A new film by one of the best Director’s working today is always something to celebrate. David Lowry’s body of work might be relatively small (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Pete’s Dragon, A Ghost Story), but it is also exceptionally strong, includiing his latest and much anticipated The Green Knight, an adaptation of a lesser known story from the Arthurian legends. I have been thrilled to see the buzz around this release as strong in its anticipation as it has been (at least leading up to its release), as Lowry isn’t exactly conventional, and it should be said off the top that this is his most uncoventional film yet. If the snails pace nature of A Ghost Story and its emphasis on complicated imagery/metaphor/poetry reflecting deep philosophical yearnings (all elements that established it as one of the all time great works of art) was any indication of Lowry’s sensibilities, The Green Knight takes this to another level as an imaginative take on an old legend soaked in magical realism while seeking to be something of a subversion (or perhaps inversion) of legendary and mythic storytelling.

Empire, Quests, Legacy, Meaning and Crazy Uncles

If you know anything about the source material this film is pulling from this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It is based on a decided work of poetry, a strange and eclectic and at times seemingly incoherent literary work befitting your high school English class that might or might not have assigned it and left you a bit befuddled. The main character, a relative of Arthur who seems to fit the stereotype of that ambiguous and strange uncle who sits in the chair in the corner at family gatherings not saying much while others gain all the attention, but when you do go to talk to him turns out to be super smart with lots of theories about things like life, meaning, God, ect that don’t exactly fit him into the status quo. This story and character was due an adaptation, and the material seems tailor made for Lowry.

At the heart of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight sits a message about the dangers of Empire. Camelot is a representation of the Empires within history that rise and fall according to the shifting sands of time. A central question that emerges within this is the question of legacy and what it means to make and leave a legacy in the telliing of our individual stories. The opening sequence introduces us to the crazy uncle in the room (our main character), someone who is clearly a bit eradic, given to whims, somewhat undisciplined and a little bit uncertain. His penchant for revalry isn’t meant to demonize him, but rather emphasizes the inner turmoil that does exist as a forming tension It is here where this question of legacy and Empire gets funneled into further and even more particular questions regarding meaning and meaning making exercises, especially where it wonders about about how much control we actually have over how our stories ultimately get told. As they (the Knights of legend) ask Sir Gawain to tell them a story, he laments that he has no story to tell. Thus when The Green Knight arrives this becomes his opportunity to make something of himself, to have a story to tell that can qualify him as a “Knight”. While no men are willing to step forward and take on the Knight’s invitation, which comes with a cost, Gawain takes it believing that he can control and direct his narrative destiny. As the journey unfolds it becomes clear that very little lies within his control. Free will emerges as a possible illusion, something that melds with Lowry’s sharp visual depiction moving between old world myth and modern day realism. The sacrificial cost of telling his story in a way that brings meaning then re-emerges with a complicated presence, wondering about how far he should commit himself and attach himself to this endeavor of virtuous accomplishment and how motivated he should be to complete this quest if it is indeed an illusion and outside of his control.

Visuals, Performances and Polarities: Virtue and Vice, Life and Death, Head and the Heart

Lowry soaks this film in his penchant for practical visuals, from the character of the Green Knight’s wonderful and welcome absence of any CGI to the carefully structured and designed sequences that conjure magic not from digital trickery but from well thought out uses of lights and shadows, along with carefully thought out angles and aesthetic. The scene where he steps out into the early light of day to begin his journey is particularly memorable for how blinding that moment is. And the way Lowry establishes this aesthetic as a combination of old world mystery and muted, modern sensibility is brilliantly imagined, especially in the way he takes a muted palate and uses it to create these sudden contrasts between the transcendent and the grounded, death and life, dream and reality. Lowry knows how to use a small budget, and here he makes the most of it. Stylistically this feels like a fusion of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Pete’s Dragon, and its worth noting that Lowry has been on record talking about how he wanted to design this after those familiar 80’s fantasy films like Willow and Princes Bride. You can definitely see that written in to the fabric of the film as a kind of “fantasy adventure” story.

It would be hard to go any further without mentioning Dev Patel (this is up there for me as a career defining performance with The Personal History of David Copperfield, although most will know him most readily from Lion) and the illustrious and incredible Alicia Vikander (in a dual role). They are so well cast, and both of them embody characters that would be difficult to imagine while also translating that into something recognizably human and modern. Keeping the allegorical nature of their persons both functional and in full view is no easy accomplishment, something they both manage to convey with a high degree of skill, passion and commitment.

The film’s larger narrative about Empire, which brings together questions of power and violence and the more intimate focus of its internalized and recognizably human tensions become the necessary fuel for unravelling the journey that Sir Gaiwan undertakes and the stakes that become increasingly at play as the journey unfolds. Lowry breaks this into chapters that meld the poetry of the text into the interpretive visual form (captured wonderfully in moments of important monologues and metaphorical/allegorical interest), which bring to light the constant and ever reaching dichotomies of vice and virtue that color the film’s ultimate concern. Sex and violence of course loom large here as recognizable parts of our nature, with Gaiwan’s character seemingly caught between his desire to be and do something meaningful and the challenges and temptations that seem to get in the way of this accomplishment and render it meaningless and superficial. This is perhaps most readily captured in the repeated refrain, “are you a Knight”, which gets manifested in different ways as part of a unified struggle between vice and virtue (Am I knight? You certainly look like a Knight? I don’t feel like a Knight? What does it mean to be a Knight?). Caught up in this journey is the categorization of these different virtues (such as kindnees for example) as tensions Gaiwan must carry as he figures out this question of knighthood, and vices that seem to cloud these virtues from any clear definition and clarity of captial “T” Truth, threatening to render them to contextual entities and/or obscurity. At war are the two sides of this nature that aim to not only be something, but to become something of relevance while at the same time also attempting to positio this necessarily wthin something transcendent, something that has the power to give and afford him and his story a sense of meaning. What his life is has a lot to say about what life itself is defined as, and its hard to differentiate between these two things within the film. Does one make the other? Is one dependant on the other? Do we make a meaningful life, or is life meaningful and therefore we are obligated and drawn to make something of it? And how do we measure success and failure when also navigating and wrestling with the competing natures of life and humanity, driven as it is by the inevitable laws of entropy and expressed undeniably in the stories and story of history and Empire? Here the continued rise and fall of Empire becomes emobied in the person of Gaiwan, resonating with the echos of inevitable patterns and seemingly determined ends.

All of this gets wrapped up in this question of whether we actually then have any control over our legacy, with one of the more important questions ringing forth through Gaiwan’s meandering path forward in a particular direction, “is this all there is”. A question that evokes this sense that legacy somehow needs and longs for something eternal in order to make sense of itself in the here and now. Why is it that legacy matters if not to last, and should these legacies fade with the fallen Empires of the past, buried with the death that becomes the consequence of life, what worth does “knighthood” acually have except to merit some possibility of immediate reward. This is where the ingrained need to create and leave a legacy and the drive towards the transcendant (faith or virtue) begins to expose those most honest portions of ourselves as a rationalized argument for some kind of definition, caught as it is between a matter of competing desires and seemingly shaped and determined by something that is also bigger than ourselves (whatever that is, be it something of significance or not). The reigning visual of this disconnecting of head and heart that follows Gaiwan’s story seems especially poignant here, as rational and irrational attempts to figure this tension seem as necessarily intertwined as they are at odds.

Interpretive Exercises: Navigating Old World and New World Language

One curiousity would be to parse out how precisely Lowry is interpreting the presence of The Green Knight and adapting this story into a modern age. Is the Green Knight a corrupting image? A redemptive one? Or does it embody both of these ideas at the same time, as equal parts of this apparent need to define nature and life as something recognizable, and the need to attach that to a story that gives this definition meaning? Is it the measure of this “test” of integrity that burdens and entices Gaiwan, especially as it plays into the war between vice and virtue that define our story as important and meaningful in a contexualized and collective fashion, seemingly against our control, or at least against seemingly great odds? If so, that creates a dilemma between what our nature strives to overcome (some version of a will) and the ways our nature (and Nature) looks to persist and establish itself over this semblance of a will. To return to this question, is it simply that we have a story to tell that makes life and legacy meaningful? If so that feels entirely dependent, circumstantial and determined by our experience (or lack of it). And in so many respects feels largely beyond our control.

Here it would certainly seem Lowry is drawing on the metaphorical “green”, which can indicate, as we see in the film, both life (newness of growth) and death (the moss that covers us in our decay). The green here emerges as symbolic of creation itself, the emergence of land and earth and cosmos (and in the old world setting the notion of God, in the modern setting progress and knowledge) through which life then flourishes. The journey or invitation the Green Knight offers to Gaiwan at the beginning of the film could be seen as one that cuts through the problematic noise of Empire to test not only Gaiwan himself, but the very assumptions of meaning and purpose that flow from these systems and politics and societal expectations that define us often based on some level of power and oppression and conquest. Lowry has been on record saying that he wanted this to comment on the present division in American politics, particularly when it comes to religion. Given the religious imagery present in the story, The Green Knight could then stand as a symbol of both creation and new creation marred by this loss of attention to the co-existing nature of virtue and vice as shaping agencies. If Lowry is attempting to evoke this using the old Arthurian legends, what follows is a seeming commentary on this old world-new world transition. As the modern myth emerges we leave the old gods behind, and imagine a world where we can make new choices that lead us into an enlightened world no longer mired by Empire, and thus seemingly elevating the good of our nature above the bad as the possible victorious agency.

There is a lot I think to parse out from that interpretive take, and I think Lowry is trying to bring all of this into play at once while stopping short of offering easy answers to the problem. Here is the curious thing though in Lowry’s tabling of this Old World-New World conflict and emergent narrative. Lowry infuses this film with a clear collaboration of imagery that is at once both Christian and Pagan. This is intentional on Lowry’s part in evoking an imagination of peace in times (within the Empire of America) of religious power and divide. Curiously though, a part of what Lowry is doing is evoking a period of history that stands as symbolic in this shift towards the West and the stories (legends/myths) that got left behind and excised from our common narrative and language in the process. Lowry is using old world language to say something about what he sees as a modern problem (or perhaps a modern potential), but in doing so creates an interesting commentary on the importance of these stories and the neglected and ignored impact of their loss in our modern ethos, one which has redefined myth to mean something that is not true and relegated the fairy stories to the realm of invented fantasy.

