I was challenged recently to demonstrate why morality is a problem for the worldview of an atheist.

A complicated question to be sure, and I would need to qualify it. First, to me, I begin with the premise that the atheist, in terms of adherence to logical and rational conclusions, is obligated towards a reductionist/materialist worldview. I know not all atheists subscribe to this, but certainly the reductionsit/materialist POV is the basis for most atheist positions and arguments. It is the primary reason why one can appeal to and justify either the soft version (“I have yet to find compelling evidence for God) or the hard version (“There is no evidence for God”).

Second, I would also qualify this by saying, the reason morality is a problem for the atheist intersects with why “morality,” at least in an objective sense, is a problem for any worldview. There is a particular shape that this takes for the atheist, to be sure, but it belongs to that larger discussion.

Less suffering is better than more suffering

Often the foundation of ethics and morality for secular humainists (or other materialst/reductionist views that fall under the atheist umbrella) adheres to this simple mantra- less suffering is better than more suffering. Dig underneath the mix of practical and philosophical approaches found in works from Julia Drivers, Steven Cahn, Sam Harris, Peter Singer, James Rachel Joshua Greene, just to name a few anchored in the likes of Hume, Nietzsche and Kant, and you’ll find some version of this generalized statment.

What is suffering

Suffering is defined as “the state of undergoing pain, distress or injury/hardship.” (Oxford)

It’s a simple statement that doesn’t appear to need any further qualifications. Whatever we build around this doesn’t change the brute nature of the statement, which is rooted in a simple, testable, reliable observation: we know that biological systems seek to avoid pain, and it stands as a basic, logical assumption that less suffering is always better than more. Of course this can apply to personal experiences, but it also applies to the cooperative social systems that different philosophies will say are beneficial to human life and survival.

But is it really that simple?

What is morality and how does it relate to suffering

Let’s begin with the most direct and prominant criticism of such a view, which is that it represents a crude form of morals and ethics. To reduce morals and ethics to simple pain and pleasure paradigms is not only inconsistent in its own premise, it cannot attend for all of the ways in which our experience of this world actually works and functions. In truth, suffering reaches far beyonod simple matters of physical pain, and equally represents many varied equations in which suffering is seen to either be neccessary, welcome, or good. The same person attempting to establish a basic grounds for moral and ethical concern around the brute statement “less suffering is better than more,” is also someone who will insist that pain is a necessary, welcome and good part of the natural order. This seems a given. Which, at the very least, means we are dealing with complex systems that are not reducible to hard and fast rules.

But it doesn’t stop there. That same person will usually add to the premise a further qualification regarding how it is we respond to suffering. This usually follows the recognition that a world without suffering is both impossible and undesirable, thus given it is a brute fact (we suffer), it is also necessary to not only accept suffering as part of life, but to see it as enhancing the experience of life. Typically you find this in the more philosophical works, given that it tends to reflect a blend of function (the pain that we find in the natural order) and construction (suffering that comes from pain makes us better and helps us grow in our experience of it).

Here we begin to confront the inconsistencies, and it is easy to see the line between pain and suffering starting to blur, along with the moral values.

Is suffering good or bad, desired or unwanted, necessary or uneccessary

First off, one of the biggest arguments against theism is the problem of suffering. Which, to restate that in a slightly different way, is a problem because suffering is assumed to be a bad thing. A world with suffering either means God does not exist or God is not good. Why? Because a good God would not submit its creation to suffering and/or would do something about it.

Typically, at least in my experience, the people making this argument are the same ones who would make the argument that a life without suffering and pain would be undesirable and not a good thing. That would be the first contradiction. Now, its possible of course to restrict the problem of suffering to a theological framework, which is to say that it is only a problem IF a good God exists. But I find that to be a bit of a smokecreen. Why would we percieve suffering to be a problem in a world with a (good) God but not in a world without a (good) God? The answer usually follows a line that says well, in a world without a God there is nothing to blame. But one still assumes that suffering is bad and undesirable in that equation, and further, morality and ethics seems to depend on seeing suffering, or least certain suffering, as bad, undesired, or unecesesary.

Thus the inconsistency illuminates the real issue: can we logically sustain a response to suffering that wants to choose when and how to apply it as necessary and good, and when to see it as bad and undesirable? Most of the academic sources that you will find on morals and ethics from a secularist POV will be engaged in this game of selective application. The way around this is to double down on the brute fact as its guiding principle. The problem is, this tends to leave most discussions of morals and ethics operating largely beyond this brute fact.

Why is suffering a problem?

This is where you start to see arguments fluctuating between allegiances to morals and ethics in and of themselves and bringing in appeals to different motivating factors to provide a coherent narrative for these constructed and complex systems. Here in lies one of the problems though. If one adheres to a reductionist/materialist foundation of reality, the only way any emergent or complex property makes sense is within the predictive laws that ground them. In other words, those complex and constructed moral/ethical systems might be a true observation regarding what we find in the world, but their justification, if we indeed seek to justify it, is still bound to the laws and order of nature. This is what I find gets muddled, and indeed often clouded in much of the academic work on this subject.

If suffering is a brute fact, and all responses that label selective suffering as bad are necessarily contextualized within our social constructs (meaning, the existence of suffering itself, or lack thereof, isn’t the true concern of such systems), then what we have is a necessarily dynamic response that is operating without a coherent anchor when placed within the category of our experience.

What are we justifying?

Now, this in and of itself doesn’t mean the existence of morals/ethics can’t be justified within secularist worldviews (it can). It just shifts precisely what is being justified in this case. This is not a justification that morals/ethics are inherently good. It’s not even a justification that morals/ethics are necessary for the survival of the human species. Rather, it is a justificaiton for what the moralal/ethical systems that we find are- emergent properties of the development of humans/human socities as socially aware creatures. And part of this qualification means both pointing out that there is no concrete sense in which given morals/ethics exist in this sense. They are, categorically, products of socal and biological function. This is easy to see and note of course when we actually narrow in on the functional aspects of moral and ethical systems, but the problem is we also see something else- human creatures who live and believe as though morals and ethics do in fact have some proper grounding in objective truth.

The reality of our beliefs

In other words, the typical argument from a secularist vantage point understands morals and ethics to, rationally speaking, be one thing, but it also understands that in order for moral and ethical systems to work people need to believe they are something else. Which is precisely what we find in any fair and reasoned analysis of societies operating from a secularist POV. In truth, there are endless ways and examples in which the former, which must be the voice of authority in this equation, contradicts the latter, which is where we find a framed crisis or moral dilemma emerging.

The atheist could turn around here and say okay, that’s fine, it just is what it is. Our experience can still categorize as real. Which might be true in one sense. The issue surfaces on two fronts however: when this basic function of reality reflects the grounds for ones rejection of their belief in God, it raises the question of why one is motivated to see one belief as necessarily antithetical to reason while the other is not. One fair response to this could be for the atheist to concede that one doesn’t need to see belief in God as anteithetical to reason, it just needs to qualify it in the same terms as things like our adherence to moral and ethical systems. But, and this would be my own assessment and conclusion of course, I have yet to meet an atheist who approaches this idea with any true consistency or coherency. It never takes long to find ones true authority being something other than the former (reductionst/materialist forms of reality), and it is typically some form of the latter (experiences and beliefs) that is holding everything together.

The contradiction of selective suffering

And this isn’t contained to personal experience. Just as we target diseases and look to eradicate them based on deeming them “bad,” we qualify suffering as inherently bad and undesirable. If we could not assume suffering to be bad and undesirable, we would not attend to it, and the reason we attend to it is part of our need to construct meaningful lives, however that gets defined. Which is to say: we need the freedom to name suffering as bad, unwanted, undesired. The problem is, our commitment to a reasoned position based on a reductionaist/materialist POV means taht we are forced to be inconsistent in how we apply this. It would be like trying to justify the eradictation of cancer while similtaneously trying to argue it is necessary or wanted as part of the natural order.

This applies to all manners of commonly held beliefs. We don’t value love on emotional grounds- that would suggest we experience love as a biological function. That doesn’t map on to how people actually experience the world. It doesn’t make sense of the beliefs we hold that allow us to experience the world in ways that redefine it as more than biological function. Sure. we can manipulate biological function, and we do so all the time through the information gained in the field of science or in the natural processes of our interaction with the world. But the reason we do so, at least in terms of our experience, is because we beleive that love is a valued and inherent thing. It is not subjective, meaning we feel free, in our brains, to apply it to the whole of our subjective experiences as an objective and inherent truth or a governing force.

This is what anchors the biological construction in something we might call real. Which is where any point of crisis really arises from. Our brains are wired to solve the cognitive dissonance that occurs between functional realities and our experience of reality. If we understood and genuinely saw reality (or the different componants of reality) as they are and for what they are, within a secularist POV, we wouldn’t be able to function. This is true on the level of physics, but it is also true on the level of the constructed or complex realities that shape our lives. Any emergent or constructed property can be reduced to the same physical components. Our brains are designed to construct reality out of this so as to allow us to comprehend the world, not reeduce it. Which is where many attempt to argue that morals and ethics are in fact necessarily subjective. Subjective doesn’t need to be contained to the individual, it can apply to societies and cultures and communities.

Again, on one level this is fine when it comes to making a rational and coherent argument. The problem is, our actual beliefs don’t follow suit. Pick apart someones life and values (or a society or a culture) and this becomes obvious time and time again. In my experience, atheist arguments often fail to address this simple point- when confronted with reality our brains are designed to defend against it. Which is precisely why we have to be able to name suffering in concrete terms. We can do all the necessary work of reducing it and breaking it down on paper, the simple truth is that when we are actually confronting or experiencing it we do so in ways that reframe it according to our actual beliefs.

If not suffering, than happiness?

Going back to the question about suffering and how we attend to it in largely selective ways, this also betrays the other part of that equation- we not only assume that suffering is bad, we also assume that happiness is the preferred aim. Which brings in a whole other set of problems, and in my opinion this is also a point that I find most atheist arguments simply do not attend for. If our starting point begins on the level of suffering’s brute nature (it exists, and it is both impossible and undesriable to get rid of all suffering and it less suffering is better than more), we then find ourselves in the game of measuring when we deem suffering as unecessary and undesirable and when we don’t. Sometimes this is reduced to that age old hierarchy of needs- suffering is defined as the lack of those base needs such as food, clothing, shelter, relationship. And yet, we also know that once these needs are met there is a whole other part of that hierachy that comes into view. We give a person food. We give a person a home. Then what? This is where a whole other kind of suffering opens up and forces its way into the mix.

When addressing one pain creates new pains

And yes, I have had many an atheist simply dismiss this point out of hand, but I don’t think this can be dismissed that easily. We can apply this same base line of thought to nearly everything that concerns matters of moral/ethical obligation, which again, is a socially imposed construct anchored in biolgical/social function. This is a truism we cannot escape- addressing one pain creates new pains. On a societal level, any societal change that is deemed to be good is similtaneously the grounds for future pains. And on that same level, every single moral and ethical decision one makes in response to perecieved suffering has to be measured in context. The issue being, the only way to do that is to assume some underlying grounds and foundation that can reflect a fixed value or belief across all times and all contexts. This is the part that often gets ignored.

Selective or uniform suffering

If its not clear at this point, where this presses towards is always to say, suffering relative to what? And why are we selecting this suffering here and now to be labeled as bad in relationship to other suffering? These are usually the questions posed to the equation in a hierchal system where moral and ethical constructs are necessarily contextualized. There is always the sense that someone or something has suffered more or less in measure, and yet suffering, to be coherent, also has to be uniform in its nature. Its an experience that expresses itself in the same way regardless of where we find it within that refelected hierachy. This poses a problem to the reductionsit POV, which seeks to systematize moral and ethical obligations and responses within these contextualized realities. Some try and skirt this, usually the token positivist in the crowd, by appealing to the inherent good nature of the human person. We, they say, are simply prone to respond to others when we see suffering. There is no need to distrust this, nor is there need to overcomplicate it. That belongs to the old “you’re placing too much burden on rationalism” rhetorical response, which is an accusation I’ve had lobbied my direction a few times. The problem emerges when one wants to actually attend for the rational argument and critique the beliefs that we find present in the world and underlying and sustaining these systems. If something is shown to be inconsistent in how it maps on to reality, then its fair to say that represents a logical problem.

