif. This is decidedly rooted in the latter. Even then, as someone who tends towards critique of that dream, what I found so refreshing about this take on such an idea is that it never seems to idealize the journey itself. The film serves as a reminder that such a journey is meaningless outside of the story (or stories) that surround it. And, in fact, the film seems to want us as viewers to know that such a life would be meaningful with or without the accomplishment of the dreamer. What the accomplishment provides is the sort of contrast that allows one to set things in perspective.

There is a moment in the film where the main character’s child asks why their father wants to go to space. This question is never actually answered verbally. Instead, the Director lets the journey itself answer the question for us. It’s a poignant way of showing rather than telling, which is precisely what makes the films choice to lean towards the intimacy of life on the ground so effective and inspiring. It’s worth noting here too that none of this would prove successful without some great casting. The chemistry here is as real as it gets.

Film Joutnal 2023: A Haunting in Venice
Directed by Kenneth Branagh


Death was only the beginning.

Thus reads the official tagline for the latest entry from Branagh into the famed Hercule Poirot saga, which includes Murder On the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. Each of those films has it’s own distinct style and flavor, much of that stemming from their different settings. Those differences in setting also lend each film a distinct thematic focus, with this latest one being the most philosophically rich of the bunch. There is something about Venice that evokes a necessasy existential process.

The film, in fact, brilliantly plays the setting as a way of exploring the internal tension of its themes. The film begins with a Venice that feels demytholigized, the typical romanticism being traded for a dark and staid portrait of the historic canals and buildings. We are introduced to Poirot as a figure stripped of his sense of purpose and burdened by the hidden ghosts of his past. Early on this formulates as a simple but concise philosophical quandry, one that Poirot, with the help of an old “friend”, plays in both directions of the ontological problem. If God is not real, he surmises, then the spirit does not exist. If the spirit exists, then God is real. Both equations have implications for how we understand the world and how we navigate the world. In the world of Poirot, this has implications for how he solves the mysteries that cross his path, and indeed why he feels compelled to solve these mysteries. Built into this is the question of mystery itself. Do we understand this world to be purely material in nature, a mystery to be solved by way of parsing out the objective facts that shape its reality? Or does parsing out the facts effectively invite us into the mystery. One stark, and powerful observation that the film carries forward is that Poirot’s existential crisis doesn’t exist in a bubble. The mysteries he solves are attached to the real, flesh and blood crisis of the persons who are asking for his help. What hangs in the balance is not simply the fate of the dead, but the struggles of the living.

There is another blink and you’ll miss it observation that I felt was powerful. It comes in a confessional moment, one in which Poirot’s materialist worldview is being threatened. Forced to consider different possibilities, we see him betray his own ontological challenge by admitting that his real struggle is reconciling a world shaped by encounters with the struggles and death that inform his own experiences as a detective. More problematic for him is reonconiling the existence of a god, and therefore a spirit, with the harsh nature of this reality. His resistance to having the rationalized and reasoned parameters of his carefully structured and protected worldview penetrated and broken apart is actually anchored in the problem of evil. To state this another way, his journey wonders about whether a world without God is preferable to a world with God. In some ways a purely materialistic reality makes it easier to confront the fact that darkness exists. Where it is less adept is affording us good reason to confront it, especially where it requires something of us.

I loved the mystery element in Murder on the Orient Express. I loved the thrill of the visuals in Death on a Nile. In A Haunting in Venice I loved the character driven story. It plays in many ways as a good, old fashioned ghost story packaged as a classic who-dunnit. Perfect for heading into the halloween season. What gives it relevance is its ability to ask big questions and explore those questions in the particularities of its characters. As I mentioned earlier, the film brilliantly uses its setting as a way to contrast the tension of the existential process. There is a point in the story where Branagh then moves us from the darkness into the light, allowing us an opportunity to see the world a little differently, to recover the romanticism and idealism that marks those same historical buildings and canals, and perhaps the fabric of our own lives, and indeed the reality of the world at large.

What carries into this visual contrast is the exploration of its questions, forcing us as viewers to give up some of that ability to control the darkness. What remains are hints of the necessary mystery, perhaps then inviting us to also relinquish the need to control the darkness as well.

Film Journal 2023: The Equalizer 3
Directed by Antoine Fuqua


I noted in my review, an element that earned my deep appreciation, an intentional shift in The Equalizer 2 away from a stand alone premise about a man and his need for revenge towards a slower paced and invested character study. Given that it was the first sequel Washington had ever made, it seemed clear that this character and story was something he felt personally invested in. That payed dividends in fleshing out the story and establishing thoughtful questions on and further exploration of the nature of justice.