At the same time, what he is doing in tapping into the Pagan imagery is actually reaching back even further in history to offer that age old picture of Empires past and the plurality of coexisting pagan cultures that gave these Empires their strength and power (think of course Rome, but also stemming back to Babylon). Which has never worked in history, not when you assume the presence of actually diverse convictions, and this is why Empires end up exerting their power. What history has always demonstrated is that where the promise of diversity extends its welcome hand, the dominating narrative of the ruling Empire persists in the work of quiet (and not so quiet) assimilation and subservience to the modern entity controlling the narrative. Where this clashes and becomes oppressive is when co-existing diversity reveals itself as competing “convictions” within efforts to commodify a singular worldview (such as modernism). This is precisely why the modern experiment recognizes this divide between the old and new. Excise the old gods and diversified conviciton can then be controlled and formed into a single, shared belief system. The irony being that this is nothing new. For as problematic as this sounds on paper, it remains the most common answer we see history striving towards in times of chaos. Ironically, such visions of peace ultimately become the very thing that Empires are built from, over and over again, precisely because convictions and assumptions and governing worldviews always emerge and show their face within our tendency to need and to want to grapple with notions of meaning and legacy, virtue and vice.

Modern Narratives, Old Gods, Assimilation, and Necessary Humility

To this end there could be a tendency for modern viewers to see the religious language here and play it out as the true enemy, placing Gaiwan’s opportunity to create his legacy by way of human pursuit and accomplishment in its place as the “hopeful” and highly modernized and heavily Westernized message. And yet Lowry leaves some unsettled notes about the transcendent nature of meaning and the inconsistency of nature lingering in the background, which resists landing this hopful message here with any real sense of declarative purpose as a truly “modern” answer. Although I’m sure some will still read this film as an anti-religious diatribe. It’s similar to how people interpreted the film Wolfwalkers last year, narrowing in on Cromwell as a measure of this necessary shift from old to new while neglecting to give attention to the way their own modern reading of the film was committing the same sins as the colonizers, excising the conviction of that old Irish spirituality and imposing onto to it modern assumptions and readings of myth and legend as “fantasy” that degrades that sense of conviction and assimilates it into new world assumptions.

By letting some of those unsettled notes linger, Lowry writes a story that, perhaps unintentionally (maybe with intention), breathes a little bit of necessary humility into the discussion. On the other side of this confident modernist tale would be the futility of such realizations that tend to rationally uncover legacy and story and meaning as ultimately outside of our control and free will and personhood as illusions. This could lend itself to more nihilistic interpretations of the story, which would be an equally fair reading. Lingering in the background though (think the scene under water where the bubbles turn to stars) is this sense that somehow choices still do seem to matter, and that how we live our lives plays into how life is defined and how we discover meaning within it. But this requires irrational leaps in our reasoning, an embrace of the transcendent as something that comes from outside of ourselvse in order to operate with any sense of agency. This is what these old stories, entrenched in real world history, allow us to do.

Endings and Subversions: A Point of Crisis, Tension and Clarity

The subversion or inversion of the nature of legends/myth mentioned near the start ultimately happens with Lowry’s choice of ending. Here we get all of the above- the nihilistic, the purposed, and the conditional. This is an interpretive move on Lowry’s part meant to take the original story’s ending and contextualize it into the story he ultimately wants to imagine in this film. It is reminiscent of the way the recent adaptation of Little Women plays with the ending and real world setting of Alcott’s book. It’s saying something new while also commenting on the source material in a way that centers it on something old and thus eternal. What we do with these three things is I think part of what we are meant to wrestle with as viewers, and I think the film leaves room to do this within both religious and non-religious outlooks, forcing us to contend with a messy reality in ways that force us to consider both potential and determined, positive and negative realities. The same caution applies here though as it does with the film Little Women. In our rush to employ an observational and heavily assumed narrative of old to new, regressive ideologies (oppresion of women) and progressive realities (women’s liberation), we could find ourselves losing all sense of definition for life, meaning and value in the process if we simply leave history behind as outmoded and irrelevant. Or worse streamline history in a linear sense. This obscures both the patterns that shape our world in a shared sense, while repeating the story of Empires risen and fallen throughout history in our modern context. Our stories are not so much linear as they are interconnected, familiar, recognizable, determined, and beholden to context. Women’s liberation for example is not an explicitly modern victory as it is a response to the problems that exist within modern forms of Empire. There are points in history that could be deemed far more progressive than our modern age after all. This is not so much progressive (in modern usages of that word) and emergent as it is evidentially aware of our embedded nature. So it is with Gaiwan’s journey. The liberating part of this story, even if accidental on Lowrys part, is that it binds us to the old as it imagines the new in our present context. It reminds us of the power of stories long forgotten and of the way these stories root us in this history in ways that bring clarity to the division of the now.

In any case, a big part about what I love about this film is how it challenges the modern viewpoint of legend and myth, reaquaints us with a kind of storytelling lost to the emergence of the modern narrative, and in doing so challenges us at least in some respects to find our roots once again in these shared stories, even as Lowry works to subvert it. He makes “legend” a transcendent entity that evokes a marriage of the fantastical and realism, something that seems to exist above us and which informs our longings for something more than simply this present revelry in vice and virtue as interchangeable notions.

Movies

No Sudden Move (Directed by Steve Soderbergh)

2021 has given me a new favorite Soderbergh film. It’s not simply that this fits straight in his wheelhouse, a celebration of his particular sensibilities and strengths, it’s that he’s also stretching himself at the same time as he explores the mystery-thiller dynamics. The story structure is where this really shines, starting with a bare bones premise and building as it goes, layer by layer. Even the stacked cast slide seamlessly into their roles, never feeling like they are playing versions of themselves, and each playing a character that proves an important piece of the puzzle.

Tyrannosaur (Directed by Paddy Considine)

Brutal, dark, bleak, honest. Kinda like getting a two by four upside the head, a blow that comes unexpected and unseen. You know, kind of like the unforgiving nature of life. And not a single blow, but one that strikes repeatedly until you are ready to forfeit the fight you probably didn’t sign  pup for when you started this. If that sounds like an enjoyable experience then this might be right up your alley. Personally, I was entranced and mesmerized by it. I’m a glutton for punishment though.

A word of caution. Animal suffering is present in this film. For another film I watched this month featuring animals within a story about suffering and empathy, also see the powerful film Murmur (2019). Just as dark, but slightly more humane on the hopeful front.

Summer of Soul (… or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (Directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, 2021)

An astonishing story about an important festival that found itself swept into the dusty and forgotten corners of history in the shadow of the much more popular Woodstock, which occured at the same time just down the road. This cultural moment from the heart of Harlem attendedby over 300,000 African American souls, cloaked in a feverish dedication to its rhythms, is a testament to a hope filled moment, a celebration able to emerge in the present despite the tragic nature of its burial in the past, feeling as timely and welcome today as it was important then.

The Believer (Directed by Henry Bean, 2001)

Cutting through the noise of racial tensions past and present, this film offers a sharp and often profound condemnation of the racist act by examining its expression within the life of a seemingly divided person, one is both a Jew and a Neo-Nazi at the same time. What makes this so profound is how it uses this contradiction of terms and identity toupll out larger questions about the nature of our ignorance. This isn’t lobbying for empathy, rather it is naming the act for what it was while attempting to recover the humanity buried beneath. This becomes the foundation through which it can the ask important questions about how such a thing arises and takes root. At the same time it mines the depths of questions of faith, doubt, God, humanity, and how we approach the problem of evil in both social and personal terms. Brilliant, challenging, and a great find hiding in my personal watchlist (also featuring a career performance by Ryan Gosling).

The Killing of Two Lovers (Directed by Robert Machoian, 2021)

A unique and effective take on marriage conlict. Technically speaking, the dreamy aspect ratio, a looming score, understated cinematography, and a structural progression in this growing sense of dread and angst anchor some emotionally centered performances and a no frills script. Thematically it hits at a larger message about the impact of marital distress. I expect this will make a case for my top 10 at the end of the year, a solid if relatively quiet indie that is worth a look.

The Green Knight

A new film from one of the best Director’s working today is always something to celebrate, and this take on a lesser known story from Aurthurian legend features some strong discussions regarding the relationship between faith, legacy, and the way that virtue and vice play into that as a working tension. Especially poignant within this is the picture it paints of the problem of “empire” (which rise and fall with history), playing into the more personal and internal struggle with questions of belonging, meaning and significance. This is formulated as a question of legacy, with the looming question “is this all there is” holding poignant force as we see our main character wrestle with his own questions of what it means to be a knight and to have a story worth telling. The way it explores how it is that our individual lives connect to the question of life itself, with this reigning visual of the disconnect between head and heart carrying through this difficult tension with some force, is quite powerful.

Honorable Mentions:

Three blockbusters: A Quiet Place Part 2, which picks up where the first one left off expanding our understanding of their struggle and widening our view of the world they now live in. Cruella, a fun live action take on a familiar story that features a dynamic lead performance, colorful costumes, and a super fun and unique vibe. And Black Widow. I’m still working through my final thoughts, but this genuine Marvel blockbuster comes as advertised, and even more so struck a chord with me personally on a thematic level. Probably counted among my favorite Marvel films as of today.

Also, a couple of International recommends: Happy Old Year (Thailand, 2019) This will infuse a whole new emotional awareness into the art of decluttering; Karnan (India, 2021) A stunning and powerful metaphorical and symbolic romp through a particular time, context and place that arrives with political and emotional urgency and real emotional concern; Boy and the World (Brazil, 2013) A 2D hand drawn animated film that mines the depths of uncertainty and fear from the perspective of a young boy. This deals with some tough stuff (loss of innocence), but it is also bursting with wonder and hope.

Books

C.S. Lewis: A Life by Alister McGrath

It might be difficult to make a strong argument for yet another biography of Lewis, but scholar and historian Alister McGrath manages to stake his claim on a piece of this important history not only be reshaping and resestablishing a commonly accepted fact about the chronology of Lewis’ life, he brings a unique focus to the relationship between his philosophical and theological development and his writing and imagining of the world and characters of Narnia. A definite must for anyone interested in Lewis, and I wouldn’t hesitate to even recomend this as a preurrser before diving into some of the more official and exhaustive biographies that precede it.

History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology by N.T. Wright

Wright’s work tends to vascilate between the theological, the pastoral, the historical, the personal and the academic. His magnum opus, which recieved the second of a three part series  in the most recent The New Testament in its World, is the summation of his academic developments in the area of history. While this pershaps doesn’t have the same reach, I would make a strong case that this might be his best and most important work. Here he gives the foundation for what forms his interest in the area of philosophy, theology, and history. It’s one of his most concise and focused works, and reads, based on a series of lectures he gave a few years back, as a reasoned and building argument for natural theology. Brilliant, exhaustive, and for me enrinching.

He Saw it Was Good: How Your Creative Life Can Change a Broken World by Sho Baraka

A must for anyone intersted in the intersection of Christianity and hip hop, and equallly so the place both of these hold in a discussion of Black history. Baraka’s thesis, which emphasizes the goodness of creation and the human vocation to create, reaches broader than this to humanity in general, but the way he is able to contextualize this into his own awareness of the above issues is both smartly articuated and deeply inspiring and important.