But of course, rationalism is precisely the basis for ones rejection of particular worldviews. So it seems odd that we can choose when and how it can and must apply to our given beliefs. Perhaps it simply comes down to this: if I encounter someone making concrete statments like “less suffering is better than more suffering,” and I either desire, feel obligated towards, or feel the need to challenge the coherence and truth of that statement, am I not required to test that statment if I want to be rational? I would say yes.

I might even say my desre, obligation, need to test that statement has direct implications for how I live my life. In fact, the statement might be true in some shape or form, but that simply opens the door to other questions, which is to say, to what end must that demand something of me? Does it apply to an inherent responsibility? Or is it simply about wanting to establish integrity between my beliefs and my actions? Again, this opens up all sorts of other problems that only compound the more we realize the degree to which our concern for suffering relates directly to our experience of a meaningful life.

What we think versus what we feel suffering is

To begin, it might be true to point to the presence of certain biological factors that suggest a person in a given social situation who encounters suffering will be compelled to act. But this is not the trustworthy observation that many make it out to be. First, we are restricted in our ability to say someone is good or has done good because they act in a particular fashion, in the same way we are restricted in saying someone is inherently valuable purely on the grounds that they are a person. Second, when the definition of a good person is defined in terms of how we act, either willfully or naturally, this leads directly to moralism. Moralism establishes a social hierachy based on judgement Its central concern is upholding social function, not the inherent value of the person.

Third, one does not need to look far to find represented in our art endless stories of people and societies and communities facing moral and ethical dilemmas on these very terms. Stories about people who failed to act in such a situation. Stories of people who have to make compromising or impossible decisions. The list goes on and on. The question is, why does this dilemma exist? In the above approach it exists because it is imposed by a social structure, one that is based on reductionism/materialism and moralism. To be caught in a space of moral compromise is to have ones worth thrown into question. Even if this doesn’t correlate with anything truly rational or true, we both feel and experience this to be true largely because of social implcations and biological function.

Do we cause more harm than good?

It gets worse though. It is possible for one to live a happy life and to believe one is good while living a life that causes far more suffering than not. Actually, its not just possible, its the most likely description of most lives, if not all. We don’t like to think this way of course, because that would lead to defeatism. Our necessary beliefs would collapse very, very quickly (ironically leading to our suffering). So we emphasize the other side of the equation. In a world full of suffering its about the good that we do. Leaving aside for a second the fact that this brings in unsubstantiated assumptions about what is “good,” here certain logical approaches like effective altruism press back with its commitment to a truly rationalist approach. What something like effective altruism points out is, the good that we do has more to do with how we feel than making any actual difference. It’s not only true that we have no way of knowing how any action we take leads to good outcomes, let alone the best outcomes, its also true that we only have the way it makes us feel- meaningful or worthwhile or purposed. This is precisely why the atheist will protect their beliefs with the same fervor as the religious. In fact, once again, when we look at the most likely conclusion, it can be said that most of what we do creates and experiences far more pain and suffering than anything else. That’s a rational statement. What effective altruism wants to do is find a way to objectively anchor any moral/ethical action to a simple statment- whatever serves the greatest good for the greatest numbers. Good here being defined as less suffering is better than more, and simtaneously more happiness is better than less.

Thus, if we give money to an organization that is ineffective compared to the organization down the road that is objectively more effective, that is by defintion a less than moral act. In this sense, morals and ethics are seen for what they are on purely rational grounds- functional realities that stand external to any allegiance to a will or a self or objective truth. Simple math measuring material outcomes based on the natural order. What brings about the greatest and the most good is the measure. And yes, critics will say that it is impossible to know such a thing, and that such a way of thinking prevents people from doing any good, precisely because it has the appeearance of being an impossible equation and subsequently does not align with how people experience and live in the world. And yet, at the very least, it exposes and highlights the logical problems that do exist in how we view and approach matters of morals and ethics. We don’t need to apply those things on a macro level, we can see it taking effect on a micro level. And one of the biggest things it reveals is the way social systems work. The fact is, most, if not all people will live their lives doing far more harm than good. A very select few who have ability, awareness and influence change the systems people belong to, and the greatest good for the most people is always a question of system. Those who change systems are typically doing so by reorienting the masses in a particular direction subconcsciouslly, unconsciouslly, and unaware. And in all cases, such moral and ethical commmitments requires sacrifrice that, if understood and made aware, would lead to a moral crisis.

Just to reiterate and restate that: in a secularist POV, the only real moral and ethic that applies to the average pereson is the enforceable kind, which tends to get reduced to not causing recognizable physical harm to another. This defines most of human life on planet earth. The way this is upheld is by having our societal portraits of the necessary scapegoat. As long as we have someone or something that enables us to say “we are not them or that,” we can call ourselves good and feel that we are good. This is necessary because suffering and happiness are always existing in relative comparison.

For the greater minority, whatever reason is driving such an action, they will make active decisions to sacrifice one thing for another. This usually arises through some form of contact, influence or awarness. But even then, beyond playing into the false perception that this results in a meaningful or purposed life (again, sacrifice compared to what), those decisions and actions rarely, if ever, bring about actual real change that qualfies as good that we can know. At best, that is restricted to the very small minority who have the capacity and influence to break things down into functional and measurable componants (reductionsism), and whom are able to satisfy and solve the effectiveness of the perecieved needed moral and ethical response on a mathematical level.

Yes, I know I get a lot of pushback on this front. But remember, this is speaking in purely rational terms. It might not feel great to hear and see it in this way, but that doesn’t mean its not true. I would suggest though that even in these cases, such changes by those with the capacity to bring it about are nevertheless still coming face to face with the same problems. History shows that even widespread changes in systems inevitably become the thing that bring about new problems and pains, and typically exist within a world that takes the same sahpe that it always has- Empire (or its ancient form, tribalism). Whatever changes in that system we might find and see, the shape of the world is still the same. That doesn’t change.

What really matters is believing we’ve lived a meaningful life

But it has another problem. If the true moral and ethical discussions belong to the question of constructed systems, what do we do with the lives contained within? This, I am arguing, is where those beliefs become necessary, even where we can say they aren’t rooted in anything true. And this uncovers the push and pull of moral and ethical constructs. What matters to people is ultimately how we feel. Whatever objective measure we might seek beyond that is fueled by this essential componant. And feelings map on to beliefs. These things might change according to that which comes into our field of awareness, but they remain what they are- they serve that part of our self that needs to feel as though we have meaning and purpose. This is part of what it is to be human. In this sense, the truly rational approach to morals and ethics does not matter. Our lack of true defintions does not matter. Our inconsistencies and incoherent narratives does not matter. Whatever our life gets constructed to be controls where and how we relate to that necessary feeling. This becomes more concrete when functional realities (a lack of food or home for example) challenge the construction of our lives. In that case its easy to put all of the other logical demands of our reasoning aside. When we bring in the rest of the hierarchy things get much more problematic. However, what I am arguing here is that regardless, the problem still apply in the same way.

What is the answer?

So what is a possible answer? I might suggest two things. First, for moral and ethical constructs to be rational, we must acknowledge that they are contextualized realites, not authoratative ones. Meaning, they can never act as a source of truth. Here I would say that this applies to any worldview, including the worldview of the theist. What follows from this for the atheist is the equal concession that such constructs. regardless of how we attribute meaning to them, are reduced to their material defintion. This means, the only way to be trutly rational is to accept and state that, in a secularist POV, our beliefs are part of that construct. They play a role, but that role necessarily contradicts the reality of the biological and social  system that it is a product of. Which means, such truth is contained to data, to information regarding a functional system

If those two things are the necessary foundation for our understaanding of moral and ethical systems, the rest of the discussion becomes about the implications of this reality. This is where I think push comes to shove. This is also why my own position is such that I maintain a rejetion of all moral and ethical systems. Which is not to say that I reject morality or ethics, or that I live apart from such things. It is to say that I reject all such constructs as authorative. On this front I adopt the necessary posstion of the cynic. This is also where I would challenge the atheist on the logical front of this question. It would be one thing if the atheist were to adopt that necessary cycnism. It would be quite another for the atheist to apply that. This gets to the crucial point for me in terms of seeing morals and ehics through a different lens. Cynicism can’t remove oneself from a world of constructs and still function according to the way we experience the world as conscious creatures. Unless, that is, they anchor truth in something else. This is really what it comes down to. What I find in most of these debates and argumnets, and indeed in academics, is a need and desire to anchor ones experience of the world in truth. But this truth inevitably just ends up being another construct. Such approaches tend to protect the most important facet of our lives- our experience. The obvious implications here are that such arguments tend to function as their own justification. The reason we are okay with this, or the reason we don’t see this as an affront to logic and reason and our commitment to rationalism, is that what matters most is how our experience connects to the way we feel. Its akin to saying, if we feel our life is meaningful, than our life is meaningful. And moral and ethical constructs play a crucial  and important role in giving us a way to measure that meaning in relationship to how we live in the world. The question then is not whether its possible to feel that way, and thus experience life in this way, its whether we have a basis to logically justify it. We do if objective truth exists. By that I don’t mean the information that defines the construct. I mean truth in the sense that affords the construct a greater authority that it can function as a witness to.

I recognize that I’m wading into waters that has a long and storied history in debates and academics. To this front, this is just my personal assessment born from own studies, experiences and observations. I would maintain that while what I wrote hardly qualifies in the same way, it is my own reflections on that material, which anyone has access to. On my journey, everything that I wrote is what, when I strip away the technical arguments and complex philosophies, what I tend to find in some way, shape or form. And one one last thing on this front. I don’t think that this is some proof of God argument. It’s simply a rational one. It might be true that this world is defined as one in which God exists, that just means the rational argument obligates itself towards certain conclusions. Thats the greater point. If God exists, then I do think there is a way to take those obvservations about the nature of moral and ethical constructs and justify them according to such an appeal to objective truth. The challenge there is to sperate truth from the construct. That would be my objection to certain theistic approaches, which I think have their own penchant for slipping into moralism.

It’s been an interesting year for film in 2025. There’s the usual mix of box office and critical successes, blanketed of course by the usual barrage of cycnicism and the perpetual identity crisis facing the American industry. Anyone who follows headlines knows how ridiculous it all tends to be on the best of days, everyone racing to be the first to declare a film a success with subsequent headlines deeming it a failure the next day. All before these films even have an opportunity to exist in the public consciousness.

It’s tough to be a film fan these days. Even tougher to be a fan of the movies. In an industry, at least the bottleneck that we experience here in Canada which is the bleeding of the Hollywood system into our cineplex’s, that refuses to adjust expectations and a media desperate to stay relevant without any real measure of success or failure, most films keep becoming victims of the system. That’s not even to wade into the waters of the anti-Disney rhetoric and the incessant negativity of the trolls. This is pure speculation and intuition on my part, albeit born from what I feel, see and experience, but it appears like I’m starting to finally sense a change in the tide. The response to a struggling theatrical landscape thus far has been to double down on a constant barrage of new films all releasing at the same time with very short windows. One of the benefits of this has been that diversity of films that theaters are meant to support has retainted its presence, and even gotten more crowded. And yet, there has also been this sense that they have been chasing some magic solution in an environment of collapsed windows, heightened political rhetoric, and the continued loss of the theatrical as a primary language, making that crowded space difficult for everyone. This is the first year I have felt a general decline in content and quality as a result. And just to be clear, this will remain one of the most direct causalties of an industry in chaos. Theaters can survive on big event movies (at least a core of them). The health of the industry is what gets lost in the mix. It’s simple- without theaters driving the diversity, quality, creativity and the language of the cinematic industry in terms of original stories, these films don’t get made and the artists struggle. Not everyone needs to go watch films in theaters, but without that feeding the system the films don’t make it into homes either. And that includes the continued “streamlining” of streaming services, which in effect do very little when it comes to allowing these films to come into existence, let alone into the conversation.

There are however still a few stand out moments to note at the half way point of the year. It hasn’t been strong on the top end. I imagine you’ll be finding your fair doses of the one-two punch of Sinners and Black Bag dominating these lists thus far. Two very good films, to be sure, but even then I don’t know to what degree either will be sticking around at the end of the year, save for Sinners’ hoped for Oscar predictions.