The Equalizer 3 slows things down even more, bringing Denzels characters personal crisis front and center. At the heart of the film is the question- are you a good man or a bad man. What the first two films established is the uncertainty of this question in relationship to this characters past and present, tied as it is to the quiet and reluctant inner battle of this vigilante. The things he hopes an equalizing form of justice can satisfy simply open up the wounds of his own past.

If the complexities of that journey frame the gradual evolution of the story in this third film, this seeming final installment helps to bring some resolution. What’s fascinating about that resolution is that it is found, through his eyes, looking outwards rather than inwards, something that provides the larger story with an effective framing device, eventually finding a real poetic resonance. The equalizing justice begins to be exposed for what it is- a cycle that cannot be satisfied and that remains mired in the corrupted nature of its demands. The thing that breaks the cycle is not a necessary punishment but a growing awareness of a world enslaved to Sin and Death, a reality that is then informed by a different way of being and belonging in this world. To learn to see the beauty before the mess, and allowing the light to inform the darkness.

This outward focus also aids this films sense of place, unfolding in the romanticism of Sicilys streets and culture. The on location cinematic presence is a considerate part of this films charm.

Overall I felt like this was a fitting conclusion to a story that, in its early going, seemed to held captive to being just another run of the mill sequel. If the sequel set the stage, this one cements its place as a legitimate and worthwhile trilogy.

Film Journal 2023: The Nun 2
Directed by Michael Chaves

There are definitely some issues with the screenplay, which are most notable in moments where the editing is trying to balance an interest in exploring the story with a need to move the story forward. There are also moments where the dialogue feels a bit clunky and forced, which I would put again on the script more than the performances. But all of that said, it’s also hard to deny that this film finds its legs in the second half, going bigger on the scares, the bonkers, and even in building some nice emotional heft.

The first installment of the two Nun entries into larger Conjuring universe was decidedly pared back in comparison, which was actually an element I really appreciated. The second one, while being something of a slow burn in the first half, builds a story that in all honesty reaches for epic proportions. And when it works on the creep out level, it really works. The film has the benefit of leaning into the already established characters, and that goes a long way in overriding those shortcomings I mentioned above, as it’s genuinely easy to care about these characters. While the Director clearly had ambitions for writing in some substantial subtext regarding the internal struggle of its characters, the true strength of the film is between the different interactions that exist within a sizeable cast.

The first entry boasted some understated but I thought quite effective cinematography. This one is good, but it trades the camera movement of the first for more on the ground action. Where it retains a similar focus is in the atmosphere, with the setting giving it a more diverse playground to move around in, there are some stand out sequences as well, including one with a wall full of magazines.

While I still think the first one was grossly underrated, if I had to wager a guess, I do think most people will probably enjoy this sequel more. Especially if they commit to the first half, because I think the second half really does start to bring the different threads together in a big way.

Reading Journal 2023: The Sickness Unto Death
Author: Soren Kierkegaard

I have a nephew is pursuing a university degree, an currently taking a course in phillsophy, and more specifically on the existentialists. He inspired me to dive back in myself, as its been a while since I’ve spent good time with some ot these iconic voices past and present. And I forgot why I’ve always been so drawn to them. This speaks my language.

To be sure, this is dense philosophy, something to be aware of going in. If its not your thing this is going to sound like a bunch of nonsense that will leave you wondering why such stuff matters in the first place. I’m compelled to think that philosophy matters greatly,, and whether we know it or not we grapple with the same sorts of questions all the time, particularly when we come to what we might call those existential crisis’ in our own life. What might seem overly complicated (and it is, to be sure) is actually rooted in the simple why questions of existence. And thinkers ilke Kierkegaard of done important work in shaping a world in which these sorts of questions have a place to go and a way to be pursued. outside of academia.

Any attempts to reduce this to clear cut statments about its ideas will lose the sheer force of the necessary logical argument Kierkegaard is building over the course of this brief 150 pages. But if I had to pick a place to land it would be on the idea of the selfs relationship to the self. What this means is this- the self does not exist as some preexistent force that guides our experiences of this world, nor does it exist as some extrenal entity that we can locate outside of our experiences. The self is an idea that only makes sense when seen in relationship to itsself. Or that only makes sense in “relationship” to the idea.

