Reading Journal 2023: Gichigami Hearts: Stories and Histories from Misaabekong Author: Linda Legarde Grover
In the waning days of summer 2022 my wife and i hopped in the car and took a drive up the Michigan peninsula to spend a few days at the famed Mackinac Island. Michigan wasn’t new to us, but the island was, and whenever I embark on a trip I always try to track down a local bookstore and purchase at least one book by a local author telling a story rooted in the place we are visiting.
In this case I went with the familiar, having come across this book by an indigenous author detailing Duluths history from the perspective of her Ojibwe past. I have always loved visiting Duluth, and this intimate composition, which is part Memoir, part lore, affords it a deeply personal touch.
The book moves easily between the particular locale of a shoe repair shop or a childhood home, for example, to the lands rich spiritual heritage, stretching from the rocks that frame the city to the waters below and framed against the story of the authors ancestors. Anchoring these stories is a portrait of the familiar Point of Rocks. Having driven the highway that breaks into majestic views of this valley and these cliffs many times, I was able to conjure this image as a way of stepping into the greater imagination of Grivers winding and meandering journey.
This book gives us the tools to see both that which is visible and that which lies unseen, recognizing that both shape the reality of this place as part of the cities ethos and Govers shared heritage.
“There is something about the Gospels unlike anything else in the whole Bible. The books of the prophets of the Old Testament, often divided into major and minor prophets, record what the prophets said. We learn very little about their biographies. Our four Gospels are a bit like the vignettes of the patriarchs and Moses and kings and others in the historical books of the Old Testament. Unlike the prophets, our Gospels do not turn their pages into quotations of Jesus. Instead, the Gospels are obsessed, which is the only word for it unless there’s a stronger one I don’t know, with one person from verse 1:1 to the end of the Gospels. In our case, the Gospel of John. If we fail to see this shift in focus—from what the prophet said or even to some short vignettes to lengthy narratives about what Jesus did, with whom he interacted, who decided to follow him, who didn’t like him, how he was arrested and crucified and raised—we fail to read this Gospel well. Every passage of the Gospel of John is about Jesus. Not us. Not you. Not me. Jesus.
Reading John’s Gospel requires something counter-intuitive. What is intuitive works like this: We have a good idea of who or what God is, and we ask, “Does what we already know about God fit Jesus?” The counter-intuitive works like this: We only know who or what God is in knowing who Jesus is, so we now ask the counter-intuitive, “Does God fit what we know about Jesus?” In other words, God is Jesus. The Gospel of John invites us to a fresh reconception of God by showcasing Jesus from 1:1 to 21:25. A Gospel has a mission: to “gospel.” That is, to tell the story of Jesus in a way that compels response. In their essence, then, every paragraph in a Gospel is about Jesus. Who he is, or who the reader understands him to be, shapes how that reader responds to Jesus. In John’s Gospel Jesus is first and foremost the Logos/Word…
in order that God can be revealed for who God truly is. The proper response to this Logos Jesus is faith or believing, and that faith is ongoing abiding in who he is, ongoing obedience to what he calls his followers to do, and ongoing witness to the world about who Jesus is. Those who respond to this Logos Jesus enter into nothing less than eternal life in the here and now as it opens them up to eternal life in the there and then…
Why Logos? Greeks commonly used this term for Reason, for Meaning, for Logic, and for Words Spoken. The Old Testament, however, is John’s world even more than the Greek world, and this term Logos/Word evokes:
creation (cf. 1:3–5)
the revelation of God’s tent and glory and love at Sinai,
the Wisdom of God (Proverbs 1:20–33; 8—9),
God speaking and communicating and revealing his will and law (cf. Psalm 119:9, 25, 28, 65, 107, 169),
and the prophets declaring the word of God to the people of God (Isaiah 40:11; Psalm 33:6).
John baptizes these Jewish ideas into Greek waters when he uses “Logos,” but his sensibilities are more Jewish than Greek. In this Gospel Jesus is the Logos who reveals the truth, the word of God, to humans (1:1, 3, 14; 5:37–38; 17:14, 17). He is then both God’s revelation and the One who reveals God as the living, speaking Word… “the Logos did not merely descend upon or enter into Jesus, the Logos of God became the human nature Jesus bore.” Which leads him to a profound next line: “The life of Jesus is the history of God himself on earth” (Quast, John, 13). We have become far too comfortable with what John writes in 1:1. Jesus is God in the flesh.”