What I have found, with the above anxieties noted, are a handful of solid 3.5/4 out of 5 star releases. These types of films are what sustain the movie going experience, to be sure. I’m hopeful that the fall will bring a few stand out entries to anchor this mix, but looking at my top 20 right now, its certainly possible to pull out some memorable and exciting moments and fare, be it the smaller indie or the bigger blockbuster.

In descending order:

Honorable Mention: Paddington In Peru

I’d be remiss if I didn’t get Paddington in here somewhere. What it misses in terms of the heights of its two predecessors, it makes up for in the increased nature of its scope, balancing the grandness of its adventure with the simple charms of those familiar storytelling beats. Any year is made better by another appearance of the beloved bear. 

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

It’s not the best of the franchise, but it is definitely the biggest, blanketed by two jaw dropping extended sequences that manage to raise the spectacle that the series has come to represent to a whole other level. I’m a sucker for final films in a series as well as I’m big on theme, and often these kinds of films are doing the heavy lifting on the narrative front when it comes to tying everything together. So it worked on an emotional level for me too. It’s a lot of movie, and thus it is a lot of working parts that need to work together, but taken together its a defining film of the year, no question.

The Order

One of the Canadian films on my list, and it stakes its claim with its gritty, raw, procedural digging deeper underneath the surface level plot regarding murder and violence and white supremacy in America. Perhaps ripe for a rewatch already, as that outsiders perspective arrives with that stark awareness that we share the impact north of the border. This is a throwback to that boots on the ground, grassroots realism that used to permeate these kinds of films back in the 70’s, and it’s truly propulsive in its presence and pacing here.

Inside

I’d say this qualifies as a true hidden gem, a debut from filmmaker Charles Williams that functions as a stark character study following the relationship between three individuals finding their way in a broken prison system. It’s the bond between these three individuals, each traversing their own unique arcs from different vantage points and captured by some stunning performances, that proves so powerful, utilizing some simple imagery to explore questions of redemption, hope and despair. It’s not afraid to leave all of these things in question, a brave move in a film that is also asking us to give ourselves over to its emotional stakes. That it works as well as it does is one of the films grewat rewards. Don’t miss the score either, because its phenomenal.

Grand Theft Hamlet

Telling the story of Hamlet within the game of Grand Theft Auto is all you need to know about this film to give it a shot. One of the most unique films you’ll likely see this year. Let the films shocking level of emotional heft and authenticity be the thing that carries you through and lingers well after the credits.

Universal Language

Another Canadian title, and this one is a true gem. And not because its set and filmed in Winnipeg, my hometown (although there’s little question the insider wit and humour that likely will only make sense to Winnipegers is a big part of what I loved about the film). To be sure, the film is a complicated narrative to unpack out of context, parlaying the Iranian experience overtop of its surrealist vision of our cityscape. What grounds it though is the humour. Comedy is the genre I’m most particular about, and this is the sort of comedy-visual, subtle, witty- that really lands for me. Far and wide the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long while, and a film I loved experiencing with a local crowd. The story and themes? That came through the necessary research I needed after. But hey, that’s also part of the experience for me. I’m never going to begrudge a challenging indie.

Better Man

If I’ve found this film slipping down in the mix over the last three months, I’d say that has less to do with the film itself, which still represents one of my favorite big screen experiences in 2025, and more to do with the passage of time. It’s a film I need to revisit. A banger of a musical with stunning production and a huge dose of creativity and innovation. Not to mention thematically layered with its exploration of the rise and fall narrative arc of its real life persona. I knew next to nothing about Robbie Williams going in, nor did I need to. This film allowed me to become intimately aquainted with and invested in his story nonetheless.

Jazzy

A companion piece to Unknown Country, this is a lovely coming of age tale with a strong female center. The score, the visuals, its all transcendent in the way that immerses and lingers as a portrait of persons occupying space in the world from their particular vantage point. And then of course there is Lily Gladstone. Always a masterclass.

Lost in Starlight

I fully expect and imagine that as the year goes on and we get more animated fare (it’s been somewhat slim on that front up to this point), this is going to just increase in favour. It’s a love story following the individual but parallel paths of two persons and perspectives in a way that leads to worlds colliding. It is the kind of narrative structure anime is so adept at drawing out, and it, as is usually the case, packs an emotional punch. Stories about crossing that divide, that distance, will always resonate, and when packaged within the films gorgeous animation, bringing space and music together as part of the narrative and theme as a device, it is extremely satisfying.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy

Without a doubt one of my biggest surprises. An exceptional exploration of grief, and more importantly the act of recovering life and joy in the midst of the struggle. Where is the wonder, the film asks. I think its here.

Predator: Killer of Killers

Speaking of top tier animation in 2025, don’t sleep on this one. This is an original anthology that traverses time periods that absolutely rocks from start to finish. Where else can we get the worlds of WW2, Vikings and feudal Japan colliding with larger than earth stakes.

Ballerina

John Wick exhaustion? Not when we have Ballerina. But let’s be clear, bringing in John Wick and embedding this in that world and story is equally part of what elevates this action flick to something that both carries that already established weight and carves its own path. It’s what big screen blockbusters are meant to be, and its commitment to a visual feast for the senses is what makes it so memorable.

How To Train Your Dragon

The animated films are among my favorite trilogies of all time, so my hopes and expectations for this was quite high. I can’t talk about this film without mentioning the sheer glee and joy of my theater experience. Watching this with a crowd genuinely excited to be there and anticipating and cheering with each beloved moment of what becomes a faithful adaption was a cherished moment. What makes this film stand out though is that it understands exactly what a live action remake should be. It preserves the integrity of the source material and understands precisely what live action adds or differentiates- the scope of that real world terrain with its cinematic presence and turning the camera to the intimacy that flesh and blood presence can tease out. It’s not better or worse than the animated film, it simply adapts and reimagines the same story from its particular vantage point with its own opporunities and limits being used to its benefit. And yes, I loved the story and characters just as much.

Exhibiting Forgiveness

A powerful indie, about as small as films can get in terms of budget and production, but also so extremely confident in what it wants to capture and explore in terms of father-son relationships and the complicated nature of forgivness. Its a film driven by the senses, including the way it utilzies the parallel devices of art and music. A massive part of what elevates this film to moments and points of real transcendence and meaning.

Materialists

I’m a huge fan of Celine Song’s Past Lives, so her follow up effort was among my most eagerly anticipated films. It’s a fascinating film to unpack given that it takes a very different path into her recognizable sensibilites. Much of this functions as a commentary on the nature of the hollywood rom-com, which for me really worked as an intelligent examination of the relationship between these stories and the modern landscape of dating and relationships. Using the superficiality of modern dating platforms and emphasis “qualifications” and status, she without inhibition and fear dives head first into the subject of more universal ideas such as marriage. Here she challenges us to consider the difference between a true value and a construct, challenging the modern conceptions to reflect on the real values and truths that lie underneath the superficial game of relationships that seem like a ship without an anchor. It’s a story that I deeply appreciated, as we don’t often get these intuitive and aware observations in a world bent towards tearing down constructs that have the appearance of threatening our tightly guarded individualism. Perhaps true liberty comes from elswhere.

The Penguin Lessons

This isn’t the kind of film that gets universally recognized, but where it finds someone to resonate with, its the sort of film that proves genuinely powerful as an emotive experience. I am one of those. I was drawn into the story, was genuinely touched by the journey, and felt changed afterwards in terms of my perspective. Its ultimately a film about the power of relationships, but its the way it fleshes this out against a larger backdrop of social and systemic struggle, something it leaves largely in the background, that elevates the simple character arcs informing its core. It wonders about what relaly matters in life, and it fleshes that out in the interactions between these unlikely friendships, all of which find their way through the presence of this humble penguin. I cried, and the film earned those tears, which is, for me a mark of a great film.

F1

The perfect summer movie that manages to distinguish itself amongst other “racing” films in ways that serve its emphasis on the inner workings of the race and its different people and components. At three hours long, it is structured in a way that allowed me to be immersed in the moment while feeling the satisfaction of a whole, sweeping story afterwards. It has some ambitious interplay that might have diverging mileage between viewers, but for me it was all anchored in the stakes, which paralleled the immediate (the outcome of the race) with the larger picture of these internal processes. A well-rounded and well exectuted blockbuster with substance is never something to take for granted.

Black Bag

There’s no question this film remains one of the most technically impressive of the year in the hands of one of the greats (Soderberg). It’s a masterclass in the art of dialogue driven narrative, using that to pit this impressive cast of characters in a delicious interplay stock full of social tension, plotted mystery, and power games. What Soderberg understands so intuitively is that what makes this more than a story is allowing the layers of the characters to sit and persist under the surface. This is what gives them, and the film, its complexity. If it is technically impressive, it doesn’t quite fit the bill of emotionally resonant, although it presents an interesting philosophical exercise, to be sure. Which leaves this as one I admired far more than I connected with on a meaningful level. There’s nothing wrong with that, and certainly I have no issues with carving out a space for such a film here, still lingering around the top of my list.

The Legend of Ochi

This occupies the other side of the coin. Admittedly it has some technical issues, and ironically this goes to show what takes precedence in my personal rating system, as I rated this lower than Black Bag despite having far more affection for it and far more of a preference for the story and for revisiting it. I’m actually staring down my own review- “I never expected it would land in my top 10 best of the year… It won’t.” And yet here I am. If my mind keeps going back to it, there is no reason it shouldn’t be here. It is one of my “personal favorites” of the year thus far, being tailor made for me on so many levels- sonically, visually, thematically. It took me back to being a kid and encountering some of those films that transformed my imagination so long ago. Exploring the human-creature relationship, using mythic storytelling focusing on characters who find they don’t belong in this world. The muted colours of the films aesthetic, the incredible landscape bringing the Carpathian region to life, borrowing from the regions own folklore to help us imagine a real world place where magic meets the darkness. The kind of story that for me finds me once again making sense of a confusing world.

28 Years Later

It would seem like a tall order for a third film in a beloved franchise to surpass the others, but this is precisely the case with Danny Boyle’s ambitious, risky endeavor, returning to the story’s raw and basic origins and then bringing in the sheer creative force of its expanded concern for the story in the way that it does. Its full of dramatic tonal shifts, using both music and place, all framed by these two parallel journies from the island to the mainfland, both from different POV’s. Ultimately it is about how we find those notes of transcendence in the darkness, glimpsiing new life in the sunrise, even where death persists. Visceral and powerful as a movie going experience.

Sinners

The jury is out for me on how this stands the test of time, but until I can get a couple rewatches under my belt, the sheer force of its wow factor paired with what the films thematic resonance brought about for me in my initial viewing, keeps this as a top contender. I can’t shake the feeling that some of that shine maybe masked some narrative problems, but not its heart. Here we get to its conversation about sin, both in a cyclical and systemic sense, and in a personal sense. As I wrote in my review, everyone in the film is running from something, and the brilliance of the film is where it shifts the focus to evoke the question of what they might be running towards. Or whether there is, indeed, anything to run towards. Here it brings us face to face with the two dueling forces- death and resurrection, imagining song as representing the power of those thin places where the spirit can cut through the tension with some revelatory sense of what is true. So much imagery, and certainly a profund visual presence. Sinners, even if it might have some weaknesses, is not a film you quickly forget.

The Ballad of Wallis Island

Such a sweet, gentle, good spirited movie. Exudes an unassuming charm and likeability that sweeps you into the simple beats of its quiet dramatic notes. So much so that it kept flying under the radar everytime I reassessed my working list of 2025 films. My most recent reflections just seemed to have the right moment to make this basic observation click for me- what film would I miss the most if it wasn’t here. I feel it would be this one. There is so much understated wisdom in its approach, landing the perfect marriage of tone and pacing, character and story. It all culiminates in a truly authentic experiernce designed and meant to lift ones spirit and point of view. One of a few films on my list that use music as part of its plot device, which is part of what makes its Irish setting come so alive.