Why does understanding the self in this way matter? Because when we face points of crisis, knowing oneself becomes a crucial point in navigating such crisis. To fail to know onesself is to have the very idea of ones self thrown into crisis, which is where we find the true sickness- despair. Important to this notion of crisis is being able to note where crisis arises from. It arises from things thrown into tension. As Kierkegaard notes, we don’t consider things like health or happiness or contentment crisis. What we consider crisis is matters of suffering, struggle, sickness and death, precisely because things things create the tension. And where crisis turns to despair is when we lose the self within that tension..

Where Kierkegaard then pushes this is towards fleshing out precisely what true despair is. He locates this in the ultimate tension of existence. To begin with the idea of existence is to begin with the infinite. This is true of any and all human experience. Thus it is the confines of our finiteness that throws this infiniteness into tension. But here is where his thought process turns especially interesting. A bit part of what I think he is attempting to argue is that there is a greater despair than that of death. True despair can only be understood in light of the infinite. This is, he argues, something we all intuititively know and experience ourselves in the everyay, even where we don’t realize it. We ascribe infinte value all the time to matters that we might call worldly (finite). This is why the tension exists, and it is why the tension also tends to play out in the area of possibility an impossibility, ideas or feelings or senses that can only exist within the infinite. As Kierkegaard notes, everything is possible in possibility. That is the nature of the idea, which cannot function naturally within limitations. This is tied closely to the idea that possibilityy exists in tension with necessity. In other words, if what the self becomes in a possible world is limitless, at what point can we then say the self becomes necessary at all, specifically where a self is always, by its nature, incomplete or less than its whole or not completely true in an of itself? Here we locate the seeds of certain existential crisis.

Which then pushes the tension further towards this thought- necessity’s despair is in fact possiblity. The infinite in disguise. For someone in despair possibility becomes the thing one needs. And yet the necessary, what Kierkegaard roots in the idea of faith, becomes the thing that confronts possibility. How it is that we reconcile this carries immense weight for what we can then move to say about the nature of existence, and indeed the self. Thus, can it be that possibility is an antidote or is necessity the concession? If the idea of God (the infinite) means that everything is possible, then everything being possible points us to the necessity of the infinite, and thus the necessity of the self reframed by possiblity.

The whole of this books middle ground is dedicate to taking this train of thought an fleshing it out into the practicalities of our everyday experience. Namely into our intuititive notions of sin and faith, perpetual tensions that exist within the finite and the infinite. With knowlege of the infinite comes knowlege of sin, which demands a kind of resistance. Sin, is, in fact, ignorance. That is the essential root of its defintion. What we have been handed instead is the idea that the opposite of sin, or the thing that creates the tension, is virtue. Which is where sin then leads to despair. Kierkegaard that the opposite of sin is in fact faith. True despair can only emerge where faith is challenged. Which is why he makes the powerful argument that true desapir can only be found in the infinite, that is, faith. If sin is ignorance, faith is knowledge, From thus we get matters of the will. It is for this reason that true despair can only be ascribed to those who hold knowledge of the infinite and whom trade it willfully for sin (ignorance). Apart from this conscious act sin presents no tension and thus cannot evoke true despair.

What is crucial here to Kierkegaard’s larger argument is that to despair over sin itself is not true despair, for sin can only become despair when it is met with the notion of possibility. This is where we can begin to locate the self in a concrete way within the existing tension. The possiblity that Sin and Death in this world is something God has or has promised to deal with. The possiblity that we, enslaved as we are to sin in this world, can know the possiblity of liberation. The idea that such processes brings with it knowledge of God (the infinite) and the self. These become crucial not to making a world without Sin and Death a concrete reality, but in God and self being known as true things in a world where truth is always an emergent property. To become a concrete self is not to be stuck, nor is to be beholden to limitless possibility to be relegated to a self that can never be concrete. This brings one back to the selfs relationship to the self as the most important idea.

There is actually a ton in this book that is very helpful to anyone journeying through struggle. It might sound complex, but the ideas are in fact intuitively true and able to be located within the human experience. A definite recommend for anyone interested in diving into the rich and weighty waters of philosophy.

Reading Journal 2023: Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity
Author: Abraham Joshua Heschel (edited by Susannah Heschel)

One of the great spiritual and relgiious minds of his (and our) time. This publication of essays explores the intersection between faith and ethics, with the two groupings of essays at the beginning and the end (Existence and Celebration and The Holy Dimension respectively) forming a bookend with a strong emphasis on the nature of the transcendent, and in particular the convictions he holds as an orthodox Jewish mystic.