Proverbs: Pathways to Wisdom by Dominick Hernandez

Brings a whole new awareness to the book of Proverbs, which is notorious for being studied as a book on unrelated and random wisdom sayings. This book helps to bring awareness to the book’s intentional and cohesive literary form, and heps us to read it as an unfolding narrative with the dualistic nature of these two paths and wissdom as a personified agency that connects with the voice of Yahweh firmly in view.

Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile

I got turned on to this book after watching Dave Ghrol’s documentary series on arists and their mothers. I was so captured by her story there I immediatey wanted to hear more. And this did not disappoint. It’s honest, revealing, intimate and raw . A testament to the real challenges of navigating the world of the artist as a real person with real strengths and weakneses. Here she upholds, within the ups and downs of her own story, the importance of family, friends, integrity, art, faith, marriage, and perseverance. Beautiful book, beautiful person.

Honorable Mention: On Fairy Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth by Bradley Birzer. I’ve been working my way through works by and about Tolkien in preparation for the up coming series, and these are two must reads.

Music

Needtobreathe- Into The Mystery

Patiently waited for the full release of this album since they started dropping singles. This represents a quick turn around from their last album, and it definitely was worth the wait. Honest, a bit more rootsy in terms of the country-pop albums, and undeniablly chalk full of their signature sounds and melodies..

Japanese Breakfast- Jubilee

A fusion of modern and classic sensibilities, this energetic, indie laden project looks to establish this group as more than a niche presence. This belongs on the big stage, commanding with is presence and beckoning towards something both joyous and reflectve, communal and personal.

William Fitzsimmons- Ready the Astronaut

There is a recognizable urgency and upbeat vibe to this album that isn’t present in his other work. It’s still chalk full of intricate compositions and the quiet strength of his voice, but there is something here that commands your attention as opposed to simply bringing you under its spell. Some fo his best work yet.

Chris Tomlin and Friends- Summer EP

I was a bigger fan of the previous one in this “friends” series. But this still is a much welome addition, and demands consecutive listens.

Brandi Carlisle- By the Way, I Forgive You

Since I was reading her book, I put her grammy winning album back on my rotating playlist. Brilliant album, brilliant artist, honest lyrics and intelligent song writing/melodies.

Podcasts/Youtube/Other

The Biblical World: Five Views on the Exodus (Episodes 9,10,12 and 13)

I mentioned this new series last month, but this particular collection of episodes was so interesting and informative that I had to mention it again. For anyone interested in archeology and the Bblical text.

Undeceptions with John Dickson- Christin Revolution with Tom Holland (Episode 75)

I’m almsot halfway through Holland’s book Dominion, which this episode covers, and it is brilliant. This is a great way to get familiar with what the book is all about, Holland an agnostic and historian compelled to correct some of the history out there in terms of Judaism and Christianity and its influence on the world at large.

The Reluctant Theologian- Open Theism (Episode 75), Analytic Theology (76), and a Debate with Classical Theism (Episode 77)

For anyone interested in Open Theism (and the closely related field of Analytic Theology), this collection of episodes is the most concise and exhaustive treatment of these Traditions I have heard yet. Hugely informative (and I would argue, convincing)

The Symbolic World- Frederica Matthewes Green and How We Exist Together (Episode 167)

The Symboilc World has really been on fire lately, heating up its deep dive into what it calls an era of “reenchantment”. This, along with recent episodes on how to understand the pandemmic symbolically and in line with the overarching narrative of history (including an excellent one on apocalyptic narrative and the mark of Cain) and humanity, is a great look into how the human and divine narratives interact in a historical and material world that lives and breathe a spiritual reality.

John Vervaeke: Awakening From the Meaning Crisis

This youtube series is a deep dive into the area of philosophy with an emphasis on the problem of meaning. Vervaeke is sympathetic to religion, although he is not religious himself, and argues for a recapturing and reigniting of the platonic view, something I don’t see eye to eye with him on. But the information and concerns he raises here are interesting, compelling, and worthwhile thinking about.

Fun fact (for me). I have logged 1173 watches since last stepping foot in a theater. For context on the time frame, theaters officially closed here in October 2020 after a brief attempt at reopening following the first wave. With restrictions finally lifting yesterday (that would be Saturday) I was able to celebrate my return home with an early morning showing (first of the day).

With that many watches under my belt it might be fair to wonder, why is being able to go to the theater again actually that big of a deal. It’s not like I haven’t had access to films. And to spend any time online underscores the existence of certain sentiments that suggest for many that theaters are now officially old news. And yet buying my ticket, getting into my car, sitting in a room with others, sitting with the credits and dialoguing with a friend, all of these things still seemed to hold some value. For me it is at least in part the investment. When I invest my time, energy and money into seeing a film the experience feels more important, more valuable. For me, it helps moves it from content to consume (which quickly translates to 1173 watches) to art to be appreciated. There is another aspect to this though, one that revolves around the power of story. The ability to be immersed in a narrative without distraction, to be transported into a story that has the power to transorm and to reveal Truth that would otherwise remain hidden.

I know. This all sounds overdramatic. Even melodramatic. To spend any time with history though is to find at least a hint of validity to the witness of my experience. For as long as humans have existed we have been telling stories as a way to make sense of this world, to find meaning, and to imagine (not create) transcendent “Truths” about our reality. Until recently these stories have been shared and experienced together. There is something about this sense of connectedness that makes story sacred, which is why I think I have always seen film and the theater as a sort of religious experiece. Pattern this after the same feelings that emerge from online Church services and it shouldn’t be surprising that certain feelings might emerge from stepping back into that sanctuary. Questions still abound about whether or not “theater”attendence might go the way of “Church” attendance in the gripping vice of this modern age, but for the moment it feels the way I previously put it- like coming home.

With Black Widow being the story to mark my return home, there is a personal story that I think can help accentuate both what I’ve expressed above along with detailing my specific thoughts on the film itself, which (spoiler alert), likely catapulted itself into one of my all time favorite Marvel films. For as much as there is to say about the strength of the story itself, on a purely technical level the film is ridiculously well edited (not only in the flow and pacing, but in incorporating these flashbacks and character lines so seamlessly), smartly written, and perfectly cast (Pugh steals the show). It’s easy at this point to speak of these films in terms of the “Marvel formula”, but to reduce the film to such a critique is, in my mind, to miss the uniqueness and ingenuity of the stand alone story. The beauty of Black Widow’s story getting its own treatment is that its distinctive tones and style and sensibilities are given the freedom to tell its story as part of the whole.

My story starts with a previous day’s conversation with an association (I’ll leave them anonymous). This conversation reflects an ongoing thread of questions and concerns that I personally have been working through over the last number of years surrounding the big questions in life, such as meaning, purpose, the existence (or not) of free will, and moral responsibility. These are questions that for me have only been heightened by the Pandemic. In this conversation from last night I found myself parsing through some of this stuff with someone whom I share much in common, but also with whom I happen to see the world and our place in it very differently. One of the topics we spent some time with was the subject of “free will” and whether its possible absence in rational terms (a renewed commitment that runs through much of current popular science) bears any weight on our ability to experience this world in meaningful ways. One interesting aspect of the larger discussion that is worth noting here, using definitive treatments such as Sam Harris’ “Final Thoughts on Free Will”, Pinker’s much heralded treatment on the power and worth of enlightenment era values, progressive ideals and human exceptionalism (The Better Angels of our Nature), and Harari’s equally embraced “Sapiens” led trilogy as easy focal points, is the larger framework through which to understand the discusson.

John Vervaeke, a studied cognitive and social scientist with a specialized interest in Psychology does a good job of outlining what this is in his series “Awakening From the Meaning Crisis” (available on Youtube). What he underscores is the ebb and flow of history (recognizing that while we might be processing new information in the modern age in light of ongoing scientific and historical study and technological progress, larger movements that define interest in things like free will versus determinism, socialism versus free market capitalism/libertarianism, the death or rise of interest in God/deism versus theism/Aristotarianism versus Platonism, demonsrate an ebb and flow that recognizes that everything old always becomes new again depending on our context), noting that new information about our world and new advancements in genetics and technology don’t change the questions, they merely recontextualize them into a modern age. This is what allows him to find worth in exploring the current study of cognitive science through the lens of a neo-Platonist view (which for the record provides a convenient way to attend for Transcendent Truths and realities by placing them out there, removed from our historical reality but free to be brought in and applied to it). To set this into the larger context of our most recent history, if one of the problems with Modernism was its tendency to narrow “Truth” into one way of knowing (rational reason and knowledge based systems), Post Modernism critiqued Modernism’s narrowed lens by employing forms of relativism in response. In many ways this reflects what Vervaeke describes as a meaning crisis, caught in the cross hairs of these two seemingly competing perspectives. Thus the rise of scientists writing popular level books attempting to reintegrate elements of romanticism into the sciences with the goal, as Vervaeke puts it, of getting people to fall in love with “reality”. By this he means finding meaning in our experience of reality along with a willingness to make room for other ways of knowing. The pushback on this recontextualized scientific “renaisssance” into a modern age is that such a blurring of lines (between philosophical concern and the scientific practice) can inhibit the ability of the sciences to do their work, but nevertheless the current trajectory seems to make a case for the legitimacy of this long history of wrestling with meaning and meaning making systems in light of the human experience. We need a way to tell stories that help us to experience some level of transcendence, which in the proper use of the word is what allow us to imagine governing “Truths” operating within our experience of the everyday in life giving ways. Transcendence by nature is a revelatory process that requires trust in irrational beliefs about this world and who we are (which by nature is employed by way of the past and the future) even if that irrational belief is (or can be) at the same time examined using logic and reason to shape its function in the here and now.

Here then is the central problem that informs the meaning crisis. One of the outcomes of the Post Modern experiment is a tendency towards reductive reasoning. For example, one of the critiques it makes of Modernism is that it’s emphasis on singular ways of knowing over other ways of knowing and experiencing this world leads to reductive forms of reasoning (that philsophical and theological assumptions are irrational on one side, and that Modernity and Enlightenment era rationality is necessarily nihilistic on the other). Vervaeke makes the argument that the present age needs to push back on these reductive tendencies by allowing room for multiple ways of knowing. He resists the common rhetoric that rationality is necessarily nihilistic and argues for an approach that upholds the existence of foundational knowledge (the idea that there is Truth there to know and aquire) while employing a narrative of emergence to attend for the kind of knowledge that comes from human experience (or human nature). Thus it is our experience of this world that forms our sense of meaning, and even if free will does not exist, and the narratives we build and create and hold to are essentially lies in the most rational sense of the word, they bear weight as Truth via the lived in experience of it.