Having just finished Ethan Kross’ book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It, I find myself in a weird space. For a book that is as accessible as this one is, it is suprisingly difficult to apply. Part of the issue is his reliance on case studies. Another part of the issue is that he fails to establish a real foundation for why his thesis matters. Perhaps most pertienent is that whatever tools he offers (and his final chapter is called “The Tools”) serves the privileged and the ones on top of the evolutionary chain (in his view). Which means, it is a science book written in laymans terms masquerading as a self help book for those who want to rise above the rest.

The reason I picked this one up is because it was recommended that I find something to help deal with my penchant for going inside my head whenever positive things happen. I am in a season of positives. For the first time in our lives we have equity that is allowing us to pursue different options in home and travel. After a couple years of treading water with severely reduced hours, I have a new position that has bumped me back up to full time hours doing what I enjoy. We’ve got a good 12 year track record now with investing in stability in different areas of our life, which is a sharp departure from the constant change that shaped the first 8 years of our marriage.

And yet with all of this in sight, my brain finds itself spiralling, waiting for the worst case scenario to drop. I find it so hard to escape those anxieties, and find myself stuck in this space that insists when good things happen it means the bad is lying in the wake. One could argue for good reason.

So this book sounded right for me. In some ways it was. I don’t want to lose it entirely to the above critique. But I knew right off the bat that I might have a challenge here. I am big on the why questions. Which is to say, I need the philosophical side of any equation to make logical sense for it to work (for me). In the introduction, the defintion of chatter feels apt. He describes it as “consisting of the cyclical negative thoughts and emotions that turn our singular capacity for introspection into a curse rather than a blessing.” Feels about right. But then he follows up on the why- it inhibits peformance, successful relationships, decision making, happiness and health. So now we are in the arena of self help. Okay. I get it. Of course our motivation for tackling a problem is attending to the problem. So having targeted outcomes feels expected, if a bit leary.

But it doesn’t stop there. Right after this he brings up the why question again, this time, on the heels of him doubling down on his credentials as a scientist. The why gets reduced to a purely materialist framework. What he is really interested in is reducing the human experience related to chatter to its base level material function. Why? So that we (and he) can manipulate and control it.

Who the “we” is in this equation is already a question I find myself asking, because I, as the reader and thinker in this equation, have been likewise reduced to to the same material property.

But then he grabs me in with observations like this simple fact- we spend upwards of half of our lives NOT living in the present.
Meaning, we spend that time in both past and future. Which is where the chatter comes from. In some ways necessarily, but in other ways to our detriment. “Much of our life is in the mind.” That’s the way life works. And it is that inner conversation that plays a crucial role in how our brains function on an evolutionary level.

Alright, now we are getting into that philosophical territory.

Chatter, definitionally, is when that inner voice that is the life of the mind becomes a curse. Meaning, chatter gets in the way of us using that inner voice to what we might call or impose or assume to be positive ends, something he, like most who approach his field in the way he does, qualifies as “the pursuit of happiness.” A word that I might argue is part of the problem. What is happiness? For him it relates to functional success. A kind of state that our material functions create. Why? I guess because it serves some constructed end  in the realm of the natural order.

Here he tackles things like memory, something he says we have a penchant for romanticizing as a glorified image of the past acting in response to the challenges of the present. And yet memory is much more than this. It is equally a matter of the brains multitasking ability regarding the onslaught of information it recieves as it is formulating narratives. He sees this as dependent on what he calls an “excecutive function,” which is the part of our brain that dictates how different information is used. I’m thinking here of Andy Clark’s The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality. I think Kross is getting at something similar, underlining the relationship between past and future to the present as a constant act of “prediction.” Prediction that consistently is being tested and reformulated against the past. The important part of that being, memory plays into this through the simple observation that prediction never stops. Which is to say, we, by our nature, live in a necessary and perpetual state of uncertainty that is being overlayed on to the past. This is what creates what we might call our conscious experiences.

Kross also touches on the continually emerging field of genetics, suggesting that what we are finding is that our assumptions about genetics as concrete predictors is not entirely accurate. It is not that black and white. It has more to do with genes being turned on or off, and even more to do with the constant interplay of a world of genes that can come from anywhere. Here I’m thinking of Dalton Conley’s The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture. The important point that Kross is drawing out here being that our inner voice, something that is constantly shifting between zooming in and zoooming out, or our experiences set against acts of conscious or unconcious distancing, has the power to change our biological makeup. Our genes. It can turn genes on or off, which is the far more prevelant and pertinant question relating to our genetic makeup.

Which of course begins to tread on that old tired trope that says “stop being anxious or it will kill you.” Well there goes that chatter again.

If genes can be turned on or off, Kross also brings in the simple fact that this happens in relationship to others. How we relate to others and how others relate to us has a reciprocal affect. One of the key things here is whether we have people in our lives who can recognize the balance between needing empathy (listening and understanding) and needing the overt push towards change. We crave negativity in many ways. We are drawn to the problems. And yet the mark of successful people is the ability to reframe those problems as positives and points of growth. Miring ourselves in the negative for long periods of time is the problem of chatter. Where we can get ourselves out of introspection and into action is where chatter ceases to have that negative power over our lives.

Ok. So how do we get there? Over and over again Kross defines it in terms of manipulation. Self manipulation. Or manipulation of this material reality we call the self. Bringing in specfic actions that can turn our experience of something in one direction or another by appealing to illusions. Illusions of feeling. Illusions of beliefs. To cite page 125, “In order for you to truly FEEL in control, you have to BELIEVE…” In this case, seeing and claiming order in a disordered world. Or feeling and believing that ones world is ordered. That translates to a physicalist POV and to our sense of meaning in the same way. He calls it “perceptions of control,” and applies it to the brains act of “simulating” such perceptions in ways that formulate into necessary beliefs.

Remember when I said he appeals sharply to a reductionist worldview? What he has done here is used the concept of chatter as another way of reordering the world according to hierchies of success. The strong and the weak. If you want to survive, and in his view conquering chatter is integral to survival, you must be successful at these things.

He then gets to a central question- the question of pain. As is commonly assserted, pain is something he sees as necessary to a physicalist POV. He relates pain of one kind to the critical voices that lie inside our head- we need both. Why? Because that is the mechanism he sees evolution has given us to avoid that which harms us. In this case it is chatter. And yet what has he handed me but another social construct by which to prove and demonstrate my worth, and one that is based on the power of my mind to delude myself for the sake of feelings of “happiness.”

Here he has shifted, if subtly, so subtle as to not be noticeable even, from the functional and mechanical reasons to empirical or philosophical ones. To me, such a view quickly distorts itself into defeatism, precisely because he conflates them. Not only is it based on something that is in fact acting contrary to reality, but because it uses certain truths about a functional reality to prop up life as a game of winners and losers in a world defined by its evolutionary push. All while sneaking in this view that sees it as some kind of transcendent truism.

This becomes no more apparent than in his ability to harness feelings that he has reduced to material function in order to turn it into something else he calls awe. As though this awe exists as some external and authoritive motivating force in our lives. Just to ensure that we understand, he consistently qualifies these statements by reasserting his commitment to reductionism so that we know we haven’t fallen over the line into religiousity. Seemingly burying the lead that he made loud and clear from the start, which is that this awe he is experiencing is a constructed illusion that finds its foundation in the simple truth of its material function. It is when we allow ourselves to believe in the illusions that the practical, functional changes can happen for the (strong, defined accordingly) individual.

Which brings me back to his observations about pain. It seems awfully convenient to me to try and say that pain exists so as to allow us to avoid pain. He tries to romanticize this by attaching it to some imposed virtue of betterment, but that betterment is little more than a material reality manipulating itself so as to appear AS something else. Which, if I’m correct, is the exact awareness that creates the chatter in the first place. Chatter is fundamentally, according to the author, being consumed by pain, or the correlary experience of the inner voice being shaped by crisis or curse agianst perceptions of blessing. And yet the reality that he is working with is a cursed one. The only way to reformulate it as blessing is to be a functional “winner,” and even then survival is a whole lot different than appealing to something called awe. An appeal that surfaces in order to make survival feel and seem like it has some inherent meaning, or that happiness has some kind of coherent definition, or that the self is anything but a construct. Blessing in this sense is privilege, not reality. Worse yet, it is packaged as accomplishment and acts without any real or true foundation. What is privilege after all other than a perpetual game of social comparison.

The real point of crisis for me comes when I submit his approach to a necessary cynicism. Sure, I can do a, b, and c and possibly come out on top in this observably and painfully cruel world. But that necessary critical voice tells me such a thing is not trustworthy. It might reflect certain truisms regarding our biological function, but it is not trustworthy. The question then is, can I allow myself to be given over to the tactics of his tools so as to actually be able to believe the illusions are true. If he is correct, and to a degree I think he is, our brain function depends on this. My cynicism pushes back and says, okay, the truth is reducible to the biological function of creating illusionary beliefs (the degree to which I do not think he is right), but I also know that a contrary reality is the thing my brain is reacting to. Disorder is the reality my brain is manufacturing an illusionary sense of order from and against. And the only way to sustain a different kind of reality than the one the chatter is a symptom of is persist in our constrcuted beliefs. To fall back on the reductionism Kross has handed us is to be left weilding tools without a foundation. Or worse, building on a faulty and problematic foundation that enselves us to the biological and social systems. This is precisely why, for me, the way through the problem of chatter needs that foundational why question. Without that I find myself being pushed and pulled headfirst into the very thing that caused the problem in the first place. It makes things worse. What Kross does is conflate the why with the what.

Looking back at my reflections for the first quarter of 2025, I can see some steady themes emerging, guiding my journey into the second half of this present season. Themes about finding ones place in the world. Finding ones place through a life of particiipation in a world where we find both the sacred and the profane. The importance of the act of seeking as an integral part of the art of participation, and the relevance of the mind in seeking coherence between spirit and body.

The Most Anticipated And the Biggest Surprises…

The first quarter certainly was blanketed by two of my most aniticipated reads: the latest in the Hunger Games series, Sunrise on the Reaping, and Aurelia, the latest by my favorite author Stephen Lawhead. While both of those were definite best of the year candidates for me, My Friends by Fredrik Backman, arguably the most aniticpated release of the second quarter, failed to live up to those expectations, taking a premise that held promise and underwriting its singular most compelling facet- the potential exploration of purely platonic relationships. All three of these books could be captured by this simple phrase- we find all things in relationship.

There have been plenty of suprises in the second quarter however, a few that will undoubtedly be in the mix come end of the year. Leading the way would be the sweeping, emotional epic Isola by Allegra Goodman. A compelling examination of womanhood, humanity and faith, taking the real world history of a sixteenth century woman left to fight for her survival on an island and turning it into a memorable character study asking big questions about faith (or faithful participation) in the face of suffering.

Brianna Labuskes The Boxcar Librarian and Patti Callahan’s The Story She Left Behind are two other possible contenders occupying similar space in the historical fiction genre. Both stories about women facing particular struggles against a particular socio-political backdrop with themes relating to the power of the book, or the power of the word, and the power of the relationships that bind us to our place in this world, be it family or friend. Labuske is new to me, and her ability to mine historical data with a real sense of imagination for the potential drama is expertly crafted and hugely entertaining. Callahan is familiar, becoming an automatic buy for me after reading Becoming Mrs. Lewis. This is only my second read from her, and its not quite as strong as Mrs. Lewis, but the potential is there and the setting (the English countryside alongside the abode of Beatrix Potter) and characters were spaces and persons I would happily have spent more time with.

The Mind And the Spirit…

The first quarter had me reading a couple books on the science of the mind (Light of the Mind, Light of the World and Hart’s magisterial All Things Are Full of Gods. Kieran Fox’s I Am Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein and The Transcendent Brain by Alan Lightman add to that mix, the first being an excellent biography with points of personal disagreement, focused primarily on capturing Einstein’s spiritual convictions and beliefs. The second being a less than satisfying attempt to reconcile transcendence with the authors noted and staunch materialism. I found Fox’s treatment to be honest, Lightman far less so. Fox brings out Einstein’s awareness of universal truths allowing it to shape the particulars, while Lightman imposes the particulars in an effort to construct and manufacture a universal. In terms of seeking, I find the best approaches to pose the question, what is the shape of this world we observe and experience, and to allow that to make sense of the particulars.