I loved the way he fleshes out the distinction between his faith in God and his faith in the story of Israel, something that flows outwars into the practical nature of his continued reflections on good, evil, humanity, creation, modernity, antiquity.. Even more pertinent is the way he formulates a bridge between Judaism and Christianity, drawing out their indebtedness to each other. He has a way of speaking directly and honestly with conviction without isolating, and I think that is a testiment to how this man of God entered the deeply cut and sharp divides of the world he occupied, a world that doesn’t look all that different from our own.

At one point he writes that, “the major religious problem today is the systematic liquidation of man’s sensivity to the challenge of God.” By which he means, the more we reduce the challenge of God to the answers of modernity, the more we reduce ourselves. Or in true Jewish form, we reduce “humanity” to the answers of modernity, thus closing ourselves off to the necessary mystery that leaves us open to knowledge and, indeed, life. These things remain insperable. “The most radical question we face does not really concern God but man… The world we live in has become a single neighborhood, an the role of religious commitment, of reverence and compassion, in the thinking of our fellow man is becoming a domestic issue.” The context of this sentiment is a reflection on the once isolation of the story of Israel to its own failures and its own continued call to faithfulness being set within a world that modernity has now made small. If the point of Israel’s story in antiquity was to be a people for the world, a people through whom God who remake a fallen world in His own image, the point of Israel’s story today is to be part of this remade world bearing witness with the whole to the truth that God is doing what He promised to do. What’s so curious about this statement is that he begins with the Jewish-Christian relations. What better vision to bring these two stories into harmony across the differences. For Heschel, if such a truth is to be bound to an orthodox faith, it is to be bound to such a faith by way of the prophetic Tradition, one built on entering into the everyday workings of society and speaking words of imminence regarding a way of life commited to matters of justice.

Here we find the intersection between the truth of transcenence and the necessity of earthly matters. For a Jewish perspective, eternity is a truth that formulates itself in the here and now, informing a kind of reality rather than linear projections based on beginnings and endings. “The Philosophy of Jewish living is essentially a philosphy of worship… our greatest problem is not how to continue but how to return.” A poignant word that ends with this proclomation- “This is the meaning of existence: to reconcile liberty with service, the passing with the lasting, to weave the threads of temporality into the fabric of eternity.”

Film Journal 2023: Expendables 4
Directed by Scott Waugh


We are long ways from the novelty of the first film in this now iconic action franchise. Back in 2010 this played legitimately into the changing face of cinema, bringing together the fading action heroes of the 80s and 90s with the emerging stars of the 2000’s. It was unapolegetically nostalgic, but in a way that felt fitting as a necessary transition.

In 2023 however, it doesn’t really work. In fact, I could make the case that the way this film plays into those past tropes even feels a bit gross and borderline offensive in the way it glorifies violence and objectifies/sexualizes it’s clear gender stereotypes. If Micheal Bay did much the same with the equally iconic Transformers series, at least there the mythology has substance. Expendables 4 thinks it’s making a clever commentary on the action films of old translating into a modern context, when it is really mired in the very things it should be critiquing. Feels crazy to say, but the whole Rambo series feels like Shakespeare when compared to this.

It’s too bad too, because there were moments here that could have worked. There was opportunity to explore the whole Expendables becoming expendable idea, and the film makes an early plot choice that allows it to gear itself away from the “group” and turn it’s attention to a more intimate examination of its (potentially) most human faces. The small moments when it manages to commit to this showed some sparks of life in the muddled nature of its green screen blow em up sequences and painful dialogue. The finale ultimately makes the biggest move to eventually blow up this potential once and for all, but truth be told it was undercutting itself the whole way through. Didn’t help either that beyond the select key figures, I don’t think any of the faces of the group actually reflect a real draw or sense of personal investment.

There is a sense in which the original Expendables was playing on the larger reality of a changing world when it comes to the action stars of old and new. This film feels like it’s playing as a commentary on the existing trilogy, which last existed in 2014. Again, there was potential there given that Statham, once the young emergent star, is now facing the same fate. But there is nothing in this film that feels even remotely aware of the present state of the action film, and I think it’s a stretch to believe that the franchise itself can justify its own existence.

“At the heart of the Pastoral Epistles is the gospel of Jesus Christ: God has acted in grace and mercy through the death of Christ with an offer of forgivness, to which people must respond in faith, turning from evil, receiving empowerment through God’s Spirit, and looking forward to eternal life… In all this, the Pastoral Epistles are fully Pauline.”

• William Mounce

The heart of the Gospel=the proclamation that God has acted.