The problem emerges from the upholding of these foundational Truths that inform and motivate our experiences, and this problem becomes evident the minute we attach our experiences to an imagined future and attach this to a degree of moral responsibility. If meaning is attached to our experience of this world then it is by nature limited to these experiences. The minute we step away from experiences to try and attend for meaning in this world according to a foundational Truth we are speaking of ontological Truths. And these Truths must be imposed through irrational leaps in our reasoning. Apply this to visions of imagined futures intended to generate hope, a basic human need, and we have created (imagined) and culturally conditioned Truths (such as the notion of memory, or this idea that we live on in the hearts of others. Or the generational argument that says we live on in our offspring. Or the narrative of “Progress” that sees our present value in the light of the long game of human and technological advancement). These are narratives that we buy into in order to convince ourselves that what we do in the here and now matters. But in a purely rational sense they are not true. They are worldviews that we adopt via these foundational Truths that we accept in order to then be free to formulate a narrative that gives us the illusion of meaning, thus justifying the meaning making processes that inform our societies and our lives.

Thus it is not something we can argue for on purely rational means. This might sound harmless (let us believe our lies of romantic relationships for example. After all, who actually wants to experience romance via the science of it. We don’t want to justify love as a biologically and socially constructed reality, we simply want to live and experience it as true, and only then bring in the reasoned nature of how love works on a scientific level to make it stronger or better or to make sense of why it didn’t work). But where it really matters is when we are dealing with relationships that result in harm to others. Or perhaps even more complicated is when we are thinking about issues like environmental concern that have a more embedded and future oriented lens. In a purely Naturalistic sense one can make the argument that we are able to care about the environment when it either inhibits our experience of the world or when we associate it with the suffering of others, because human awareness has evolved the capacity to respond to these realities in actualized ways (in the same manner that we have evolved to respond to sex, given that no other species cares about consent). The flipside of this is that Naturalism can make the opposite case by rational means as well. To apply false or romanticized ideals to the human species is to resist what is imbedded in our nature. Scientists have been arguing back and forth between these two ideas for a long time, vascilating between human survival and human thriving based on the fact that we appear to be able to make decisions that have direct impact on the world around us in ways other creatures don’t. Therfore the assumption is that we are responsible for the environmental crisis simply based on the idea that we caused it. This is of course different than saying we are driven to attend to an environmental crisis simply because it is in our nature to do so. Most often though, when it comes to our reasoning, these issues and these viewpoints get conflated, disguising and confusing the actual basis for the rational argument being made and often sold as an apologetic (and often with religous like fervor).

Now don’t get me wrong, I beileve in the need for environmental concern, I’m only challenging the ways we reason towards it. Of relevance to the discussion with my association mentioned above is the inconsistency that then comes from this sort of reasoning explained above. This is especially pertinant when we begin to allow for the Truth that free will is an illusion, that it doesn’t actually exist. This means that that efforts to uphold notions of individual liberty are in fact imposing an irrational asumption onto the logic in an ontological fashion. If all ideas of personhood are culturally imposed and created, and if the will is imposed onto this only as a means of fostering and upholding these meaning making narratives that we imagine for ourselves in order to exist in this world with some sense of purpose, then how and where do we justify matters of moral responsibility for the future? This is the dilemma. Especially when we begin to consider how memory works and how easy it is to manipulate. True liberty says, as long as we are not causing and inhibiting the suffering or death of another we are good and we will proper as a society when we are free to do what we will. But our notions of “goodness”, or our measure of goodness, tends to reach much beyond merely existing together as inherently good individuals with a freely constructed sense of personhood (whatever that means in the first place). What makes this more convoluted is the basic fact about how social formation and evolution works. While free will is an illusion, the actions of a few still hold the power to shape the whole by way of coercion and manipulation of our human nature. This is how social change occurs. I’m thinking of Nicholas Christakis’ work on the capacity of humanity towards goodness We don’t need people to be willfully free to be good, we just need systems which “cause” others to live in ways that allign with our working definition of “goodness”, however that arrives. We will however still judge people for being good or bad. We will still demonize sides according to where we see our moral responsibility towards this goodness. We do so irrationally of course, but it is so embedded in our culturally formed narratives that we don’t question it (which is precisely how someone like Foucault can make such a strong case for the absence of true Morality and will within our Leftist positions, a position he gladly upholds).

What does all of this have to do with Black Widow? Well, it struck me as I was sitting there experiencing this film in a transcendent fashion that the film’s themes were basically reshashing these arguments above that I had had the previous day. Of course it’s packaged in a familiar and tired American-Russian narratve (let’s be honest, history has demostrated that there will always be a representative hero and a villain in these stories, and it is usually in a Nationalistic sense), but at its root is this ever present battle between socialism (usually represented as commumism) and capitalism (libertarian free market Western American idealism). Here we have a family that is represented as a point of crisis when Natasha faces the seeming futility of the fact that this family that once framed her sense of meaning was imagined and therefore not true. This is paralled with the vision of these “Black Widows” for whom free will does not exist and who function within the realm of social control. The answer to this problem comes in Scarlet Johanson’s “Widow” character’s allegiance to freeing these Widows, an act that is celebrated in a moment when she declares them free to now go and choose who they will become. This becomes the highest value, the thing to which she sacrifices herself for and works to bring about. This is what makes her a hero, the embodiment of “goodness”. This comes to a crucial point of contention though when the false sense of “family” is reemployed as meaningful simply on the basis of their experience of it. It does not need to actually be true or representative of an embodied or given seense of the “will”, it merely needs to be experienced (seemingly as a positive) in order to hold its meaning. This of course flows back into the question of the “system” that informs the world for the rest of the Widows. It is said at one point that the system holds value becuase it is more effecient at accomplishing what appears to be shared goals. Of coure the one controlling the Widows is demonstrated as the villain and the monster, but what is unclear in this narrative is why he is a monster (okay, they frame his obvious monstrosity clearly in present terms, but why his theory itself is inately bad is unclear). If there is no such thing as personhood, on what grounds does Johanson’s Widow assume its authority in terms of this moral responsbility towards it (that which then holds the power to judge one as the villain and the other as the hero). She seemingly liberates the Widows to become precisely what culture and experience and circumstance will then shape them to be, just within a different worldview. This to me is what makes this film compelling on an intellectual and thematic level. These are questions it raises, and in some way it never answers them. It simply frames it within the familiar hero and villian narrative. This becomes most notable in the post credit sequence where we get a call back to the moral ambiguity present in Johansons character’s death in Infiinity War and Endgame, which not surprisingly comes within a narrative built around the idea of personal sacrifice.

Also not ironic was the trailer that preceded this film for the upcoming film Free Guy.

While this is only going off the trailer, it is nevertheless compelling to consider a guy living in a “fake’ and “constructed” reality (a game world) who finds himself questioning the meaning of his life and existence in light of none of it actually being real. The answer afforded to him by another character in the film is, “we’re here talking right now, right? That certainly feels like it means something.” But how is this meaning framed? The trailer insists that this meaning is derived from an existence in which three things are subseqently true and able to be taken for granted:

1. The World is inevitably going to end, along with consciousness and life

2. Free Guy can save the world by expressing his freedom to do so (the world needs a hero)

3. Thus meaning is derived from the enacting of this free will, a socially constructed idea that then leads to a better world for all.

Did you catch how we move from Past (the assumption of an essential Truth) to Future (the saving of this world for an assumed future) to the Present (this gives us a way of rationalizing and living meaningful lives). All based on a meaningless construction (the virtual game) and the creation of free will over and against the games control over him (kissing the girl… which as they say the game is not designed to do).

This way of experiencing and understanding the world, which I would argue is highly inconsisent in its rationality and its application, is prevelant in both the romanticizing of popular science and in its expression within popular culture, and its limitations often go untended and taken for granted, even under the guise of strident intellectualism, epecially where it feels the need to deconstruct ideas like religion as human constructions which make certain claims about the presence of ontological Truth through irrational means. Thus we have the one side making reductionist claims about religion’s lack of rationality while refusing to attend for their own imposition of foundational and irrationally imposed Truths, and the other side making reductonist claims about non-religious views of the world as operating as necessary Nihilists, even as it imposes its own rationalist claims about religious Truths at the expense of other ways of knowing. And this polarization plays out within both religious and non-religious ideological divides too.

I’m reminded of Brian Greene’s book Until the End of Time, where Greene submits,

“Physics is really good at giving insight into what stuff is made of and the fundamental Laws, the particles that come together… that’s only one story though. So then the chemist comes along and builds on that the story of how this- particles come together into molecular systems. The Biologist comes along and tells another story, which is how those complex chemicals that can come together into living systems. But then you really need to keep on going. You need the story that comes from the neuroscientist and the psychologist that allows us to undertand how our brains allow us to engage with the world and to feel and think and understand the world. We need the story that comes from philosophy that begins to address the big questions that a brain like ours is able to start to think about. We need the theological story as well, the kind of stories.. that helps illuminate for some people why we are here and what might be some ultimate meaning or purpose to our existence. Its only through the amalgam of all these stories that we get the fullest picture of reality.”

Brian Greene

I do love this interconnected picture so much. But I’m also puzzled by Greene’s larger argument. He begins with the notion of life as ultimately beholden to the process of disorder and disintegration. We are nothing more than particles bent towards death, and yet his book is essentially Biblical in nature, arguing for things like given meaning and moral responsibility even as he suggests that all morality tales regarding an impositional Truth are a fabrication, lies that we tell ourselves to create meaning and give value to this existence. And yet he upholds something similar to ontological Truth. The “divine nature” that he locates is humanity itself, something driven not by free will but by the Laws of Nature. And it is by learning how to fall in love with reality that he locates meaning in our experience of it. The fact that we can look up at the universe and be in awe of it is enough to call us to willfully and joyfully live in this world in a meaningful way.

At the same time, his entire moral foundation is driven by a value and focus of “eternity” as a breaking free of a limiting perspective of the long view of the future. This despite the insistence that order itself is a temporary and arbitrary gift and that the consciousness this enables will end in the not so distant future. Further, he cannot attend for differing experiences of this world in the present, only a call to trust in its inherant worth (why? simply because). That and, along with most others which argue this position of living free in a world where true freedom does not actually exist, the fact that any meaning we gain from this freedom is also dependent on our experience is something he continualy sidesteps along the way (even while acknowledging that he gets these questions quite often).

I’m reminded of another film I watched this week called Black Conflux, a film that uses a picture of two rivers in Newfoundland converging at a naturally derived point and producing something that is at once random and emergent and distinct. This is a metaphor/allegory for the film’s two main characters, a young woman dealing with a world dominated by men that oppresses her sex and a slightly older man who oppressess woman out of insecurity and uncertianty that flows from his own upbringing. The question the film raises is, if these two characters randomly happen to meet, to what end does this change their trajectory, and further, how much control did either character have over their trajectory up to this point. Further yet, how much control does either character actually have over their future. It’s a startling question that arrives wtih a fair degree of force, one that challenges much of our assumed narratives surrounding free will, meaning, and future imagination.