Although not as magisterial in nature, I would also add Loren Wilkinson’s fantastic Circles and the Cross. I found it equally compelling and important, probing the nature of the mind from the perspective of Christ and the cosmos.

From The River To The Ocean And Back Again…

I started the second quarter on the Panama Canal, traversing the waters of it’s creation, reflecting a monumental point in history, a moment that paved the way for the formation of the modern West: The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough and The Great Divide by Cristina Hematquez. Very different books, one a breezy but effective drama, the other a dense and detailed history. Both worthwhile in their own ways.

I continued from there in two parallel directions, the first moving me towars John Haywaood’s Ocean: A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus, an equally important work on understanding the historical formation of the West, and Josephine Quinn’s How The World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History, looking at the same historical period from a slightly different vantage point and challenging common perceptions of the West as a measure against opposing civilizations rather than seeing it as a product of civilization (singular).

I found both to be really helpful explorations of certain conceptualized trappings that prop up forms of Western exceptionalism.

As a tangental window, perhaps, into that whole conceptualized West idea, I prepared for the release of Ron Chernow’s massive biography on Mark Twain by reading Twain’s irreverant and often very funny travelogue following his trip abroad (A Tramp Abroad).

I went from the Ocean back to rivers in the provocative Is A River Alive by Robert Macfarlane and the mythic fiction of The River Has Roots by Amai El-Mohtere. The latter was one of those “throw the book down in frustration” experiences given the way I felt duped by a particular by a particular revelation near the end of the novel, but Macfarlane is an important voice in my life in terms of how he seeks to reconcile his skepticism of the transcendent with the honest ebb and flow of his particular spiritual journey through a material world. This might be his most honest reflections yet, and given that it focuses on one of my great loves (rivers), it certainly retains a spot on my keeper shelf. If The River Has Roots takes a mythic approach to examining the lives of two siblings finding their place in the world, or perhaps between the worlds. the worlds Macfarlane traverses is the transcendent and the physical.

Sacred Books, Sacred Films…

Continuing on the history front, The Bible: A Global History by Bruce Gordon was a really interesting look at the development of the Bible over history. It is tackling a lot, and some of it trends towards surface level treatment and generalizations, but I think it adds some helpful questions and observations to an always controversial topic, ultimately cutting through the noise with an express interest in capturing why the book gained and retained its sacred status. I think it gives people a way to see its relevance and importance to a life of faith through a fresh lens.

One of my favorite reads from the first quarter was the classic How To Read a Film. That pairs well with a deep dive into my favorite filmmaker with Guillermo del Toro: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work by Ian Nathan. It’s a must read for anyone who is a fan, giving informative and illuminating context to his works and his motivations, especially where it connects to his relationship to his father, his mother and his grandmother, the basis for his interest in monsters and the tension between the spiritual and the material.

From Advent To Lent: Learning To Seek…

The second quarter coincided with Lent, and I partnered that with the wonderful Pause: Spending Lent With the Psalms and Scot Mcknight’s commentary on the Gospel of Luke, a book I had been with since the advent of Advent, given that my Church was journeying through the Gospel this year (from Advent to Lent).

With the death of Pope Francis, I also finally made room for his autobiography (Hope: The Autobiography), a fitting and timely cap to the Easter season that emphasises how faith makes sense only through a life of participation. 

I listened to the audio version of The Last Romantic, a unique and fascinating series of essays that function as a conversation into the way Lewis was formed by the Romantics and how the convictions of the Romantics speaks to our modern world and debates.

Picking off from my devoitional for Lent, I delved into Christopher Ash’s The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commetnary. I struggle with a lot of the material coming from Reformed circles, and Ash is firmly centered within this Tradition. But to his credit, the academic elements here, married as it is to an expressed pastoral concern, was refreshing. He falls into some trappings, but for the most part I really liked his approach and his arguments for the interplay between the Psalms in its world and the patterned Tradition that fits it within that necessary Christological lens. It’s not an imposition, its a natural outflow of the Psalms interest.

Having read Walker Percy’s Signposts in a Strange Land in the first quarter, I finally was able to check off his classic The Moviegoer, a philosophical journey in the life of a fictional character seeking to understand the nature of “seeking.” The quest of life seeks the spiritual quest. As it says, to have arrived means to cease to be seeking, which mires one in the mundane.

Comfort Food, Family, Mystery and Dysfunction

Carrying forward the simple loveliness of Sipsworth from the first quarter, Monica Wood’s How To Read a Book, Gwang’s The Rainfall Market, What You Are Looking For in the Library, and The Lost Library by Rebecca Snead, all fit the bill of comfort food, if it had a literary parallel. All of them have an equal and shared interest in big life questions married to simple adventures and the theme of relationship.

I also got back to Juneau Black’s quaint detective series, returning to Shady Hollow and its still endearing cast of talking animal characters with the second book in the series, Cold Clay. Equal doses of mystery and heart with a dash of quirky.

On a more edgier front, albeit still in the realm of simple, good entertainment, I also finally got to Zoje Stage’s follow up to the horror novel Babyteeth, Dear Hanna. Its good, not great, but also effective for what it sets out to accomplish, handing us a now grown Hanna dealing with her past and navigating the present struggles of someone with mental illness.

I picked up the buzzy The Book of Records (Madeleine Thien), continuing with my selection of Canadian authors (having read the great Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice in the first quarter). This one was underwhelming for me. A little too ambitious. Difficult to track with. Too singular for the depths it was trying to mine. And yet its also intriguing. using the voices of past, present and future to explore questions about the nature of our existence.

The Classics…

Also, on the classics front, I finished Kings Ransom by Ed McBain in preperation for Spike Lee’s remake of the older adaptation (Highest to Lowest). A page turner that leaves you with a ton to think about by the end  in terms of its moral dilemma and its existential concerns.

I had a more complicated relationship with the classic Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookshop. Loved the premise, fusing the mystery of this bookshop where customers demonstrate peculaliar habits with worldbuilding  didn’t love the execution, although it has a few points along the way that provided stand out moments.

Pre-Summer Reads…

This past month has felt like “getting ready for summer” mode, spending time with some unlikely choices, such as Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, Three Days in June by Anne Tyler, Once Upon a Camino by Matthew Wilson, and The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley. Suprisingly, I enjoyed Henry’s blend of soapy drama with just the right amount of substance thrown in to give it heft. I’ve never read her before, but all of the book groups I am a part of are always reading her latest as part of the summer reading lists, and for once I just wanted a participation trophy. Tyler’s equal blend of surface drama and substantive questions was one I liked even more. It’s less rom-com and more drama, and I really enjoyed the simple structure of the three days in life of a family, exploring the dynamics between a divorced couple against the backdrop of their daughters wedding. Wilson’s romantic adventure had time travel, so automatic points for me. Pooley? I actively disliked this book. Count it amongst my least favorite of the year with the frustrating Hollow Kingdom by Kira Buxtonwith and Here One Moment.

In the mix as well was Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men, a contained, melancholic experience told from a singular perspective that occupies the opposite side of the above “summer” fare.

Seeking Conversation Across Divided Lines…

Perhaps a good pairing with Custodians of Wonder, a book I read in the first quarter, Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journey’s to Religious Conversion by Kelsey Osgood was a lovely exploration of the lives of real people engaging real life spiritual quests across varied Traditions. It’s the universal nature of these quests that really stuck out for me, leading readers to wonder about the Truth that these quests are drawn towards.

In a similar spirit, The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More by Jefferson Fisher was a helpful guide to mutual connections across divided lines in something more than chaos and discord.

What’s Next In The Coming Months?

Probably a bit too ambitios, but I presently have started the third book in Black’s Shady Hallow series (Mirror Lake) with V.E. Schwab’s newest on tap alongside the second in Peter Brown’s acclaimed The Wild Robot series. I’m also in the middle of a fascinating travelogue called Go To Hell: A Traveler’s Guide to Earth’s Most Otherworldy Destinations, and have started listening to the Mark Twain biography which will likely take me months (on paper it leans close to 1000 pages). I also have Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London (Book One) on the go, and I am finishing up a history on Ghosts called The First Ghosts, which so far is really good, pressing on the basic facts of history that not just these beliefs, but tangible real world encounters are present in every documented account that we have from human societies, cultures, groups.

After that, I’m hoping to work in a summer mystery (either Riley Sager’s With a Vengeance or Barclay’s Whistle (trains seem to be a good choice), a YA (probably Best of All Worlds), and the fluffy For Whom The Belle Tolls and Summer of the Monsters by David Sodergren. Building off I Am Part of Infinity, I just picked up Sean Carroll’s From Eternity to Here: The Quest For the Ultimate Theory of Time, and building off The Next Conversation, I also picked up Chatter: The Voice In our Head, Why it Matters and How To Harness It by Ethan Cross.

And if I can fit it in, a tandem read with two Ukranian stories (How April Went To Visit March and Other Ukrainian Folk Tales, and Endling by Maria Reva), along with a hoped for classic (either Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger or something by Flannery O’ Connor).

(Spoiler Warning For Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later)

Ruminations on death, politics and masculinity.

These might not be the sort of themes one might expect from a zombie film, but in 28 Years Later, which sees Danny Boyle affectionately returning to the famed franchise, all three of these themes are woven in to what could be considered the present trilogy’s most compelling and challenging entry yet.

Saying that these themes are unexpected is a bit misappropriated, as 28 Days was decidedly political while 28 Weeks was decidedly intimate. In both cases those films also deal with familial contexts, something 28 Years takes to a whole other level.

At its core is the journey of a young boy named Spike, played with a resilient and layered conviction by newcomer Alfie Williams, whom is caught between the weight of his father’s expectations and a love and concern for his sick mother. This tension is illuminated by the reality of this isolated village, cut off from the mainland and its threats/enemies, as the safety of this place, marked by the symbolic representation of raising up young zombie killers, is contrasted by the realization that a mysterious doctor who might be residing deep in the woods of the mainland could be the only one who can help his ailing mother.

There is admittedly a lot going on in this film. It has a lot on its mind, equally marked by numerous tonal shifts as it navigates all of these different elements. This is part of the risk Boyle takes by telling this story in such a heightened, emotional way. It is also part of its undeniable intrigue. It’s the kind of film, I have found, that lingers. The more distance I got from my initial viewing, the more I am thinking about it, an experience I’ve discovered a few others also share.

Part of that ruminating has been digging into think pieces and conversations to help parse out my feelings on this film, especailly on a thematic front. I found one such conversation to be especially helpful on the most recent episode of the Filmspotting podcast. Worth giving a listen (episode #1020). There were a couple of points brought up in that conversation that helped curate my own thoughts in a recognizable direction. Namely an observation about the way Boyle uses this concept of the zombies “evolving” in the film, and the way this single concept anchors the films overarching theme regarding what is essentially a coming of age story. A boy becomming a man in a world mired in chaos, confusion and contradiction.

When we first meet Spike, we see him as a product of this constructed society that he was born into. We encouter the shape of this social order, its expectations and rules. We are emeshed in everyday routines. Spike is surrounded by men. His father, who needs to shape his son into a visible and symbolic ideal. His grandfather, who cares for Spike even as he seems to carry the burden of holding certain secrets. The village, sustained by these new found traditions connecting a society cut off from modern technology and conveneiences with the allure of their old world Scottish allegiances (this is set in the Scottish Highlands) to the hero’s of old. All of this culminates in this rite of passage, the father taking the son to the mainland in order to get his first kill.

There are multiple layers to unpack here, even where the premise itself is relatively simple. The more time we spend with Spike, the more we come to understand that he is not what his father’s misplaced idealism wants him to be. He wants, or rather needs him to be a killer. In contrast, Spike hesitates to take the necessary shots. This becomes most potent when the sordid and almost desperate actions of his father, upon their return, see him presenting a false version of his son to the community, an action that isolates the son even more as the village raises him up to the level of a symbol. What’s fascinating about this, which is a point the hosts of filmspotting highlight, is that, taken in context, the actions of the father make sense. It makes sense for this community to feel under threat. It makes sense for them to formulate these tales of mighty hero’s and warriors out of a natural need and desire to survive. After all, they are isolated from the mainland because the rage virus has decimated humanity all around them. And yet, something that Boyle deftly manages is exploring a question of blurred lines. At what point does the appearance of safety in this isolated village betray the integrity of the community itself?