The purpose of the Gospel of John is explicitly stated at the end of the Gospel (20:30–31)… “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” —Genesis 17:17
There is a dialogue set up in our faith. One voice says, “Can you imagine!” The other voice answers, “Yes, but.”
God brings into existence that which does not exist. Did you know that the Bible never uses the word create with a human subject? We may “make” or “form” or “fabricate,” but only God creates, only God works a genuine new possibility, a new thing beyond our expectations and our extrapolations. It belongs to the mystery and holiness of God to call to be that which is not yet. Because this is God’s world, the world is not closed, either by our hopes or by our fears… by God’s powerful grace, the “Yes, but” of our resistance is broken. Newness appears; we can sing songs, unembarrassed, songs about miracles. – Walter Brueggemann (A Way Other Than Our Own)
But those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. —Isaiah 40:31
“Here is the good news. The good news is that we need not serve the wrong god, trust the wrong life-giver, fear the wrong power. We may read life differently, and the way to do that is to wait: to wait in eager longing for the God of creation and rescue to work a new way in the world; to wait in keen expectation; to wait in active zeal, receiving every hint of newness and acting on it; to be ready to go for the gift of life; to leave off fear, intimidation, resignation, pooped out-ness as the governance works a newness. This poetic utterance about God and God’s work has concrete counterparts in the realities of economics, politics, social relations, social possibilities. The utterance is matched by a reordering of reality, the transfiguration of the empire itself. It is such an intellectual travesty, such an act of chutzpah, such a subversive poetic utterance that dumps a poem in the midst of resignation. The poem works a newness, not because it is good poetry, but because the subject of the poem, the God who lives in and through and with and under such outrageous assertion, is at work overriding despair, inviting hope, responding to our waiting, and starting the world free again, outside the regimes of weariness. We are left to decide about this outrageous assertion, sung against the resignation of the empire…
The key religious question among us is whether there is grounds for an alternative, an alternative rooted not in self-preoccupation or in deadening stability but rooted in a more awesome reality that lives underneath empires, that comes among us as odd as a poem, as inscrutable as power, as dangerous as new life, as fragile as waiting. The poet names the name and imagines new life, like eagles flying, running, walking.” – Walter Brueggemann (A Way Other Than Our Own)
Film Journal 2023: Brother Directed by Clement Virgo Where to watch: now playing at Mcgilvary Cinemas; watch for a streaming or VOD release in the near future
This is the first I’ve seen from Virgo, who directed last year’s Dahlmer. Its the second film however that I’ve seen in the last two years set in Scarborouh (the other film bearing that same name and making my top list of 2021).
Brother is confined to a singular family, following this pair of siblings over the course of 20 years. The constant jumps in the timeline admittedly does get a bit hard to follow,.especially since the same actors occupy a span of 10 years without looking like they aged at all. What makes this a bit more challenging is that so much of the films emotional impact depends on inviting viewers to get lost in the rhythms of this intentional story structure.
What elevates this though is its commitment to each sequence. If the momentum of the story is somewhat muddled at times, it remains easy to get lost in the moments along the way. So when the climax does come and the trajectory is made clear, it definitely hits with a poetic fervor.
The performances are also quite phenomenal, playing two Jamaican-Canadian brothers separated by years but bonded by their circumstances. Left to care for their struggling mother, we watch these two boys, who exist as complete opposites, one big and extroverted and confident and the other small, shy and introverted, come of age in an uncertain world. Both of them in their own way struggle to figure out who they are amidst deeply felt responsibilities, desires, and struggles, which include growing up black in a neighborhood marked by gang violence and police presence. It’s a reminder that what is often assumed to be a distinctly American problem exists here too, if in a slightly differnt way and not quite as visible and definable.
Much of the Directors style reminded me of a more muted (in a good way) Waves. It’s very poetic, using lots of framing devices to draw out interconnected images and ideas. I would be curious to see if on a rewatch some of the visual pieces of the puzzle become even more clear and more alive in terms of the overall narrative arc.
Definitely one to keep on your radar if you are seeking out good canadian projects. Even with the meandering timeline and a too long run time it still finds a way to pack a powerful punch.