It’s so curious to me the plethora of books that are releasing that are feeling such a strong need to turn science into narrative and narrative into the idealizing/romanticizing of this existence (Underland by Robert MacFarlane and Work: A Deep History by James Suzman come to mind). Writing their own Bibles so to speak. As someone who believes in God, I find them inspiring. But I can’t help but observe how quickly the rationality of their arguments fall apart when it comes to the necessary impositions of foundational forms of Truth. In some ways it reminds me that as humans we all share the same needs and questions and struggles and wonderings. It provokes me as well to give greater attention to why it is that I hold faith in theological interest and callings and the presuppositions that flow from that. Its compelling to me to see how Greene fits that in to his own argument, however hesitantly, as the final piece of that story he paints, one that then looks back on the larger story he paints with a slightly different perspective in tow. This seems to me to be a more apt way of seeing the story of Black Widow. It is only by standing on an accepted and predetermined vision of the future built on a given definition of “goodness” and “Truth” that we can look back on history (which places us in the present with a sense of meaning and purpose and promise) and make sense of both the human condition and individual worth with a sense of confidence in its given meaning. Yes, we can locate this by observing human language and human nature and human tendencies, and we can experience this goodness without our knolwedge of it, but it is only by recognizing that our meaning comes from outside of ourselves, a worth that is afforded to us by an other, only then are we truly able to rationalize our experiences as inherently meaningful in a rational way. We are free to give of ourselves, to sacrifice our experience of this world for the sake of another precisely becuase goodness itself is not dependant on our experience, nor are we beholden to creating it first for it to be made true in our lives through our experience of it. Subsequently, and perhaps most importantly, we can do away with narratives of heroes and villains and make the experience of this world in its penchant for good and evil (defined by and given from outside of ourselves) the main point of concern. We are freed from having to become a Widow, and instead our meaning is inherent because of our relationship to an other. Which is where maybe there is worth in repeating what I said above:

The true beauty of Black Widow’s story getting its own treatment is that its distinctive tones and style and sensibilities are given the freedom to tell its story as part of the whole.

Who am I? Who are we? Why are we here? Why does it matter?

These are questions as old as time. These are questions that also take new shape and gain new context and nuance as time moves forward, presenting us with new ways to explore shared concerns. The book Life’s Edge: The Search For What It Means to be Alive by Carl Zimmer recently helped bring some of these questions to life in a new way, most notably in how he underscores the simple truth that there is no true and shared defintion of life that guides scientific progress and interest, only operating assumptions that inform these interests in one way or another, which, it is worth mentioning, is highly inconsistent and debated within its application. How the question of significance gets played out within an increasingly expanding cosmological view can seemingly press in two directions- exposing life here on earth as insignificant, or increasing its sense of wonder, which of course is where this moves from a seeming concern for science to an inevitable concern for questions that rightly belong in the arena of philosophy and theology. Where and how we draw lines between these fields of study and where and how they overlap is something that ebbs and flows with the ongoing trends of the day, unfortunately resulting in certain tensions and divisions more often than not.

What perhaps flows from these questons more specifically is a concern for locating meaning or meaning making within the practical pursuit of the scientific data. This is where and how the data moves from fact to narrative, informing not simply what we know but how it is that we apply this knowledge in meaningful ways to life itself. One such person arguing for a more cohesive and cooperative relationship between these fields and their shared or codependant interests is author Christopher L. Fisher, who’s working thesis in his book Human Significance in Theology and the Natural Sciences demonstrates his belief that human beings have “vital significance in the cosmos, and this significance is visible to both theology and science.” Given this visibility, Fisher believes that both science and theology can bring necessary perspective to the converstaion from within their respective fields by adopting what he calls a critical anthropocentrism. Here I would like to interact with HSTNS, along with the three voices he critiques (Pannenber, Rahner, and Zizioulas), with the goal of understanding the contemporary dialogue surrounding this notion of human significance through the lens of his two main ideas which help bring clarity to this idea of critical anthropocentrism, which desires to reject the typical markers of human exceptionalism while reemploying a critical lens as a way to uncover human significance as necessary for understanding meaning in this world. These are,

1. The idea of humanity as the center or focal point of creation/natural world

2. The idea that both fields (philosophy/theology and science) operate within specific boundaries, and any proper discussion of human significance by nature over-reaches and blurs these boundaries necessarily.

Primary Issue #1: The idea of humanity as the center or focal point of creation/natural world.

The idea of humanity as the center or focal point of creation demands attention from both a theological and scientific perspective, as it informs not only how we apply the data as a meaning-making exercise, but also the assumptions that make sense of our pursuit of the data. To pare this down to a simpler question of interest, one might want to ask, for example, whether it is appropriate, or more rightly necessary for philosophy/theology or science to present humanity as the pinnacle or height of the creative or evolutionary story. Further, is there good reason for making such an assumption when considering the nature of both philosophy/theology and science against the available data, and does thinking in such terms aid or hamper the developmpent of a proper scientific aim or theo-centric focus? And lastly, does making this assumption present any challenges for reconciling science with the philosophical/theological interest?

Establishing the two key doctrines of Christian theology as the “imago Dei” (made in the image of God) and the “incarnation” (the indwelling of God in the world), Fisher moves towards a critical anthropocentricsm, seeing it as that which attempt to “seek to incorporate appropriate sensitivities, criticisms, and nuances into an justified form of anthropocentrism.” He describes the activity of anthropocentrism as “modern Christian theology in dialogue with modern science”, which understands that when seen in relationship to one another we can then recognize and locate the modern discussion with a greater degree of clarity. Fisher sees the concepts of the Imago Dei and the Incarnation as human centric ideas grounded in a greater theo-centric reality. Here it is worth pausing to acknowledge the specific “Christian language Fisher is using, but his ideas do translate into the broader discussion of both philosophy and theism/deism. From a theological perspective, humanity is the primary means through which creation can then gain its meaning. Simply put, without humanity and its distinctiveness meaning would not be a something the world could or would be concerned with. Thus, as science engages the world it assumes that humanity holds meaning and that humanity likewise gives meaning to the whole of the natural world where it otherwise wouldn’t exist. Where these two ideas sit in tension is typically where science must then attend for this meaning in reational terms, and further for how to apply this meaning to lesser and greater degrees. Where science gets expressedas a narrative, what often gets lost in translation is that this forces it to make assumptions that sit beyond the boundaries of its particular concern. Which we can see happening all the time.

Similarly, from a theological perspective, humanity is the primary means through which creation is able to share in fellowship with the Divine/Creator, or “God”. In a more specific Christian sense, to cite an example, this is found in a developed Christology that brings both the natural and the divine into relationship with one another, the bringing together of heaven and earth so to speak, which in the ancient world (and the modern one, although we don’t often recognize it in these terms) was caught up in tendencies to remove God from the natural world and relegate the idea to a distant, largely removed and unconcerned entity, or set God in contest with humanty by way of the natural order (the elements). In any case, the necessary uniqueness of humanity remains an important question regardless of how one sees this relationship between nature/human and the divine. Which is to say, whether we are speaking of science or philosophy/theology, how we answer the question of human distinctivness will play out in the kinds of questions and concerns we give our attention to when we study and practice within these given fields, and more importantly how it is we live in this world in relationship to both the natural and/or the divine realities.

Pannenberg, who long argued that humanity exists in relationship with the natural world (his deep concern as a scientist) as part of our ongoing relationship to the divine (his deep conviction as a theologian and open theist) sees it as uniquely human to be open to transcendence within the natural and material world, as taken together this can “hope for, long for, and strive for that which can then inform our experience.” He also sees humanity through the lens of the Imago Dei, which is the image of God represented in (or within) humanity itself. It is the incarnation that allows us to fulfill this destiny and to function as image bearers of the transcendent in a physical and material world precisely because God takes residence and occupies space within and exists in relationship to the natural/physical world. This union with Christ comes by way of the spirits dwelling within the whole of the created order, which is precisely where it is able to declare creation as good and meaningful in its indwelling within nature. Both the science and the philosphy/theology would seem to agree to some end that the Imago Dei (to use its Christian sense, but also to use it in larger religious and philosphical sense), or this idea of meaning and that unique ability to afford the natural order its meaning, cannot be realized outside of humanities significance, and therefore can only be fully realized within some idea of the incarnation (again, using the particular Christian language but speaking of a universal concept), that is, meaning taking up residence in us so as to afford us the freedom to then declare this given meaning over the whole of the natural/physical world as we stand in relationship to it.

Both Pannenberg and Rahner, another scientific mind dedicated to questions of philosophy/theology, retain a sense of historicity in their shared conviction of a human centric reality, although Rahner is not quite as bound by this historicity. He sees history as a single event (the incarnation and the resurrection in a Christian sense) in which “historical, cultural, and scientific develpments are… important for uncovering the fullness of truth in any given event of God’s action in the world, because they may reveal aspects of a doctrine previously unavailable.” He views human knowledge as incomplete and necessariy grounded in the idea of “becoming”, and thus this points not to a developing and progressive moral agency but of a continuous revealing of this given Truth in each moment within history as a form of contextulization in line with human evolution. Rahner continues to flesh this idea out as a yearning that is observable within theology as an demonstrable relationship with the divine, and likewise in science as the reflection of a radical new level of evolution centralized in human form. “What natural science has done for us is show us… what we already knew philosphically/theologically: in relation to the infinite God (or the Divine nature) human beings will always be and feel finite.” This yearning can see evolution as a process that leads to Christ and Christlikeness and a greater realization and recognition of human signficance in a vast universe. Rahner and Pannenberg both agree that physical and spiritual reality must be seen as unified in their correlating ideas, even if from distinguished approaches, and that they do this precisely by uncovering the underlying working assumptions that drive this question of signficance and meaning. There has been a long standing resistance, and likewise embrace, represented within the field of scientific study towards acknowledging and recognizing that these assumptions are in fact present. Does acknowleging help or impede progress and discovery? A case can be made for both assertion. But in either case, the fact that these assumptions do exist and carry weight remains true, especially when it comes to understanding human sigificance and its ability to read meaning back into the natural world. And at the very least, admitting that this does exist can help infuse these studies with a necessary humility. As James Smith argues in his book Irrationality: The Dark Side of Reason, it is when we believe that we are rational and refuse to aknowledge our own irratitonal leaps in judgement that we become the most irrational, and a dangerous form it it at that. All reason requires a degree of irrtational assumption in order to make any sense in the everydayness of our lives.