This is where the question of the evolution of the zombies comes into view. As the filmspotting hosts suggest, the evolution of the zombies into “alphas,” powerful and superior males with the capacity to rip heads straight out of their body with the spine attached, blurs the line between these idealized village warriors and the percieved beasts they are hunting. As the father says to Spike earlier on in the film, the key to killing is dehumanizing the opponent. The zombies can’t think, therefore they have no soul. Thus killing carries no moral obligation beyond the protection of ones own, this society they have built on supposedly “better” thinking persons. The tension thus arises over the course of the film in which we see the evolution of these zombies, the undead, encroaching on the very boundaries of life itself.

This is what the second half of the film, framed by Spike’s own journey back to the mainland over and against the idealization of his father, then becomes. Here Spike is seeking life, not death, setting out to find the infamous doctor, played by Ralph Fiennes, whom can offer him a different ideal- the promise of life.

Here Boyle is pushing this film to a whole other level, marked by several sequences which carry immense symbolic significance. There is the encounter with a peer, a young kid with his own familial context assuming the persona of the weathered militant. This plays Spike’s own village context into the politics of the larger world while infusing it with certain nuances and added layers. There is the birthing sequence, the undead breeding new life, an image that carries the balance of these blurred lines through the tangible face and image of an infant. And then there is the doctor, someone who has shaped his own isolation not through killing but through preservation. His art project, a mountain of skulls piled on top of each other, each with “their own special place,” further blurring the line between the thinking creature and the soulless beast. In this art project there is no distinction. Every skull coexists with the same observation about life and death.

And then there is the revelation that comes with Spike’s mother, finding out that what was thought to be curable is in its own process of dying. Here all of the vaunted themes playing out on this journey get narrowed in on the intimacy of this mother-son relationship. One of the hosts of filmspotting makes an interesting observation on this front- that to value life means we must value death. I think I get what he means. I also think I would pushback on this point. I would reword it in this way- to be able to name life we must be able to name death. One of the things I think Boyle does in paralleling the war waging within the mother between her desire for life and the rage virus we call cancer cells, with the war waging between the village occupants and the undead zombies, is he allows us to dig underneath the messiness of the construct, be it biological or social, to get at the real questions lying underneath. What is life? What  is death? Do we justify the killing of the zombies as a threat to life in the same way we justify attacking the cancer cells? If so, how do we step out of that basic truism regarding “survival ” into the much more complicated picture of human function? If survival is about meeting the base needs of safety, meaning getting rid of the basic threats to life, where and how do we step into the conversation about actual “living”?

Or to make that question more specific: on what basis does Spike judge his father’s actions? On what basis do we distinguish between the thinking creature and the walking dead? On what basis do we distinghish between death as the natural course of life and it being a mutated distortion of it?

Here I think the host of filmspotting misses that crucial piece. To value death would be to undercut the entire foundation for Spike’s own formation and revelation. Life’s value doesn’t come from valuing death, it comes from being able to name life and death in opposition. Otherwise there is no distinction. Death is the problem that all of life faces. Coming to terms with the idea that all things die is not reclaiming some kind of romanticizied vision of life as “death,” it is the basis for our ability to note that death is antithetical to life. This is the only way, the only grounds Spike has for reimagining a different value than the one he left behind with his village and his father. His journey in this film is shaped around the need to name life. To do that, which is where the journey ultimately brings him, he needs to learn how to name death. Otherwise what we have is a vision of worm eating zombies growing into alphas. The very basis of the evolutionary portrait that drives this world. We can understand why Spikes father and the village they belong to act in the way they do in this sense. And yet we can also understand how this holds them captive and imprisoned to this system in the same way. Here we gain those political notes, playing out into a global society persistently set in conflict with nationalist interests, all revolving aorund the marriage of militant responses to the need for alpha’s, and the demonization of the other that follows as a form of the undead.

One of Boyle’s more interesting moves is his choice of bookends. He opens and closes the film with the brief story of a boy and his father whom then disappear from the body of this film. What seems apparent here, given that this bookend will be the story that drives the next film, is that Spike’s story is meant to give us a lens through which to see the other. There is a sense of clarity that rings through Spikes’s story, but one that has need of a fuller resolution. One that can perhaps find its way in this movement from this village out into the wider world. One that, perhaps, can find an answer in some kind of restoration that moves this world from death to life.

Given the religious symbolism of those bookends- perhaps a resolution anchored in the picture of necessary resurrection.

Author Helen Lewis’ recent book titled The Genius Myth is an interesting deep dive into a reality we all experience but might not have given much thought to or recognize. Yascha Mounk has an interesting interview on The Good Fight (titled Helen Lewis on The Genius Myth) for anyone who wants to get a good analysis of this discussion.

Lewis brings up some compelling questions and observations, all shaped by the reality of a cultural evolution that sees a shift from the concept of genius being a thing that stands external to the individual, to genius then becomminmg attached to the individual. Now the modern age is arguably on the precipice of yet another potential change in how we define and understand the concept of genius in the face of what are very real problems that emerged from this individualistic approach.

Part of the problem engages the question of whether this concept of genius is something we can live without. Arguably we cannot. What we can explore however is the differentiation between its ancient usage and its modern usage.

In a reductive sense, the concept of “genius” in a modern framework gets attached to accomplishment. Accomplishment gets attached to the myth of progress. And yet, part of what we are also finding is the rise of the individual as the necessary driving force of this modern myth.

Or perhaps less the individual and more the “representative.” Where the notion of genius has been reformulated to map on to the interests of humanism and western exceptionalism, we are no longer drawn by the external revelations and appeals to the transcendent that once shaped our human interests. Rather, we are drawn to our firm belief in the accomplishment of the human. In order for us to remake the world in OUR image, we need our genius’ to have a face and a story.

Here is where things get especially complex. First, it is true that genius is necessarily defined or measured by culturally positioned points in time. Second, it is also true that history is defined by the nameless masses of people who might have been a genius had they lived in a particular cultural moment but who never had the chance. For example, there could be endless potential “Steve Jobs,” while at the same time there can only be one. The one is the genius who is alive at the right place in the right time with the right factors.

Third, it is true that genius’ can even be created retroactively. This means that being a genius has less to do with the person than it does with what a particular society at a particular point in time shapes the genius into. Again, both representative and symbolic.

Fourth is the realization that there is an inate human need to draw out stories of genius. People need these myths. We crave the stories even more than the accomplishments.

Which is where the great contradiction of perceptions arise. When one looks at what the concept of the genius actually is, it becomes abundantly clear that such things have very little to do with the actual individuals the label gets attached to. At best what we have is the marriage of certain biological traits to any number of external factors. There is a sense, which is a point Lewis makes, in which progress is thus inevitable. It’s not about who, its about when. This is how contingent realities work.

And it is not only inevitable, it is also a matter of all things existing “in relationship.” Accomplishment, or progress, arises as a product of a cooperative and collobarative force. A force in which all things are interdependent. For example, it would be true to say that Einstein becomes a genius precisely because he was born into a world where emergent theory was at such a place as to pair with his particular biological makeup and numerous external factors. Does Einstein himself contribute to this? Yes. But only in so far as all of these things are colliding at this particular point in time. As the idea goes, if not Einstein, it would have eventually been any number of unnamed individuals. And any individual that gets adorned with the label genius are surrounded by an immense number of other factors, including other nameless persons.

And yet, it still appears to matter that the name Einstein exists all the same. Without our genius’ we don’t have culture. We don’t have our stories. We don’t have our modern myths that allow such things to emerge as progress.

Here in lies the conundrum, pressed further when we come to realize how these stories get shaped. Genius’, in the modern sense, often have outragious lives that are exempt from “ordinary laws.” They often need to suffer. They need the drama. The need to be the rebels, the outcasts, the tortured soul. An ordinary genius is no genius. It’s not enough for the name to exist, we need that name to be attached to something more than human. It is our own image as humans that is on the line after all. Even more fascinating to consider that once named genius’ whom stick around and persist for too long tend to fade from our conscisousness or become villains. They become defined not by the accomplishment that brought them into the limelight, but by the mundane life that tends to throw it into question or the failures that malign it. The only way to resurrect them is for their story to be recast following their deaths (which also does happen). 

In terms of what this has all been leading me to think about, I wonder how much of this functions as a necessary critique of our modern obsessions with progress. After all, it would seem that if we lose our confidence in the idea that this world is moving forward, even if its moving forward towards an undefined aim, and if we start to doubt that we get the credit and praise for these accomplishments or this progress, the entire human enterprise appears to be thrown into question. Worse yet, we have the world this leaves in its wake, which is a world built on hierachies and measures of our own making. All of which consistently and persistently tell us where we do and don’t belong in the ranking of life.

Ironically, since we intuitively know that the vast majority of humanity is not considered genius, humanity as developed a penchant for scapegoats- as long as we aren’t the villain we can consider ourselves good enough to somehow be defined by the representative genius’.

This is debated, although I have read enough to be persuaded towards this idea, but it does appear that the world moves forward on the basis of a very select few with influence, while the vast majority of humnanity makes no difference at all beyond being numbers that the influerencers move in particular directions. Some of these people with influence become our genius’.

To be okay with this idea, the vast majority of humanity accepts that these genius’ are our representatives, while in reality this way of thinking and precieving the world and its genius’ is what hands us life’s greatest struggles, most  readily relating to perceptions of meaning and worth and the real, tangible experiences of surviving in a world that places us within a very stark hierarchy. 

Is it possible to convince ourselves that the answer lies in making small differences where we are? Certainly that is part of how we tend to respond (just browse the shelves of your local bookstore or library for evidence of this “the world is what you make it” mentality). We narrow our worlds to our families and friends and spaces of influence and profession. The problem is, these perceptions, this convincing ourselves that we can truly exist in these ways in a world defined by the modern genius, doesn’t map on to how reality actually works. Which is why we continue to prop up our genius’. A nameless world that can’t know and name its accomplishments or that doesn’t make any real difference is a defeatist one. For as long as our representatives exist and we aren’t the villain, we can convince ourselves that the opposite is true.

And thus around and around we go. But there is something I think we can glean from this portrait. This cycle, even if its rooted in something more universal, is a relatively modern one. One of the ways we can break it is by shifting our understanding of genius back to those external truths that once defined it. Genius in this sense is unearthed, uncovered and recieved. It is the source and foundation of our forward movement, precisely because it has the authority to give it meaning. This is something the modern world has largely lost in the wake of its changing allegiances from truth to self. What we have is a world shaped by technological advancments. A world reduced to data points, which not inconsequentially has created a recognizable meaning crisis. A crisis that many in the modern world are beginning to recognize as been there lurking under the surface for quite a while.

What do we do with our selves if the self is not the genius we thought it was?

One last thought. As a Christian, I can’t help but see in all of this a powerful connection between this idea of genius as revelation and the ensuing concept of the representative. In this sense, which aligns with a more ancient understanding, Genius is more akin to Logos. A Logos, in its proper sense, is a revelatory act. If one of the outcomes of the modern age has been reshaping the Logos in our own image, what happens if we see the representative of the genius reshaped in the image of the Logos instead? What I have found is, it is precisely when we do this that the hierachies disappear. That accomplishment no longer becomes enslaved to the self. Rather, genius can be found breaking into every culture and every age with its own particuarlity, with humanity and its accomplishments being contingent on this Truth and contextualized within this Truth.

In the Christian sense, then, the true genius is Jesus. The representative Logos in whom we find our own sense of identity and meaning. To me, this seems to make a lot more sense of the human enterprise, both in our experience of this and in our rejection.

Its rare for my small corner of the city of Winnipeg, the historic neighborhood of St. Johns, a once bustling Ukrainian migration spot still dotted by the grand Cathedrals marking each corner, and still home of the oldest Public Library in the city, a focal point for the almagamation of this once town into the greater city limits- the entry point for the North End, still famously endorned by the socialist slogan unapologetically announcing itself as a haven for the workers on the roof of a building at the foot of the Salter Bridge, one of the most important points of connection between the city core and the isolated neighborhoods north of the infamous railyards, to be greeted by the smells of the lake 50 or so kilometers northwards.