Film Journal 2023: Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming With David Letterman Directed by Morgan Neville Where to watch: Disney+
“There is no them. There’s only us.”
For as long as I can remember U2 has existed as a sort of larger than life and largely undefinable enigma. As someone who grew up in those fervently gaurded impassioned evangelical, conservative christian circles, they were those rebellious figures lurking in the shadows who might or might not be safe for impressionable young minds being formed in the “faith”. Emerging into young adulthood and jts post modern reflections, they had become a voice for my generation, a generation dissatisfied with much of what we were seeing in “religion” and institutions and who were seeking a fresh perspective and fresh expression of that faith in ways that made sense to us. This was the band you lined up and camped out for to buy tickets, packed up those vans and traveled miles for, and whom seemingly remained immune to the ebb and flow of an ever changing “cool” and hip pop culture then and now. They were, and remain, a band that could do things on their terms and on their time, disappearing from the fabric of our culture and emerging years later as though they had never left without without blinking and without explanation.
They were, and remain, a band that gave permission to a bunch of struggling people of faith to gather together and worship without feeling ashamed or without need for apology. They didn’t need to articulate the divine precisely or dogmatically, you simply knew it was present.
It seems equally hard to locate and define this present U2 renaasaiance so to speak. Whatever this is- the book Surrender, the reimaging record which functions as a kind of legacy tour through their entire career, this doc (which also functions as an affecifonate love letter to Ireland and David Letterman). Whatever this is- a final magnum opus, a fresh revolution and a sign of more to come- it feels timely, and it feels like a gift. It seems right that these open door projects would be telling more of their story now than I was ever aware of living it in the moments of my own impressionable life. If these songs form the soundtrack of these bandmates stories (and collective story), I know for a fact that it also does for many of us.
Film Journal 2023: John Wick Chapter 4 Directed by Chad Stahelski Where to watch: now playing in theaters
Where this stands in terms of the larger franchise will be subjective opinion of course, but I do think it’s fair to say that the fourth entry in the series reflects a natural progression in the story. There’s the global setting, and it picks up after the cliff hanger in the third with Wick facing seemingly insurmountable and baffling odds. It also widens the scope of the story while personalizing the stakes.
The real star of course is the set pieces, which continue to push boundaries when it comes to their sheer practicality, ingenuity and commitment to detail. It hits the ground running and never lets up, leaving little doubt that this remains one of the strongest and most relatable action franchises out there right now. It makes dang sure you get your money’s worth when it comes to the big screen spectacle and entertainment of it all.
There’s only so many ways one can reimagine the revenge theme that remains the driving force of this franchise, which is why the world building goes a long ways in giving this legs. This one actually pushes the pause button in that regard, dialing things back to focus on simple one to one relationships. But the narrative fabric of the second and third installments is still there, which means there’s more world to explore. As a character says to John at one point in the film, you can’t possibly kill everyone- it will never end. This is the endless cycle of retribution. Reminds me of the words spoken to Cain in the early chapters of Genesis. And in fact, the Easter story just might have something to say about that too.
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. —2 Corinthians 3:18
“Imagine ordinary people arguing about sexuality and money and leadership and how to be faithful. Paul cuts underneath all those disputes to remind these day-to-day Christians that they are not ordinary people, but they have at the core of their existence an implosion of God’s holiness that reshapes and redefines everything. What counts finally is that the incursion of God’s holiness touches our lives and our life together, or it does not matter at all…
Paul wants, first of all, to keep Christians at Corinth connected to Jesus as the decisive point of their lives: “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. . . . all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:4, 18). Paul makes a simple but crucial affirmation that it is exactly in Jesus, only in the Lord, that the full holiness of God has touched down in human life.
The church at Corinth is not called to pious, romantic, goosey religion but simply to practice the memory of Jesus and to let that memory be fully present tense. When that story of Jesus is present tense, we are able to sort out and identify all the empty claims where God’s holiness and God’s power for life do not reside, where God’s power for life is not embodied or enacted.”
Who was Asaph? A Levite and dependent of Gershon, the Son of Levi An appointed member in the house of God A seer or prophet who led a group of skilled poets and singers The superscription attributed to Psalms 73-83.
I got interested specifically 8n Psalm 73 when I came across scholar Walter Brueggemann making the case for it as the inspiration for Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal (Lost) Son.