Acted how? In Jesus Christ

Acted in what way? In grace and mercy, meaning it is a pure gift. In response to death, which demands a life giving work. In the grander scope of this quote what you have is an acting to do what God promises to do, which was defeat the Powers of Sin and Death so as to bring about the new reality of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven. God doesn’t use death. God doesn’t operate through death. God doesn’t demand death. God defeats death in Jesus the Christ (the king, or promised Messiah)

What flows from this action? The proclamation of the full forgiveness of sins, meaning that as occupy space in a world enslaved to Sin and Death, Jesus’ person and work removes all such obstacles to the free participation in the newly inaugurated kingdom of God in the here and now. Why was sin an obstacle? For two reasons. It is a colonizing effect on our lives that prevents the sort of participation that can bring transforming and life. And second, based on how the old and new realities function together, the ancients understood this movement from one space to another, from one kingdom to another, to move through the fire that stands at the entrance to Eden amd to the tabernacle. And becasue God cannot exist where Sin and Death exists, to move through that fire can only transform or destroy according to the new reality. This why the life giving properties of Jesus’ person and work- the blood- remove the pollution of sin, making it so that through faithful participation in the kingdom of God we are then transformed. This is not satisfying a God who must punish us with death, but a grace gift that reaches into our sin soaked world with the good news that God has at long last done what He promised to do in and for the world.

This to me is the Gospel.

Here is a philosophical idea I have been playing with lately. Mostly in response to questions I have been grappling with and which others have posed to me.

It has to do with how we measure or lay claim to the value of a life. Or perhaps more specifically, the question of a meaningful life. Or what is an ideal life. All three questions get at the same thing.

One of the most oft sentiments I hear is this. A meaningful life depends first on the conviction that less suffering is better than more suffering in a world where some level of suffering is inevitable. This applies most readily to uneccessary suffering.

It depends on secondly on individual liberty, meaning the ability of one to do with their life what they choose.

In the absence of either of these things a meaningful life, or the ability to live a meaningful life, is seen to be compromised.

If that is the foundation, what follows then is the question of contextualizing such a life. When asked what is the ideal life I tend to get two answers from those I am in conversation with. On one hand there is an appeal to a kind of relativism, albeit typically relativism that operates within the parameters and rules of knowledge and reason. On the other hand it seems commonplace that the measure of such value or idealism is dependent on a set number of years. Since the framework that we know today is, to simplify, a lifetime that moves from 0-100, absent of external factors such as suffering we tend to believe that the narrower the gap between life and death is within that given time frame (the reality that we know) the more tragic the loss is. For example, we deem it a greater tragedy that a 12 year old loses their life than an 80 year old.

Chances are that we will also say that both lives hold the same intrinsic value, philosophical quandries that force one to choose between either or aside. And yet, such a measure seems to force us to say at the same time that a life lived 100 years is a more valuable life in terms of its meaningfulness and its pointing to the ideal, creating certain philipshical tensions between the two claims. This tension is particularly relevant to the one posing certain existential demands to life itself.

The measure that we use to make both claims is the same. We measure it based on opportunity lost and opportunity gained , and that opportunity is based on that 0-100 time frame.

So that has me asking the following questions. It is often said by those who oppose religion that the idea of living forever is not attractive. We might desire it in the face of tragedy, but when we really consider it I have had many say to me that most of us wouldn’t want that. A world without death and suffering would be a world absent of life, because death and suffering are the things that allow us to know that we are living.

But is this really the logical conclusion of life and death, or our question of what makes a meaningful life? Let’s consider this. The reason we might think this to be true is because it cannot make sense of our present point of perspective and experience. But what if we rewound to not so many years ago when common life expectancy was 50. Suddenly 50 becomes the ideal.

Or what if we fastforward and imagine a lifespan of 200 where we eradicate certain diseases associated with aging. Would our perspective not change again? And where would we percieve to draw the line in that regard? At some point do we just say enough?

Or what about suffering? If we assume that less suffering is better than more, where do we draw the line when it comes to cancer research, for example? Do we imagine a world absent of suffering only to a certain point? And what do we do with a modern age where technological advancement is almost entirely about conveniences (the absence of certain forms of suffering) rather than necessities? Is that not all given to a matter of perspective as well?

Here is my wondering. I agree with the idea of inherent value. But I think what that demands of us is a similar given statement that recognizes death and suffering as adversaries to life. Without that our logical systems when it comes to the value of life falls apart. And I think that forces us to be honest about the arbitrary lines that we draw that allow us to label death and suffering as necessary to life.

It is no less rational to suggest that to think of the concept of a world absent of death and suffering than it is to rationalize a world with death and suffering. Both force us to appeal to mathers of limited perspective and demand of us a greater imagination when it comes to how we live in a world with death and suffering