Today, getting up early with the dogs on a quiet Saturday morning, a strong and welcome breeze was blanketing these square blocks with the recognizable presence of the lakefront. As I was walking, my imagination was being drawn to the water, my senses alive with the draw of its fervent relationship to the broader world. It begins with the river of course. A river that becomes a lake. A lake that becomes a Bay. A Bay that becomes an Ocean. All existing around my quiet enclave, catching a sense of the great expanse.

I’ve restated this in this space a few times, but it was a transformative phrase and idea that has continued to sit with me and form me. It’s the simple idea that we all exist in two spaces- the spaces in which we live, and the spaces to which we are drawn. For me I am drawn to the water. Not to be on or in the water, but to be by the water. While my life has forever hinged on these small but fleeting opportunities for me to live by the water, it has never been the case. And I do often wonder if this is by design. By nature of the spaces that define us. To live somehwere is to be drawn somewhere else. Whether we recognize this or not, it appears to be true to how humans experience the world. In some ways, not living by the water is the very thing that preserves the draw. It allows that breeze to awaken my imagination and gives the water its power, its allure.

It’s intersting too that as I was walking I was listening to a podcast. Summer is upon is, writing this on the day of solstice. As a school bus driver my work is seasonal, with the long months of summer being the pinnacle of our break. As summers go, so do thoughts of time away. Over the years I have found that time away always and inevitably finds its way to the waterfront. It could be to the most landlocked portion of any given space, my planning inevitably brings me to the banks. The podcast I was listening to happened to be about Liverpool. Over the last number of weeks I have found myself once again deep into researching a trip to London. London of course leads to the rivers, and the rivers of course lead to the sea. One of the most direct ways to the sea, a 2 and a half hour train ride from London, was the train to Liverpool. A coastal city looking straight out to Ireland.

Which of course comes full circle back to this space I am occupying here, where I live. Here my imagination is drawn by a simple breeze, awakening me to the grand journey from here to the edges. The edges of the world, which historian John Haywood describes in his history of the Atlantic titled “Oceans,” as holding the cradle of humanity in its comforting grip. Here, at the water, is where the seeds of wonder take root.

In his book, I Am Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein, author Kieran Fox talks about how Einstein’s “spirituality was mocked and misunderstood during his lifetime,” and worse yet buried and “all but forgotten” by modernitys growing hostility in a post-enlightnement era.

This book was en effort to understand why that was.

He goes on to write,

“These are truths the textbooks never talk about: the spiritual convictions behind the scientific creativity, mysterious motivations that drive certain minds to seek a transcendent pattern pervading all the transient appearances. And in realizing that a religious yearning had always permeated the scientific quest…. I’d spent years searching the world for a spirituality that didn’t force me to surrender my common sense, that could at least be compatible with science. And yet all the while, at the origin of Western civilization was a system where science and spirituality were the closest of companions- a transformative teaching known as the hieros logos: the sacred science.”

The sacred (holy) science, or the sacred discourse”(hieros logos) as a kind of religious rhetoric or conversation between the knower and the known, between the person and the creation, or between the creation and God.

The most interesting point is that this journey begins with the author’s stated desire or longing. He had been taught by modernity that the world is reduced to scientific data. This is the aim of science- data that hands one a world which can be controlled and manipulated. And yet, he also had this innate sense that the world he observed and experienced did not make sense within reductionism. No more than a feeling within this framework, but one that was powerful enough to lead him to seek. How suprising then to see that this seeking leads him to discover that the whole modern scientific enterprise was not only inconistent with its foundations, but actively hostile to it.

A similar sentiment is echoed in a recent interview on the unbelievable podcast with the authors of the book Battle of the Big Bang, suggesting that not only do science and religion wrestle with the same essential questions regarding the mysteries of the universe, the greatest misery and defeat of science would be to suggest it has handed us certain answers. For then there would be no reason for the search. We would cease to be drawn to anything at all.

Which just might be one of most powerful indicators of Gods existence. God opens up knowledge of the world. Reductionism shuts it down. As Fox suggests,

“Its not that Einstein can’t be understood: it’s that he asks too much. Just as his science forced physicists to radically revise their most basic assumptions about the fabric of reality, his spirituality challenges us to reconsider our fundamental assumptions about both the form and function of religion… (Einsteins doctrine) compels us to confront the sublime spiritual feelings that animate the scientific enterprise… an integration of the apparently irreconcilable, a reunion of reason and religiosity…”

Here is what is interesting to me. One important question becomes, at what point did this assumption about science and religion being at odds come to be normalized in the modern west? What and who told us that these things were acting opposed to each other? One of the points the autior is making is that the practice of science,  and scientists themselves, did not hand us this. Something else did. And that something else is a modern western social construct.                                                               

There is a further important question- does this construct hand us something that limits our seeking rather than enabling it? Have we not then said that we have arrived at a certain scientific truth which has reduced the world to the necessary material, scientific properties needed to manipulate and contol? Has it not reduced knowledge to this same scientific data? If so, what else is there to seek beyond further technological advancement? Worse yet, on what grounds do we make sense of the seeker?

What, amongst the history of ever changing and constantly overturning scientific theories, ever arrives somewhere other than the same base material world that we have already defined? Just to be clear, in such a view no further scientific process could ever reveal a spirituality or God in that view. The conclusion has already been decided from the outset, which is why this process has been constructed in the first place. So what else is it uncovering? In the case of this book, what world would Einstein be exploring and uncovering? If science is not only seen to be at odds with spirituality and God, but in fact does away with it, isn’t the very basis of this assumption the notion that anything left to disccover is simply constructs born from the same material, physicalist reality? After all, it cannot be “other,” otherwise the entire enterprise gets overturned. Fox quotes physicist Steven Weinberg saying, “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”

Fox admits that it kind of seems monstrous. This is, perhaps, what led him on his search. For me, while I do ultimately find my search brought me to a different conclusion than Fox and Einstein, what I find fascinating is this basic admission lying at the heart of the scientific enterprise-

“As it turns out, the new mythos made by the rational mind meshes suprisingly well with what spiritual seers have been saying for centuries: all things share a single origin.”

The primoridal singularity. All things built for eternity precisely because this same eternal presence occupies all things- as Fox notes, in this view the disintigration that comes with the singularity multiplying itself never means destruction.

It means the unifying of the cosmic religion. The cosmos cannot destroy itself.

Even more fascinating is Fox’s examination of the simple fact that no one agrees on what this religion meant when it comes to God in Einsteins view. The atheists make him an atheist. The Christians bring him closer to Christianity. Biographer Walter Isaacson makes him a Deist. Fox notes he’s been called a realist, simply a way of naming capital R Reality, and has been called agnostic. And yet Einstein himself wanted to shun it all, at least by association (dogmatism can be a lesser evil for the masses). With the best of the cynics, constructs had no claim on religious truth, religious truth could only be sought, and is inevitably only ever sought and truly found by the very few who manage to ascend and transcend what he called the three phases.

There is however, as Fox notes, very little doubt about the people Einstein read and was formed by, Spinoza being among them. Here I do wonder if Fox himself falls into certain trappings, blurring the lines between his own views and Einstiens, his own journey and Einsteins, and clouding the fact that he is an invested interpreter of this history.

For as much as Fox critiques the biographers and writers that came before him for misrepresnting and clouding Einstein’s true beliefs, I wonder if he gets in the way of his own objective observations of a man who is a product of a particular time and place and moment. It should not be the case that critiques of Einstein’s views equate to small mindedness. For example, I think Einstein’s analysis of the first phase of religious evolution as being fear based is a narrow and unfortunate caricature that does not correlate with reality. His assessment of the second phase as the necessary emergence of “moral religion,” fails to attend for the historicity that lies behind it regarding a necessary foundation. I think his assessment of religion as being rooted in the desire to “escape the pains of this earth and go to heaven” would have met a robust critique in the emergence of the new perspective, which recasts that deeply Greco-Roman, platonic ideal in a proper marriage of heaven and earth.

What seems to be driving Fox, and more importantly his interest in Einstein, or his own interpretations of Einstein’s life and spirituality, is growing an awareness for the necessary tension that exists between encountering the transcendent and our own imperfections. This might be the thing that leaves me most puzzled. Where he sees the religion of the second phase as immersed in a need for perfection (or in religious terms, sanctification), I find someting quite different. I think what he misses here is the interest of something like Christianity in the physical world. Of the interest of the spirit in the resurrected body. And this requires moving away from the shallow caricatures of religion as being rooted in the fear the death, and towards the place of religion in saying something about life itself. Fox admits that he, with intention, tries to steer away from saying anything concerete. Perhaps keeping to the spirit of Einstein himself. And to a great degree this is admirable. And yet, if we cannot say something concrete about the nature of the spirit, I wonder how it is we can say something true about the body. About this physical, experienced reality which we all inhabit.

If that feels a bit critical, I do think there is a lot of good here in terms of Fox’s study of this enigmatic figure, and the insights he brings to the table. All Truth needs a foundation, and it is that foundation that I think allows our convictions to embrace the mystery of the ifinite. I think Fox’s foundation is solid at points. It’s impossible to even enter into these discussions if we refuse to allow rationalism to be challenged, for example.

I think his observation regarding wonder is the most powerful. Wonder as the necessary foundation of the cosmic religion. Wonder means that whatever we give a name to remains both embodied by the human made construct but also rooted and driven by the mystery of the transcendent. It knows that the Divine is there, present in all things. And yet it also knows the Divine can never be truly fully known, only encountered. That Einstein, in line with Spinoza, saw these encounters within the natural order and the rational mind is, I think, one of the necessary tensions we all must be willing to carry if we have any potential of encountering something outside of ourselves. Wonder is a”beginning rather than an end.”

Fox also is right in bringing a more nuanced approach to the reemerging narrative of Western society and the scientfic revolution being birthed from and within Christianity. This is kind of true, but its not the whole picture. For Fox’s interests, the window should open a door to both the Greco-Roman world and the Eastern Traditions that lie underneath. Its on this basis that Fox, in dialogue with Einstien, finds the notion of the “personal God” to be antithetical to rationalism (going so far as to lean into a bit of polemicism by saying “we’d all be better off without miracles,” a statement that acts in response to the problem of evil). But here is the thing- the rationalism that Fox wants to appeal to in his search for the Divine has no actual way to make sense of Life, precisely because it cannot make sense of Death. Or more importantly, it cannot name Death as antithetical to Life, despite all of life operating and being defined precisely in this way. To attend for this natural world and our experience of it cannot be rational apart from that basic fact.

That all religion is a construct is a good and necessary foundation. To note the essence of a harmony or unity within all things is a good and necessary foundation. A unity of mind and material even. The emphasis on a life lived in union with the Divine is a good and necessary foundation. To quote Einstein, “Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us.”

And yet, to pull the cloak off the necessary pantheism that flows from Einstein’s cosmic religion is to find oneself face to face with a very real problem- when do ones efforts to reduce the necessary constructs begin to betray one’s appeal to Truth? What’s interesting here is that Fox clearly has issues with organized religion, beginning and ending perhaps with the Judeo-Christian narrative, and many of his issues appear rooted in the dogmatism he sees it embodying. This appears to betray the fact that his potential ascent to the third phase is not just built on those good foundations, but also the common carticatures of those religious constructs he loathes. Such as his insistence that the Judeo-Christian narrative endorses violence. Or the already stated falsehoods above that see these religious constructs as being about “escaping this earth to go to heaven,” or being motivated by fear of death. This is perhaps no more noted than the quote he takes from Einstein:

“My God may not be your idea of God, but one thing i know of my God- he makes me a humanitarian.”

And of course, this necessary panthiesm is bred in the waters of that Buddhist mantra of doing away with the self and the ego. What’s most suprising in this regard is the fact that Western civilization has embraced this under the guise that there is no God in Buddhism. It is the spiritualism of the atheist. And yet Buddhism very much is a religious consruct that holds to belief in God. If, as Fox says, many paths lead to Infinity, Infinity still needs to be articulated. It needs to be articulated and named in order to make one (the illusionary self) a humanitarian through communion with the Divine.