A couple interesting notes: 1Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. 3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
At the front of this Psalm we see the disconnect between his experience of suffering and the prosperity that he sees in “the wicked”. As is common to passages like these, the he is meant to evoke the story of Israel, aligning “his” experience with the whole.
Now consider that the prodigal son symbolizes a scattered Israel seeking this prosperity in the far off lands, as it says. “4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong 5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.”
‘This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.”
This section of the Psalm links the prosperity with their pride, which leads them to say “They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?” As the Psalmist submits, “Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.”
Now consider the disconnect between the inheritance in the prodigal son and a life pursuing the allures of such prosperity in the world. As the Psalmist says, their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth… “10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.”
This leads the Psalmist to lament. 13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. 14 All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.
And yet, the Psalmist insists, “15 If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God then I understood their final destiny.”
So what is the destiny? 18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.
Who is “they” in this passage. It’s important to remember the appeal in the beginning of the passage- surely God is good to “Israel”- and the ensuing point of tension- Israel is not prospering according to the promise afforded by God while the nations they were called out of and set apart from are. Similarly we find the concern- the personal allure the “he” in this passage is resisting and speaking out again as the voice of Israel- surely God’s promises are true and that faithfulness to God in the face of suffering is not in vain. The sense here and elsewhere in the story of Asaph is two fold- the prosperity of the surrounding nations and the temptation for Israel to give in to its allure.
In this light, this lament is not simply an insistence that God will destroy Israel’s enemies. More so its about showing that one’s trust in the promises of God proves true. It’s about helping to make sense of continued faithfulness when they do not. Here the Psalmist is drawing out the contrast not between good and wicked people but two different realities and different views of property- one that fades with its fleshly passions and one that gets swept up in the promised redemptive work of God. To attach oneself, or for Israel to attach itself to that which fades is to find itself handed a promise that inevitably is defined by terror, ruin, destruction based on lies (fantasies).
Now, cast this in to the light of the Prodigal (Lost) Son. We find a contrast between the son spending his inheritance in the allure of those far off places and its promise of prosperity, only to find that it all fades. Now hear the following words of the Psalmist and imagine them in the mouth of the older son in the parable:
23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Such a claim, especially when attached to the voice of Israel, evokes a vision of promise and hope in that which does not fade- heaven is a synonym for kingdom of God. And this is followed by the following proclamation:
27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. 28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.
If we are imagining these words on the lips of the older son in the parable, who is representative of the Jewish religious leaders, the very ones calling for necessary Reform and a renewed call to faithfulness in the face of Rome and cohabitation with the allure of such prosperity, we can perhaps begin to see how Jesus’ story cuts through the tension of Psalm 73 by recasting the Psalmists hopeful lament and proclamation in the light of God’s redemptive work in Him as the fulfillment of God’s promised restoration. In the face of a scattered Israel and the Pharisees attempt to create clear lines between the enemy and the faithful here we find a story of Gods faithful “finding” of a lost Israel dispersed throughout a kingdom ruled by Rome and a corrupted Temple aligned with its promise of prosperity. The promise is not simply an inheritance handed to the faithful ones (the religious leaders), it is an inheritance rooted in the whole of Israel’s story. Thus the prodigals the religious leaders are complaining about (how can Jesus eat with such tax collectors and sinners) are demonstrative of the promised arrival of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Careful relders then will note how criticisms of the older son (religious leaders or pharisees) throughout the Gospels are directly connected to their resistance of how God’s promise gets fulfilled, with the reclamation of the story of Israel in the person and work of Jesus setting the stage for the movement of the kingdom into all the earth. As Jesus says consistently in the Gospels, the very promise which motivates these religious leaders to faithfulness is the thing they are resisting, just as the older son does. Psalm 73 can help demonstrate why this resistance surfaces, giving us context and motivation for it, and perhaps growing empathy where we are likely prone to the very same things in our own place and time.