The challenges that surface in trying to bridge theological and scientific approaches to human centrality and significance mostly revolve around the issue of causality. Modern, rationalized, scientific approaches tend to attempt to deconstruct the necessity of human significance by demonstrating that the universe does not demand transcendent causality. This might be true for the science itself, which can be done and practiced outside of any imposing or external concerns, but what drives the interests of science is intrinsically related to and wrapped up in the application of this science in terms of giving us meaning and signficance, and thus it can’t truy escape such assumptions. To assume that it can is simply being willfully dishonest about how science works, even if one can make a case for why it might be best for the science itself to leave such emotionaly concerned questions aside. Fisher interacts with these ideas in light of the issues surrounding the idea of the lack of any truly objective rational thought, which becomes evident in any discussion of boundaries. As well, the question of continuity within creation, an idea that science and evolution both see as vital and relevant to the study of material reality, demands appropriate attention. And this is because of the subsequent questions this evokes, where we ask, is it necessary to distinguish humanity apart from non-human creation or to be concerned with human significance at all? Fisher, in dialogue with all three writers represented in this book, argues that the question of human significance is relevant in so far as we are speaking of that part of human nature that distinguishes itself within reality. This fits with Rahner’s thought that humanity is preconditioned towards a yearning to become something other than what it currently is. Theological discourse then can help illuminate transcendent reaity in ways that otherwise liimted within the scope of science, but in a fashion that does not undercut the concern of science itself. In some ways it simply makes it more honest, and thus perhaps more accountable to its own driving assumptions, especially as it flounders within those many inconsistent and embattled definitions of life that I mentioned above.

When dealing with spiritual and material definitions, one must deal with human centrality in relation to a definitive sense of the source of causation, be it described as God or something other. When one raises humanity to a level of significance this automatically blurs the boundaries of our relationship to the transcendent. We are in allegiance to something. For example, if humans are significant in comparison to (insert here), do we then consider humans divine, and if so how does this divination coincide with God’s (or the authoratative other) existence as a higher power on one hand and the worth and meaning of creation and the natural world on the other? The ancients certainly elevated humans to such a degree in terms of status, and there is a strong argument that modernism does similarly. Is the divine intrinsically located within or connected to the material, or does it stand seperate from material reality? And if it stands seperate, to what degree does the divine then interact with the material world in terms of causation and relationship? Fisher addresses the issue of seeing God represented within the material as leading towawrds possible forms of dualism. Christian theology tends to speak fairly consistently of God as both in and above creation, which also recognizes a form of contention with the process of evolution, with the primary question being that of linear trajectory and progress. Are we speaking logically of an upward trajectory and movement from something that was lesser than to something greater or more significant? And this question applies equally to the way we perceive evolution and the way we perceive divination or sanctification. Of concern here is the question of whether our signficance comes from this natural progression or whether our significance is imparted from above apart from any natural progression. To see it as imparted makes sense of how it is that we then impart this same meaning and value to that which we sit in relationship to (the natural world), but how we see this question of progression has immediate impact on how see ourselves in relationship to that which we are affording value. Do we stand above it, alongside it? If we see human significance as wrapped up in our own moral progression and evolution the danger then becomes this sectioning off of portions of humanity as having more significance than others, leading to all sorts of dangerous assumptions and divisions. In any case, meaning and signficance appears to arrive as a kind of grace, be it in a linear narrative, a cyclical one, or a contextualized one.

Further, how do we bridge this notion of an upward movement with the messy and inconsistent nature of the process itself. Evidence seems to suggest that there is no true upward movement, only the results of change in response to our environment, which does seem to pose a challenge to this question of signficance and meaning, both in the material (biological, social, political, historical) sense, and in the transcendent (moral, holiness) sense. And if that idea is challenged, then this then challenges the ability of humanity to afford the natural world its meaning and signficance. This creates a conundrum of rational and logical thought that exposes the underlining assumptions that drive both science and theology. Which is why in both cases it seems better to speak of an assumed significance unrelated to progressive evolution, knowledge or divination. What is most relevant to all studies is humanities inherant “response-ability” to the world it exists within. But again, for this to truly work all studies need to willingly acknowledge such assumptions exist, and that requires the blurring of boundaries lest the whole thing start to collapse into its inherent and incoherent meaninglessness (which much of humanity hates to hear, but it is nevertheless true). Where this perhaps gets muddled and challenged the most is when we are speaking of concern for the future, because it is in thinking about the future that motivations, assumptions and value systems and motivations get most readily exposed. Whether we are speaking of a transcndent imagination or a material reality, people can only live for today if they have some hope for tomorrow. This is scientifically and spiritually true. This might be hope in the idea and promise of new creation, or it might be hope in the long term survival of the human species, but this much is clear- the significance of human life only matters in so far as it exitsts towards some end. This is why we all build our lives around irrational narratives to some degree. Because we won’t survive if we don’t. Which explains our modern obsession with the future, and further our worship of the idea of eternal youth, the very thing that built and continues to sustain the modern, Western education system.

Fisher spends time weighing this unique responsability that humanity appears to have with evidence from the larger animal world. He comes to the conclusion that one must contend both theologically and scientifically with the reality that even with the many examples of overlap and shared distinctives within species and creatures, because we only yet have one example of the evolutionary trajectory to compare ourselves to, humans do, and undeniably so, represent a singular and unique example within the universe in our level of awareness of and our abiity to interact with it. Even if this is only on a material level with no divine or spiritual impetus, this remains true. Here Zizioulas weights in, pushing us to reconsider the theological idea of creation and the fall in respect to a more robust dialogue about the nature of death and its realtionship to good and evil. He sees mortality as a pre-existent reality within creation that demands an eventual completeness or fullness in God. We were intended to move towards this fullness within the natural order, but this same order continues to reveal a tension or these competing natures that either depend on one another for their continued act of creating towards something more, or that represent that (evil) which then must be overcome by the good. In either case, this opens up necessary questions about what this looks like and how it comes about, which in theological terms is what the notion of redemption looks to explore. Zizioulas believes “the only way to overcome mortality is to find a link between creator and created without erasing or collapsing the distinctivness of either and/or devolving into damaging forms of dualism.” In this way he sees the same model of reality applying to humanity’s relaitonship with the natural world in as much as we endow it with its necessary meaning in the way that we have been endowed with a given meaning. This also lends itself to the larger, ongoing question of a preexistent purpose versus reactive action. If Christ was the intention from the get go as the full revelation of the divine, the incarnation must then be that to which humanity was purposed towards towards from the beginning. This leaves room for evil and Sin to be seen as agency rather than moral action, helping to make sense of the less than linear nature of the evolutionary process in both biological and moral terms, and likewise the ongoing move towards the fullness of this revelation being made known and expressed in human significance as imitators of the incarnate Christ. In this sense the fall is a pre-existing nature that pushes back against or interrupts the process of newness and any evidence of the ongoing fulfillment of creation’s mandate to fill the earth with what is true, good and beautiful, setting it in constant tension with itself out of which biology can note this constant order-disorder dichotomy. It’s also worth noting here that more open views are free to consider the death of Christ not as the original intention, but as God’s response to these dualing natures of order or disorder, newness and chaos. This brings up that seemingly persistant and inherenty human question of God’s participation in the order-disorder paradigm, declaring that however it is that God works within the laws of the universe (breaking them or working within them), the important Truth is that God does indeed dwell within it, which is precisely where historicity would come back into play for Pannenber in the story of the incarnation. In any case, each viewpoint plays into the material reality of the evolutionary process in different ways with different challenges and responses, but always with equal concern for recognizing the underlying assumptions that guide each approach.

Primary Issue #2: Boundaries Within Science and Theology

The second primary issue loks at the idea of boundaries within the field of science and theology. Fisher spends time examining the idea of naturalism, suggesting that an emphasis on rational and empiracal thought birthed by the enlightenment has inhibited helpful dialgogue between scientific and theological discourse. Rationalism requires truth to be universally constant and self evident, whereas transcendent theology is specific and revelatory by nature (and therefore somewhat transient). Fisher provides three primary reasons for the collapse of Naturalism as a governing worldview, which are circular and incoherent reasoning (a foundation requires reason, and reason requires a foundation, a reality that forces one to break their own rules in order to properly and effectively engage the scientific process), the presence of culturally influenced reasoning as opposed to universal truth (a failed attempt to link perception and reason), and the limitations of specific analytical techniques, which is seen in the idea that “if the supernatural is taken to be the reality distinct from the material creation, then a study of the regularities of the creaturely world will not necessarily even see supernatural reality”, doing away with such categories altogether. Fisher goes on  suggest that “Biology can at best hint at something, theology can reveal.” Pannenberg sees the boundaries blurring as he attempts to link material history with a transcendent relationship to the divine. And while Pannenberg does not necessarily go this far in his argumentation, Fisher gives sharp focus to the dangers of dualism that can arise when one tries to fit the unique focus and claims of one discipline in to the claims of another. Fisher notes this in his critique of Pannenberg’s argument, and suggests that this limits (necessarily so) how science and theology can compliment each other from within definable boundaries, although it should not inhibit us from seeing the two world in cooperation.

Science can observe in humanity a rational soul, but in order to protect the science it keeps it at one level of process with the rest of nature. It does this because it is unable in and of itself to deal with the transcendental nature of humanity (found in this idea of revealed Truth). Rahner attempts to define “soul” in a way that can fit both theology and material definitions, but recognizes that both fields need to to work from within their own limitations in order to keep from unfairly undermining or superceding the other at the expense of truth. One of the key issues of rationalism is that it demands that both fields of thought speak from outside of their limitations if they are to contain relevant and coherent truths. This is where Fisher presents the idea of a critical anthropology that can acknowledge the limitations of each field while also holding them together in a cohesive fashion.

Fisher, speaking of a Copermica anthropological view, goes on writing,

The typicalview held by many in the name of natural science is that humanity… has no purpose in the cosmos, for the simple reason that the universe has no purpose. In such a universe it is certainly not easy for human beings to feel that they are the ones for whom this cosmos ultimately exists, particularly when they know themselves to be the product of an evolution which itself has to work with numerous and improbably accidents (causal environments and dependent changes).

Often this becomes the motivation for theology to seperate itself from science as incompatible. However, it is both important and necessary, according to Fisher, for theology as the study of transcendent truth to recognize how this truth fits with the corresponing reality of the material world that science studies and brings to light. It is possible to pursue a sense of compatibility while also staying true to the conviction that each discipline demands, and this flows from a dedication to the idea that meaning is not created but rather given, that we don’t arrive at meaning through a linear process of progressive ideals, but rather these ideals inform the processes by which we then evolve, both towards and against. Meaning in this sense is not wrapped up in the material process in as much as it is making sense of it from the perspective of transcendent, revealed truths and in some way operating as the measure that informs its now willfull direction in humanity and our subsequent responsibility towards it. Which is to say, culture and humanity and evolution changes, but what is True holds as constant as the laws that govern it, call it inately human, inately divine, or whatever. What we mean by these phrases is that which makes humanity significant. This resonsiblility to something that governs us from above is this same motivaiton that motivates all three writers with whom Rahner is dialoguing. Rahner recogonizes that seeing a directive nature and source in the created order is infact a theological concern and perspective that science has often borrowed in order to justify its existence. This is an important recognition, as it describes the limitation of both while also recognizing that spiritual reality by its nature is that which gives meaning and direction to the presence of human yearning, and therefore stands as a higher reality than human willfulness.