Here Einstein’s cosmic religion, and Fox’s affinity for it, seems to struggle to get beyond what is titled the “eternal inigma.” Truth, as it says, must be comprehendable and knowable. And yet it is known in our participation. That’s the problem with the cosmic religion. If the only way to be exalted to the “Oneness” of the Divine is to lose the illusion of the self along the way, there is no way to enter the rational world of the senses. There is no way to love both God and other. There is no true relational fabric that holds the universe together.

I can’t help but think then, that if Fox took some of the foundation in this book and actually allowed the fallible constructs of our religions to awaken the Truth of its witness to a relationship between the Divine and a contingent Creation, that he would have a far more robust critique of the first and second phase (old) religions and a proper articulation of the third (new) religion of the future. The third phase loses itself without that necessary conversation. For example, within the Judeo-Christian story the reformation is in dialogue with the thing it is critiquing (the construct of the Catholic Church). Equally so for the new perspective being in conversation with the reformation as a critique. The third phase, in Fox’s assessment, binds itself to a wholesale criticism of the evolution of humanity itself. The problem being, it can’t get past its simple conviction that truth exists in order to say anything rational about the Truth the constructs are all in conversation with. It cannot name anything at all. Nor can it shine a light or mirror back on Fox’s own biases.

And yet, I remain appreciative of this book. I remain appreciative of Fox’s longing and desire for the Spirit. I think there is a lot of important observations here, both within the ideas and in a fresh examination of Einsteins “spiritual journey.” As a source to that end it is very worthwhile. As an advocate of this approach, it’s easy to respect even if I find some of its critiques to be misplaced and some of its convictions to be less than persuasive. But that is the power of diversity. Differing interpretations of the Divine in conversation is the very thing that allows us to embark on that journey in the first place.

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)

Sometimes it is the small things, the small moments, the small points and ideas, that turn out to be the most compelling. One of these small points/ideas has found me in a space of reflection all afternoon.

It came from the morning sermon at my Church. We’ve been spending the last while walking through the book of James. A difficult book to be sure, but not because of its complex theology or complicated structure. Rather, it is difficult because of how straightforward and unfiltered its message is. This is the kind of book that cuts straight to the practicalities of life. This is why it is seen to exist within the great Wisdom Tradition of the sacred scriptures.

In this case it is about our speech. The way we talk. As my pastor suggested, that we speak is assumed. The nature of our speech is the concern.

So what is this small idea that I’ve been reflecting on? It was an observation that was almost unnoticable as a passive mention. A question my pastor slipped in as part of a larger thought process regarding the subject of our speech. Here he simply wondered about that little word “judge.” As my pastor confessed, he has often simply assumed that this word is speaking about the great Day of the Lord. He has often just assumed that bearing the responsibility of “teaching” means being submitted to a greater “test” of our actions. But where does this assumption come from?

Not from the text.

The text never states that this judgment comes from God. The text never states that this judgment is just. In fact, when read in light of verse 2, such a reading could seem contrary to what it actually says about the role of teachers in the community:

We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check (3:2)

We ALL. ANYONE. This could be referring to the all of “we who teach” in verse 1. Or it could be speaking to the audience of whom “not many” should become teachers. Or it could be speaking to both. Either way the point seems to be the same. We could insert the word “for” between verse 1 and 2 and gain the same necessary point. Playing it backwards, it is because we all stumble and all are at all fault that not many should be teachers like the author of James. Assuming for the sake of the argument that the author is James (scholarship debates this), this point then becomes not about the necessary stricter judgment of the teachers, but rather the struggle that teachers face from the hearers.

So here’s a thought. And the reason I call this compelling is because it overturns a lifetime of assumptions regarding this passage. I have long existed in a world where this verse has been used to place the fear of God in anyone who might desire to teach. That taking on such a responsiblity means getting our life in order first. That teaching and reputation are taken synonymously as part of the godly requirments of a given church community.

But what if the actual condemnation here is the speech of the hearers?

Looking back at James 1, it states that the hearers are the 12 tribes of Israel. The context? Speaking to the ongoing exile of the 12 tribes as a call to perseverance in light of “the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1:1-2). In 1:18 it states that He (God) “Chose to give us (Israel) birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.”

This is James, a Judean (the one surviving Tribe from exile), speaking to the scattered tribes of Israel among the nations regarding the great promise of fulfillment- the expected return from exile that marks the beginning of the new creation. A firstfruits that flows into all the nations.

So what does this perseverance look like? It looks like a people continuing in faithfulness to God. But here is the first important point James makes- the testing (exile) “produces perseverance” (1:2), and perseverance “finishes its work.” Thus, continuing in faithfulness is not about perfection or any such judgment. This becomes even more powerful when we come to 1:25, where it equates looking “intently into the perfect law” with the freedom the Law affords. Meaning, the Law (the story of God’s covenant with creation and God’s people) is an invitation to participate in the new reality this brings about, even as they remain scattered throughout the nations. Do not merely listen, do what this word says, because the word, which is the Gospel of Christ, is true.

Here then we come to the first assumed backdrop of this focus on “speech.”

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues decieve themselves, and their religion is worthless (1:26)

So apparently the speech of the hearers is a problem. We then get a greater hint in verse 27 regarding why its a problem- it’s getting in the way of the two most important things in James: looking after the orphans and the widows, and not being polluted by the world in which the scattered nations find themsleves (idolatry). Or as the very next verse, 2:1 puts it, calling them out for showing favoritism in their communities, which is the subject of the whole of chapter 2.

Here’s the next striking line that jumped out at me in 2:12. He calls them to “speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom.” So now suddenly we have two different kinds of judgment in play, one which gives freedom, the other which “withholds mercy (vs 13). Followed by a whole section in the remaining verses of chapter 2 talking about faith without deeds, deeds which explicitly relates in this context to the speech that shows favoritism to the rich and withholds mercy at the expense of widows and orphans.

This is all a backdrop and lead up to 3:1 and its grand statement regarding teachers. Teachers like James. Teachers speaking to those who show favoritism and withhold mercy. Don’t become a teacher like me, James says, because we recieve the least amount of mercy.

And yet, I do not think this is a condemnation from James of the twelve tribes either. What strikes me once again is the spirit of chapter 1 that speaks as an open invitation. A blessing. At the end of chapter 3 it talks about “The Wisdom that comes from heaven,” the wisdom who’s judgment is freedom. It is first of all pure. In other words, it is True. And what defines this truth? What are its characteristics? It is peace-loving, considerate, submissive, filled with mercy, bearing good fruit, impartial, and sincere (3:17). And what about this other judgment, the one that shows favoritism and withholds mercy? It is described as “earthly, unspiritual (not of the Spirit), and demonic (2:15)” What strikes me here is that the people here are not the source of the judgment, they are participating in a false judgment of themselves. A false judgment that brings and creates “disorder and every evil practice (3:16).” Another word for disorder would be division, which leads perfectly into 4:1 and its central question, “what causes fights and quarrals among you?

So, back to why I find this compelling. Three final thoughts:

• The judgment of 3:1 does not come from God, it comes from the demonic, the unspiritual, and the earthly. Thus, the fear of God that was instilled in me all these years over anything that remotely approaches things like teaching, appears to be a false word.
• The judgment of God brings freedom not disorder, and this freedom is rooted in the larger narrative of the Gospel. James is a word about the fulfillment of God’s promise to the scattered tribes of Israel. The invitation, to these scattered tribes, is to live as though that promise is both true and fulfilled. In other words, the invitation to embody the kingdom of God among the nations by demonstrating its judgment of freedom through our speech.
• This same word can apply to our communities today. Indeed, it can apply to our lives as participants in our communities, even amidst our shared imperfections. Perhaps especially in light of the imperfections, as that has the power to breed perseverance. Beginnning with the most powerful tool of all- the tongue.

I lied- another last thought. My pastor noted that this passage was being preached on Pentecost Sunday. A story about tongues of fire coming to rest on the people as a mark of the Gospels movement out into the world where the scattered tribes of Israel reside. A story that is commonly paralleled with the story of Babel, where the speech is confused and the once unified people are scattered, creating the framework for the nations that Israel would eventually find themselves exiled to. An example of how the whole of sacred scripture belongs to that necessary narrative. The freedom the tongues of fire represent is the same freedom being afforded to these scattered tribes whom find themselves divided by the power the tongue has to destroy and divide. Being born and raised in a pentecostal community, it is interesting to consider the distinct and powerful focus that Tradition places on the widows and the orphans, not to mention the open and free invitation to see all as necessary teachers in the community of God in the power of the spirit.  For the skepticism they sometimes recieve, perhaps they have long been on to something others have missed.

Anatole: Does your Bible oppose slavery?

Liesel: I oppose slavery.

Wes Anderson’s films are no stranger to exploring philosophical and existential questions. Beyond the dark humor, the quirkiness and the singularity of his unique style, lies much bigger questions about life, the world, and at times God.

His latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, follows the journey of Anatole Korda, someone we meet in the throes of repeated assassination attemps on his life due to targeted business practices which place capitalist pursuits over human welfare. Here we are thrust into the mind of a man who’s near death experiences are leading him to evaluate his priorities. Priority number one is securing a successor to his business and estate, and although he has numerous sons, it is his estranged daughter, Liesel, whom he has in his sights. An unlikely candidate given she is currently immersed in her pursuit of becomming a nun.

It is this clash of worldviews, including the opposing moral centers, that becomes the framework for this very human journey. The father is as worldly as they come as a self declared atheist, while the daughter is in the process of denying these worldly pleasures for the sake of her devotion to God. Here the story arc bends towards these two estranged persons finding a way to bridge this divide and forge a connection in ways that can make sense of their competing values and convictions.

What’s striking then about how Anderson plays these two interconnecting stories into a similar search for meaning and purpose is how he finds these two competing visions being brought into conversation. At the heart of this journey is uncovering the mystery of Liesel’s mother’s murder, a fact that lies at the root of their estrangement. Over the course of the movie Liesel becomes more and more worldy, while Anatole moves closer and closer to a kind of spiritual awakening. On the part of Anatole we have these sequences which reflect his near death experiences, which continually contront him with the reality of his own choices. Liesel on the other hand is found to be wrestling with her untold doubts, something she is buried under the convenience of assumed duty. Eventually these paths intersect, finding a kind of redemptive picture in their mutual acts of giving up control in their own way. Discovering what truly matters within their divergent searches for meaning.

There is a point in the film where Liesel is talking to mother superior, insisting that she is ready to take her vows. Mother Superior denies her this appointment, but includes this caveat- this need not be a sign of weakness or failure. She finds in Liesel tendencies that seem bent towards being in the world, not removing herself from it. There, mother superior insists, she can find God.

On the part of Anatole, a world in which he does not expect to find God is precisely where he encounters this spiritual awakening. This leads him to abandon his allegiance to the worldly pleasures. He sells that which he has been enslaved to and reinvents himself in a more modesst living expressed not by gain, but by virtue.

What lies at the heart of both of their journies is a reclamation of what it means to be in this world as people shaped by something other than the world’s base material function. Here the film quietly breathes in notes of transcendence which do not fit neatly into any of their constructed journey’s, let alone the reductionist view of Micheal Cera’s character, the “scientist,” someone who’s own sense of needed control seeks to find meaning and value in a rational assessment of nature. All three of them reflect the need for a foundation, a foundation that is deeply dependent on the narratives that are shaping their lives and their participation in the world. A narrative that needs to attend for this transcendence in order for their lives to make sense.

Which is to say, narrative matters precisely because we are participants in this world. We cannot escape this. This is why the questions they each are asking from their individual vantage points matter. At one point Liesel makes a powerful concession. When I pray, she states, I never actually hear God. I pretend to. And then I act based on what I think God would say, and usually that’s in alignment with what I need. A reminder that if God exists, we would expect to find God in the lives of people seeking to live in the world in ways that run counter to the world. This is how she finds God in the world. This is also how Anatole, living in his own godless universe, learns how to pray. In both cases this brings us to the point of seeking- having both a passion for the truth and a willingness for the truth to transform. A transformation that represents itself in the acts of living, and indeed praying, truthfully.