One of the final films to release wide and cap off the 2022 calendar year was Noah Baumbach’s ambitious and divisive adaptation of the sprawling and seemingly unadaptable novel, White Noise. Much digital ink has been spilled debating its merits and its failures outside of this space, and there’s no need to rehash that conversation here. What I did want to comment on though is this: the films depiction of people all facing immanent death with varied responses and approaches proved a fitting bookend to a cinematic year that was seemingly obsessed with such ruminations on our mortality. The critical darling topping many best of lists (my number 2 of the year), Charlotte Wells’ Afterson, remains a poignant reflection on the relationship between grief and memory. My number one of the year, Kogonada’s After Yang, weaves a similar reflection on memory and grief into an exploration of what it means to be human in light of our mortality. Even one of the most uplifting films of 2022, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, masquerades as a subtle reflection on matters of living and dying, fitting well alongside the other stop motion feature nominated for best animated feature, Del Toro’s Pinocchio, which inadvertently takes his penchant for writing about the idea of resurrection and plays it into a sharp humanist reflection on mortality and nihilism. Not to be outdone, the crowd pleasing Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, a late game and largely successful addition to the animated feature category, tells a clear minded story about living a life amidst the reality that this is the only life we have to live before it all just fades away. From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Which all begs the necessary question- what was up with all the obsession with death, 2022.
One could surmise that we are, now being three years removed from the start of a global pandemic, seeing the fruits of that collective experience. Such events can certainly inspire such reflections and themes. Given the fact that many of these projects tend to be in the works for a much longer period of time than 2 plus years suggests that this might have been more prophetic or coincidental than causation. In any case, the most interesting thing to me has been pondering, along with White Noise, the different kinds of responses evident in what were very different kinds of films. Look no further than the recent Oscar nominations for a prime example. If the large cast of characters in White Noise all respond differently to the same impending reality, Oscar pundits seem to be grappling with two very different films in what was largely considered to be a two horse race quickly turning into one, Martin McDonaghs quiet, studied and insightful The Banshees of Inisherin and the Daniel’s populist, bombastic and creativity drawn take on the superhero genre, Everything Everywhere All At Once. The latter now being assumed the run away winner.
Banshee’s draws its story from a simple friendship between two aged men who’s lives have been shaped by closely wrought connections forged from the soil of an isolated Irish village. One of the the two men finds himself attempting to reconcile the waning years of the second half of life with the reality that he will eventually be forgotten. He becomes obsessed with this notion of leaving a legacy that can outlast the mundanuty of his existence. He finds this legacy in the idea of music, and thus he wakes up one day deciding to trade his life long friendships for a chance to devote his time to something more important- writing a song.
The other man finds himself unable to comprehend how someone can throw away that which matters most in the present- friendship- in order to chase this notion of a legacy. To him what is eternal is kindness, those basic elements of being a good person. Embedded within this ideological claim are true, human emotions- fear, uncertainty, anger, expectation. Two people realizing the inevitability of their mortality responding in two very different ways. The film never reconciles this tension, rather it allows it to bring the honesty of the questions to the surface. If the reality of things is made apparent then, so are the lingering notes of hope that seem to fester in the shadows of such uncertainty. Standing on the shores of this isolated Irish village is where the cast of characters turns their gaze to the seeming possibility of something more, something larger than themselves, no matter how much this repeated refrain remains undefined. The purest definition comes, perhaps, in the honest expressions of their struggles, their grappling with fear and loneliness and restlessness. Struggles that only make sense in relationship or the lack there of. Struggles that come to bear through very real matters of life and death over the course of the film.
In contrast, Everything Everywhere All At Once sees the reality of our existence and its inevitable struggles through a very different lens. The struggles it highlights, namely an astute and deeply felt wrestling with loneliness and depression and the sheer force of accompanying nihilistic thoughts, infuses its idea of existence with a real sense of needing to find meaning and purpose in order to properly live. The focus is on the parallel stories of mother and daughter growing up in a world where their gender limits their worth and confines their identity to these culturally constructed limitations. From this the Directors tumble us into a variable montage of sequences and arcs that feel torn straight from the pages of Ecclesiastes- all is meaningless. So where do we go from here.