Another important sentiment that Fisher speaks to is the issue of respect. The influence of the Enlightenment has led to a disparity and seperation between the two groups (philosophy/theology and science). A mutual respect then must exist for healing to happen, in so far as transcendent beliefs and observations are allowed to speak with equal conviction and credibility as material study. A part of this argument suggests that both to a degree are observable on a rational level, but that both do need eachother in order to speak appropriately to that which stands beyond their boundaries.

Concluding Reflections and Thought

In reading through the articles interacting with Pannenberg, Rahner, and Zizioulas, it is easy to see how important and necessary this sort of dialogue is for our modern world and modern thought. The discussion reflects an attempt to bridge the historical, scientific, and transcendental reality as connected within both observation of the natural and material world and within human experience itself. In doing so, Pannenberg, for example, from within his historicity, appears to require transcendental reality in order to properly attend to his motivating concern for observable and testable data and events. The highest measure of this of course is the incarnation, that which then informs how one sees the material world in relationship to the divine revelation. There can of course be limitations to this approach, as there is in any field of study, which emerge when the material and the transcendental become so tightly bound that they become indistinguishable, but this should not negate the desire and the effort to allow these fields of study to operate together in a meaningful way. Perhaps its worth noting that the primary reason this tension exists is because acknowledging presuppostions and motivating assumptions is risky business. It leaves your field of study vulnerable, and where observation depends on certainty and consistency of laws this can lead to a feeling of confusion. Here it is worth positing that even in physics where certain laws must be assumed in order to study theories in a practical sense, the science itself leaves room for this to happen within a universe where laws are in fact largely inconsistent and uncertain. Both of these these things can co-exist. The risk that comes with employing and acknowledging necessary assumptions doesn’t need to mean something negative, and infact can be the primary way in which we strengthen both positions of faith and scientific measure.

In terms of theology, Rahner and Pannenberg come together on the idea of the incarnation as a preexisting reality, something Rahner articulates and fleshes out to a fuller degree as that which allows for the ongoing activity of revealed Truth within the material world. He views the process within the material world from the vantage point of the incarnation (the death and the resurrection), a transcendent reality that can only be seen and understood from wiithin the transcndent act itself. It is interesting to see an approach that respects the science while holding to faith in an unseen reality in a way that also embraces humility. Transcendence speaks to a higher reality because in Christ the mystery of God can hold precedence over human knowledge, even as human knowledge is elevated towards this endeavor of making sense of revealed truth. This can be true without undercutting the other precisely because one sits underneath informing motivation while the other is active and external in a lived and practical and material sense. Rahner also presents the idea that humans were elevated in terms of significance precisely so that the incarnational act could be played back out into the material world itself, something which science more or less embraces when it considers the study of human activity and function. Human significance moves us into a sense of continuity of purpose and meaning with the non-human world.

I found one of the more intriguing lines of thought in Zizioulas’ exploration of natural evil and his perspective of the fall. Zizioulas upholds a similar Christology and focus on the incarnation, but expands his view using the evolutionary framework as a way of examining how something like the fall, an idea that emerges from reflections on these dualing natures and observable relationships between order and disorder, relates to our understanding of ecclesiology (also understood as the future, for which the whole of society regardless of view employs a working narrative). Looking through the lens of the hypostatic union of the trinity, he moves forward on an understanding of personhood as that which is shaped within culture and community. The fall itself, which points to something preeixstant to itself, is any move away from the hypostatic union, which is what gives shape to human significance (again, something that is bolstered and observed by science). Zizioulsa falls short of fully fleshing out his concept of original sin, as questions still remain regarding where we locate this within history as a preexisting reality and how we frame this within a more holistic sense of humanity’s eventual reform (the new creation and good conquering evil). What’s particularly strong though about his view is that it leaves room for evil as an agency that is naturally found within a created order where existing tensions between good and evil seem to be necessary for anything that we deem to be good (working assumptions of imposed value) to emerge. This seems to free us from the weight that accompanies a fall from a “perfected” state, although it doesn’t necessarily preclude this altogether. What’s important in his theory is locating a primary and revealed Truth that can allow us to employ necessary assumptions about what is True while attending for the complicated material reality, and for him this is what Christ represents. Original sin in this sense is melded to natural theology, which allows the inherent and given goodnes of creation to be upheld within the evidence of the material function. We are made up of the ongoing struggle between good and evil.

The other dynamic at play is the idea of the relationship betwen humanity and the non-human creation. Human significance can only be elevated within this larger narrative of creation’s move towards something new and something good, both of which must be assumed and given to us by an other. This is where we find the idea of “response-able relationships, where the relationship between God and the natural world becomes the model through which we then see and relate to the natural world (as part of the natural world). This has direct implications for the the ethical and moral treatment of the natural and creaturely world. The seemingly neccesary move to establish humanity as a unique demonstration within the material and the transcendent is convincing and even hopeful, but as the book demonstrates, the end result of human significance is actually the strongest case that can be made for transcendent truths and values that govern the whole. Becoming aware of our nature makes us responsible to these truths, and participating in making these transcendent truths evident within the material world is how these truths are made aware.

Invitation to the Thirsty

1“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:1-2

Years back my wife (Jen) and I took a road trip up from Winnipeg, MB to L.A., before swinging back around through Montana and South/North Dakota on our way back home. While we were in L.A. we had an opportunity to go to Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant The London, one of the restaurants that emerged from his long running show. Jen is a chef, I am the furthest thing from. Which is to say, while she could apprecate the experience for what it was, I was very much out of my element. I couldn’t read or pronouce anything on the menu, and when whatever it was that I ordered arrived (part of a 3 or 4 course meal) I still didn’t really know what was on my plate. No word of a lie, it took me about 10 minutes to locate a glass of water on the menu.

I’m not sure which was braver, me for stepping out of my comfort zone, or Jen for walking through those doors with me (I’m going with her). For future reference, I prefer the experience of eating somehwere where it doesn’t feel like I’m ripping up my money by eating what are very small portions of what feels like i might as well be made of gold and be framed somewhere rather than consumed. Another way to put that might be, I prefer my comfort and familiarity and normal portion sizes.

I find an echo of this experience in this passage from Isaiah 55. The call in this passage begins with the simple invitation to “come”. What follows this invitation are three contextualized realities that shape this call:

This chapter in Isaiah pivots on the mention of the “I” in chapter 3 and the “covenant” or promise the I is making with those who are hungry and thirsty. The larger framework for this covenant is the image of the “suffering servant” in 55:2. What is interesting here is to note how the “I” (God) plays into the “he” (the suffering servant) whom the I has made into a “witness” to the peoples of this great feast. And somehow it is through the he that that we who are hungry and thirsty also bear witness to the all of these nations whom it says “surely will come” in 55:5.

What strikes me then is this two fold vision. The invitation to come hinges on the “he” through whom this covenant promise is made true and real and beautiful in our midst. The picture this covenant points to is fleshed out in the second half of Isaiah 55 inthis way:

As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

12You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

13Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the Lord’s renown,

for an everlasting sign,

that will endure forever.”

Isaiah 55:9-13

Secondly, there is a sense in which we participate in this witness even as the “he” of this passage plays out this story in its fullness and for our sake. The promise that “I” will accompish what I desire through the “he” who is made a witness to this grand feast and invitation to eat and drink seems to play into those who either resist this meal and spend their money elsewhere as well as those who arrive at this feast to eat and drink. The promise is in play, but the call and the invitation remains equally true.

To return to the London in L.A., there is something that strikes me about this picture as saying something about this interplay between the covenant promise and the invitation itself. I imagine this contrasting picture of this upscale establishment and the local budget diner down the street. It is easy for me to sit in the diner and to look at this upscale establishment as a place where I do not belong. Where I do not feel comfortable. The food might be quality, and the portions might be made so as to savour and appreciate. I prefer the simple pleasure of that 3.99 breakfast plate. I judge the price, the social etiquette and dress that sets it apart, the expectations, and even the people who attend these kinds of restaurants.

Now imagine if The London was advertising its meal for free. And imagine if the only pre-requisite for entry was being hungry and thirsty. And then imagine if the establishment was not about the literal food and drink at all. You could get faus gras or that 3.99 breakfast special.

Here I think we start to get a little bit closer to the imaginatve picture of Isaiah 55. As the “all” breaks down those barriers that seperate one establishment from the other, in its place we find a different kind of food and drink, one that is interested in addressing the need for community, belonging, liberation and love regardless of background or social status. There is a powerful integrative nature with tihs sort of “spritual” longing and “spiritual” food and the real world social and economic reality that rings through the words of Isaiah 55. The story that the “he” is embodying brings together not just the covenant of David, but that larger story of exile and exodus to which David belongs. This is what it means for Jesus, who comes in the typology of this suffering servant, to embody the story of Israel, is to locate the idea of covenant faithfulness in a real world setting and context.

The real problem with that local diner is not the food or the location, but rather the socio-economic divide that it represents. I think of my own neighborhood here in the North End of Winnipeg, notorious for its low income status. To imagine a rich establishment down the road as I walk by the local Mcdonalds where many of the Indigenous families in our neighbrhood hang out feels deeply problematic precisely because this imagines the promise of an upscale meal that perpetuates this division between us and them. This feast appears to be doing something quite the opposite. It isn’t drawing people to some establishment, it is drawing people to a “he” through which all of these barriers between us and them suddenly fall away. This isn’t seperating people according to the kind of food we eat, which unfortunately we see in Christianity and its systems far too often, rather it is uniting people by a similar need. All who are thirsty, come drink from that which is free and will satisfy the true thirst for community and belonging and social liberation and healing.

To think about it from this perspective is to reframe what it means to partcipate in the Judeo-Christian vision of a feast where all of the nations are drawn and to which all of the nations comes. Sadly, if the vision of Christ as the fulfillment of this covenant promise is the one to whom these nations are drawn, we as Christ followers are prone to making this into something quite other than Christ imagines. How easy it is to treat this vision exclusively and to then prop up our establishments as an exclusive measure of what it means to eat and drink at such an establishment, with all of its proper “etiquette” enforced and menu items pre-determined and controlled. It’s no wonder many of us would rather just stay in the diner down the street, the irony being that these diners manage to achieve that Christ-like vision far more readily than the Churches that propose to be entertaining this grand feast.

Perhaps freedom then comes not from the establishment but from refocusing our sights on what precisely “he” is doing in Isaiah’s grand vision. Read it and reread it and give attention to this movement from the call to the fulfillment of this grand promise that informs this call, and ask ourselves how it is that I am participating in this feast myself. Recognize that for as much as we are being “fed”, the call here is towards the “eating” together.