This feeling that all is meaningless plays into the idea that they see themselves as worthless, and in a very real sense the story strives to find a way to reconcile this struggle by presenting the working tension of kindness and love as momentary measures of real and tangible joy in an otherwise dark and pointless life. The film plays this out in clever ways using the multi-verse as a story and plot device, allowing this to uncover the feeling of a life plagued by what-ifs and wrong choices. Of all the versions of the mother that exist, the one we are following is established as the one who has failed, seemingly, to live up to her potential in every concievable way. She is deemed a categorical failure of a life, a feeling she has buried by projecting her struggles on to her daughter in told and unspoken expectations. In the daughters case, she is driven by a longing for reconciliation, of reconciling her own feelings of isolation and rejection both in concert and in tension with her mother. The mothers past trauma, being as she was rejected and abandoned by her father, forms the tension apparent in this relationship between mother and daughter, while the concert comes through their mutual and shared need for relationship. At the heart is this message that speaks to the idea of knowing that we are not alone as having power to counteract the tensions of our existence, something we all need in our own way. Which is where the larger subtext of its superhero premise leads to a greater moral- learning to fight with kindness and love can help to reveal for all of us the true enemy- nihilism marked by the inevitable reality of death and suffering,
This is then, I think, a story shaped by unspoken conflict- conflict between father and mother, wife and husband, mother and daughter, success and failures, business and tax collector, meaningfulness and meaninglessness, family and indvidual. This conflict gets a broader metaphorical treatment in the multi-verse by way of this growing and universal existential threat plaguing humanity at large, giving the real world conflicts a nearly spiritual and cosmic presence. I think this part is really well thought out and established and a beautiful expression of the films cultural presence. But its within these conflicts that I found myself left trying to make sense of seemingly opposing thematic ideas. For example, there is a temptation to read into this story a nihilistic take on the “everything is meaningless” phrase. There is a reading of this film that goes “everything is meaningless, therefore anything is possible”, meaning that there is no reason to get bogged down by failures and the could have-would have-should haves of lifes seemingly endless possibilities. Possibility means that we can find the good in anything and that we can let go not of one another but of our expectations of what must define worth and meaning. We create worth and meaning, and just as easily erase it depending on how we love. And when afforded a nihilistic assumption (that being this notion that the starting point of life is that all is meaningless) the film ends up betraying the honesty of its questions by simply sweeping the problem of death and suffering under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind, therefore just be kind and loving and it will all be good in an otherwise meaningless existence. I think the film fails to address the concerns it tables of both mother and daughter when it comes to the grander conflict of this worlds persistent struggle between what is and what we hope and long for things to be, and takes the easy road out by romanticizing the nihilistic foundation using easy and highly irrational appeals to manipulative emotions that, when examined prove incapable of actually addressing the problem of death and suffering.
As I ponder these two approaches, I find my mind returning to After Yang, and to one scene in particular. Thematically, the film draws out with a sure hand this delicate balance between the particular (the question of what it means to be Asian) and the universal (what it means to be human). This is captured in a memorable sequence where one of the characters is dialoging with the artificial life (Yang), who sits at the heart of the story, about whether there is more to this world than what we see on the surface, namely evoking this notion of God and the hope of there being something after death (bringing to the surface the emphasis of the films title). Here we can see the film’s intimate humanist concern, but it also transcends this as a way of pushing us into the questions that being human in relationship to a reality bigger than ourselves necessarily evokes. For artificial life to wonder whether it is programmed to believe in something more (God) leads to wondering whether humans are programmed to believe in something more. And if we are programmed in one way or another, what then is the purpose of this longing? Is it meant to reveal truth we otherwise couldn’t see (in terms of being programmed to believe). Is it meant to protect us against untruth (in terms of being programmed towards unbelief)? Is it to allow us to cope? To function? To survive an otherwise meaningless material existence? And what of emotion? Is it better to be okay with nothing being “after” or is not being okay with such a notion that makes us human?
However it is that we wrestle with this question, what seems pertinent to me is that to make sense of a reality where death and suffering exist means to find ways to afford such realities a redemptive quality, even where it seems unreasonable to do so. Perhaps this is the reason death played so prominently in 2022- affording the past few years a redemptive quality. In any case, it does seem fitting that this year’s Oscar’s will land squarely in Lent, bringing with it the prominence of its focus on suffering and death and our ability to afford it a redemptive quality. If Lent has anything to say it’s that sweeping the plain realities of this existence under the rug will not do. To this end I think Banshees proves to be far more honest and aware in its exploration of such matters. The cross was the reality. If Easter Sunday has anything to say, it’s that the foundation for this reality is not ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all is meaningless, but rather the creation-new creation story. In Jesus the kingdom has broken in, reframing and reorienting reality in the light of its redemptive force. We do not create meaning and worth in this sense, rather we locate it in the person and work of Jesus. Without such hope we are left with the dire honesty of Banshees or the illusionary notes of Everything Everywhere, both of which ultimately leave us somewhat stuck in this moment with no real way to reconcile the reality of death and suffering with a life lived in its shadows. The best we can do is allow it to turn us into cynics or simply ignore its truth in favor of irrational appeals to the power of individual circumstance and ability.
Lest we find ourselves simply stuck in this moment, let us imagine something more hopeful by seeding the power of true redemptive trajectory deep into the soil of these present moments of 2023.
I recently engaged in a discussion from one of the online groups I’m a part of that had to do with the following quote by Immanuel Kant:
Everyone is entitled to seek his own happiness in the way that seems to him best as long as it does not infringe the liberty of others in striving after a similar end for themselves.” – Immanuel Kant
I agreed and disagreed with the quote, suggesting that the idea might be saying something about the relationship between these two fundamental ideas- happiness and liberty- but it feels to me to be insufficient when it comes to saying something about what happiness and liberty in fact are in the truest sense of the words. In my opinion, the phrasing above gives us a way to locate what a lack of liberty is (oppression of the other, or infringement of another’s liberty). And it does offer us a definition of liberty which reads as “the ability to seek one’s own happiness”, thus suggesting that a truly liberated world is simply one where such seeking happens without infringement. I suggested that I remain skeptical of the idea that anyone is actually ever truly free in this way, and that while do think it is fair to say a world where oppression of the other exists is not a world that is truly liberated, we cannot assume that a world where everyone seeks their own happiness without infringement is in fact a liberated or true one. It is in this sense that I think the quote gives us a way to define a lack of liberty (infringement of liberty as oppression of the other), but it does not give us a way to make the positive claim about what liberty and happiness are.
I had some pushback on this, and thus I had been seeking out helpful resources or angles that might aid me in articulating, if only in my own mind, what it is that I was attempting to say in better and more coherent terms. This Podcast episode from The On Being Project was one such source, titled The Thrilling New Science of Awe and featuring author Dacher Keltner.
I had heard Dasher Keltner speak before regarding his work for Pixar as part of the research team for Inside Out. His recent book titled Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life is the result of years spent chasing after the idea of awe from a position of science and as a scientist. Awe, he argues, is the central and fundamental force of life and human experience. It is the central force of human meaning and that thing which has the power to grant us meaning. Awe sits at the center of our nervous system in the form of connective tissues, integrating a mass of ancient evolutionary functions into experiences which we (our bodiies) translate into sources of meaning, using this as a way to make sense of a world which otherwise would not make sense nor have any inherent meaning. For Keltner, Awe is the transcendent reality that we are describing when something seemingly moves us to see outside of ourselves, and it is rooted in the materiality of our bodies as a necessary means of connecting us back to the larger world. And if you pare back the essential role of Awe to its most basic and fundamental parts, even beyond any questions of what it means to thrive, it’s all rooted in a single driving force- survival.
One of the reasons he believes the science of Awe to be so crucial, even as the science remains resistant to exploring such an idea typically relegated to the fields of philosophy and religion, is that human function appears to be deeply tied to the question of meaning. In this interview he describes a crisis of meaning inherent within our present state of being as a society, specifically in the West where the language of Awe has largely been abandoned or reconstituted, and this is due to the rise of individualism in western nations relating to governing notions of liberty such as the one described by Kant. The way we relate to the world around us, to the technology we use, to societal structures and systems, to others, it all works in this libertarian fashion to narrow our sense of the world into a clearer sense of self, thus creating this assumption that happiness must mean the self operating without infringement from and by external realities. This in turn creates a crisis of meaning, as meaning, described as it is above, is something that exists external to us and which necessarily sets us in relationship to these external realities in a meaningful way. This in turn feeds what we could begin to describe as true happiness. If we simply define infringement as the inability to seek happiness however we want we are actually undermining the very liberty we think we value. This is something we can quantify and measure using science. Keltner, then, argues that the science of awe can help us regain a truer sense of meaning and thus a greater sense of happiness or joy framed by a defintion of liberty that actually has the power to say something about both its absence and its reality.
It’s worth restating here that what this highlights is that simply being free to seek our own happiness does not make us more happy. In fact, studies, or the science, can show the opposite is true. What we can draw from the science of awe is that happiness is less a choice than it is a by-product of our biological systems functioning in relationship to these experiential outcomes of our interaction with the world. That is: when we relate in proper ways to the truth about reality, This is precisely why I think the above quote is insufficient. Whether we want it to be true or not, what makes us happy is both inherent to our nature but also largely counterintuitive to competing desires of the self and subsequent addictions to the cult of the individual. In truth, truth is revelatory in nature. That’s what it means to experience it and thus gain knowledge of it. It, by its nature, imposes itself onto matters of the will which can then reform or conform it to a broadened sense of reality.
Its worth noting here that even with the helpful observations Keltner brings to the table by breaking open and introducing the science of Awe as a legitimate scientific exercise and interest, I don’t think even he pushes far enough in reestablishing the parameters for the larger discussion of meaning. There were a number of points of concession and potential inconsistencies that I noted in Keltners talk that I thought were interesting to consider in light of the crisis of meaning he is addressing:
He notes that as a scientist, the more he learns the more reductive he is forced to be when it comes to defining what reality is purely in scientific terms. If you have an experience of awe on a mountain top for example, and you learn to locate that experience within the functional and material processes of the body as evolutionary tools developed for survival, this forces one to adhere to a necessary progression of reductive reasoning. The meaning question on the other hand requires us to find a way back up the mountain, which is where the experience of Awe directs us. This creates a tension within our rational faculties that is not easily reconciled, something Keltner tips his hand towards.
He concedes that meaning is merely a narrative built from our experiences of Awe, which in turn can be manipulated (I’m thinking in terms of the whole made in the image of God versus making God in our image adage). This creates a tension for how it is that we can speak of liberty beyond the limiting and insufficient terms of the above quote by Kant, which relegates liberty to the idea of “seeking (ones) own happiness in the way that seems to him best as long as it does not infringe the liberty of others.” If happiness is rooted in our experience of Awe, and the science of Awe is able to establish proper boundaries for describing what true happiness is within that experience, then what must follow is redefining liberty in terms that allows the reality of Awe to infringe on our freedom to seek happiness in the way that seems best to us. This is where the problem arises in Keltners premise. Since he affords Awe a kind of godlike position over our existence, and since our experience of it can be manipulated, how do we then appeal to Awe as an authoritive voice in our lives and in this world in light of this present crisis of meaning without it simply tumbling back into the trappings of Kants quote which created the crisis of meaning in the first place?
He concedes that Awe must play the role of the transcendent for it to be relevant, even though it is located functionally in the body. He even goes on to say that people experience awe in different ways, relegating a relationship to the divine (church or religion) as simply one of many ways to experience and express what is in fact a singular material reality (nature, the arts being other examples). And yet he admits that, just as this can be manipulated into illusionary narratives of meaning, it requires an irrational leap in the faculties of our reason to place awe in the role of the transcendent, an agency that is able to give and afford meaning into our lives apart from the boundaries of the human will.
I have to think that when it comes to discussions about liberty or happiness, it is in their necessary reduction that they naturally lose their meaning and their power, which is why we formulate these narratives and allow ourselves to make these irrational leaps in reason to reclaim that sense of Awe. We intuitively know where Awe comes from (outside of ourselves), even if we can locate our ability to access it within the function of our bodies. In a very real sense this is why the Christian idea of incarnation still holds so much power for me. God came down the mountain at Sinai and dwelt with/in creation. God descended from above and took on flesh. God is the transcendent reality that now dwells within. Thus meaning making narratives become our means of making sense of our experiences of the Divine, using the limiting nature of human language and experience to set ourselves in relationship to the Divine as the source of our meaning. This allows us to locate ourselves properly within the very human structures and systems that afford us a way to live meaningfully lives in this present reality. When we assume that liberty is bound to the ability to define happiness in our own way we detach ourselves from the very thing that gives life meaning.- the idea that Awe actually has the power to shape and form our lives into truer forms of happiness and liberty. Sure, the caveat “as long as it does not infringe the liberty of others” might allow us to define the negative properly as oppression of the other, but the world this affords the supposed “liberties” of the individual or illusion of the liberated self, remains mired in falsehoods and untruths. In terms of the science of Awe, meaning emerges from persons and societies and communities existing in necessary relationships which do in fact infringe on our liberties, defined as it is above. This is what Awe naturally drives us towards.
The Stories of my Life 