How would it tranform our vision of this great feast if we placed the Cross in the center of the table? And what if we bring in the many Gospel passages that imagine a people who do not belong in the Temple being given the first seat? And what if by feeding on the drink and the food of the Cross that we begin to embody Christ and that the Christ that dwells in us is given its fullest expression in the taking up of our own Crosses for the sake of participating together in this great, unifying feast? Everything in the Judeo-Christian story is wrapped up in the seeming tension of this promised declaration that the kind of Kingdom promised in the latter half of Isaiah 55 has arrived and is here but is also not yet here. The words “seek now” for the kingom “is at hand” feels like an untenable juxtapositioned at best, frustrating and defeatist at worst. And yet this is precisely what we find in the “he” of this passage. Something very real happened when Christ took on the role of this suffering servant. The feast has arrived, the meal is there for the taking. In Christ the nations are being drawn. And yet we participate knowing the brokenness and the division this meal anticipates. Knowing the failures of our own participation in this meal in ways that have prevented the participation of others and buried the Cross at its center. Here the words of Isaiah ring true with the call to turn and reorient our actions and our perspective towards the “he” who is sweeping us up in to this grander story. Here I like to personalize this verse as speaking directly to me and my failures- seek the Lord, forsake my (our) wickedness and unrighteous thoughts so that God might have mercy on (me). To me this is the real promise that “he” came to fulfill, is that in doing so it is through my own Christlike partcipation that the Kingdom can then be built. This is the true currency we have been given through the suffering servants own purchase of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

6Seek the Lord while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

7Let the wicked forsake their ways

and the unrighteous their thoughts.

Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

Isaiah 55:6-7

Maybe it’s the never ending pandemic. Or the heat wave currently wreaking havoc in places around the world as we ease into the long summer months, but Amazon’s recent release of The Tomorrow War resonated with me in a way that I’m not sure it fully intended to do. Certainly there is room for its obvious concern for “tomorrow” to translate into specific scenarios (if not an alien invasion then why not a pandemic or discussion of a potential future Hothouse Earth scenario).

Beyond mere correlation though, the film hit on some very real insecurities and fears that have been mounting in me as of late regarding these monumental realities. Some of this comes down to a line spoken by one of the women of the future, revealed in the opening sequences, where she contrasts “sentimentality” with the definite fact that this world they occupy will end. Now, there is a point in this film where this tension (between sentimentality and reality) does get swept up into a more hopeful disposiiton based on “our” ability to do something about it now (how that does or whether that does translate to certain resolutions I’ll leave for the film to reveal on its own time), but the most invogorating and tantalizing part of this very expensive blockbuster is actually the portion of the film that willingly spends time sitting in this tension and allowing it to ruminate and unsettle us as viewers.

For me, a never-ending pandemic with no firm as of yet promise of our human capacity to fully solve it, or a heat wave that seems to be giving fresh voice to the discussions that emerged with force in the early months of last year, particularly regarding the seemingly inevitable future of a warming earth now at a point of no return, is a tough thing to reconcile with my attempts to see the positive in the everyday. That’s simply if I’m being honest. Now, to be fair, many of these articles do still speak of the potential for us to redirect this path towards a better tomorrow, but most of the evidence seems to suggest that warming will continue and that this will cause challenges for humanity in the next 50 years. For all that is made of the human capacity to make this world better and be in control of our future, mass graves being uncovered at residential schools, the sheer inequity exposed by both a virus and a vaccine, rampant racism and division that continues South of the border, wars and conflicts and poverty and tragedy of man-made and natural proportions seem to suggest something different. Sure, we can speak about longer life spans and higher standards of living as evidence of modernity’s ability to solve our problems and move us from the depths of history towards a new and greater age ripe with freedoms and longevity and general prospering, but it would be a gross mistake to count this as equality or “progress” on a moral front. Even modern day movements like the womans liberation and the fight for greater rights for LBGTQ+ communities can be located somewhere in the past with an even more rigorous expression than we find them receiving today.

This might be the result of that old Darwinian falsehood that sees evolution as somehow linear and progressive and forward moving, but such “progressive” ideals are far better understood as part of a cyclical nature that ebbs and flows with the currents of what one could fairly deem actual “progress” (societal and technological development). Same questions, different context. Same problems, different pile. To see it as otherwise is to subscribe arbitrary categories for the kind of suffering we encounter today as somehow less valid and less shocking than the suffering that preceded it (represented in the belief that we live in the least violent, least suffered, least-“insert here”- society of all of history, which is a tired sentiment at this point).

Perhaps this owes something to that old adage that suggests every generation thinks the next one is going to hell in a handbasket, but when it comes to that inevitable question of “tomorrow”, what strikes me about the headlines today is that the finger is pointed straight at us as being beligerent, ignorant, racist… insert here…, and this sentiment isn’t wrong. It doesn’t take much digging to find the dire news populating online sources and discourse. In terms of the ecological discussion, article after article project that we will (not might) be facing a world that is too hot for humans to surive in the next 50-70 years. Add to that the increasing consciousness of viral threats (a problem that stems from a global society with an increasing ecological footprint) and, well, queue my anxiety. The call to “live for today” feels shallow and hollow in the current climate at best, irrelevant at worst.

Now, before I digress fully into “the world’s going to hell in handbasket” mode, let me be clear. I struggle with this tension. I do my best to live beyond it. On this front, the real problem I face in navigating this notion of “tomorrow” is navigating the narratives that surround it. I’m a person who likes to ask why, which is sometimes a good thing and other times this is best left alone in favour of more optimistic discourse. The “why” question gains relevance in the film The Tomorrow Wars precisely when the reality of tomorrow appears written in stone (or time). The world will end. Apply this to the heatwave and it becomes “the world will soon be too hot for humans” in the next 50 years. Apply this to a pandemic and it becomes “the world will be facing widespread pandemics” in the next 50 years. Apply this even larger and one could point to something like the recent book The End of Everything by cosmologist/astrophysicist Katie Mack as a question not of when but how (okay, with some when thrown in for good measure… hint, a small cosmoloical shift could bring it about tomorrow).

Humanity will end. The earth will end. The universe will end. We might have a decent set of years to see how far we get with this whole idea of “human innovation”, but even then, when it comes to navigating something like Hothouse Earth what becomes evident is that our biggest problem remains ourselves. Or further to that point, our mass populations and the inequality that maintains it (to be fair, there is a rebuttle to this that is compelling, but even then inequality and consumption remains well within its sights). Further, on the level of scientific study there is a decent case to be made that our mass populations and the functions that flow from these populations that regulate them and maintain them remains the reason why humans haven’t evolved beyond where we are (also a hotly contested topic that is currently being debated), Even those arguing for evidence of modern day evolution in humans tend towards citing more adaptive responses and examples which require smaller, disparate and spread out populations to work (see debates above). And when it comes to the current and growing human population, the fact that we have to factor in questions of an evolving morality remains the biggest challenge we have to technological progress and artifical evolution (the move towards genetic innovation and human bred technology and environmental influence). Otherwise you can be sure that we would have cures for cancer and be well on our way to populating space by now. Even when considering the Hothouse Earth scenario, the problem isn’t human survival, but what to do with the masses that colonize coastal cities and third world countries and which rely on mass production of farming and ecological stability, ect.. This is a moral question. Or to put it otherwise in line with the film- this is a question of sentimentality.

But why be sentimental about mass humanity’s fate? After all, a Hothouse Earth would be good news for the portion of humanity that would eventually thrive within it. Certain portions of the planet will become “eden” like and adaptive to these new climate realities, and those with the means will be able to make the most of it. Sentimentality reallocates at least some of humanity’s obligation to addressing the question of the whole in the interim, that is those who, given the speed of these coming changes, will be the ones to suffer, to die, and to struggle. This is the same mentality used to justify a vaccine rollout which many argue should rightly serve the first world first (after all, your third world country is simply eating it’s own cake and sleeping in its own bed, right?…. I heard that reasoning echoed in two different articles this past week).

Add to this the convoluted narratives that accompany these first world and upper class discussions. For those with the privilege of asking these questions from this vantage point, it basically comes down to three motvations (not including religious ones, which come with their own set of questions)- you either privilge nature, humanity, or progress. One can claim these are interconnected, but when it comes to understanding the narrative and taking stock of allegiances and motivations both real and rhetoricized, one of these plays the dominant role. If it is nature, you will hear people speaking about how nature would be better off without humanity and how, in some unarticulated fashion, the problem is that humanity has changed and affected the role and balance of nature. Thus whatever nature does and whatever nature wills should be the thing we submit ourselves to, even if this means our extinction. The problem with this of course is that we aren’t facing the upsetting of the natural balance (the earth has fluctuated many times before, we’ve seen many extinctions before humanity ever came to be and since, and hothouse earth’s and ice ages have dominated the natural course since the beginning), we are facing an expidited climate change that will wreak havoc on a fair portion of humanity and its economic stability. As well, suggesting that the natural order is the highest ideal doesn’t account for evolution since the arrival of humans and the discovery of fire. The whole course of evolution changed from that point on, with most of it being artificially produced even before Modernity. Naturalism doesn’t really have an end game either, it just has an assumed and imposed morality that gives it its proper power over us (as part of the natural world).

If humanity takes precedence then we begin to attend for some level of human exceptionalism. Here we reserve some degree of rights for survival at the expense of the natural world. We need it, but if it comes down to it that bear will die if it encroaches on human territory. And Western society has long demonstrated that civilization reserves the right to relocate habitats, articially redirect land purposes, and generally conduct ordered society accordingly, including heated and cooled homes, sewage systems, all the way up to the minute modern conveniences. Human exceptionalism assumes that we are responsible for our future and long term survival, and that will happen beyond the confines of this present earth.

Or progress becomes the highest value. The most important elements of this view are the questions associated with what long term survival means and looks like, particularly when it comes to making choices that favor technological progress at the expense of human and natural life (assumptions that get made all the time). In this narrative, humanity isn’t relegated to our mere human form, but rather the future is determined by technology and its ability to transform our present humanity into its next iteration in our artificially bred evolutionary story. This might mean one thing when talking about an artificial heart, but the near future will be asking questions of the mind and brain that far surprass any figurative boundaries we feel might be in place even now.

And all for the concern of longetivity of life and future as the primary measure of success. We are obsessed with the future, whether we want to admit it or not.

And this is the conversation that informs our future. We all know it. We just rarely like to see it in these terms in their most honest form. We like the narratives spun positively because they give us purpose and allow us to be sentimental about nature, human life or progress. The perpetual romanticizing of the future to pad the present, allowing us to create these kinds of narratives, is what gives life its meaning in the present.

Until something throws you into upheavel and you find that human ambitions can’t change this reality. Until you face suffering or tragedy that suddenly cascades all this future obession back into the present with a certain degree of fervor and disallusionment. Nihilists have famously in recent history given much attention to attacking our denial of the meaningless present with vigor. They claim religion is obsessed with “tomorrow” to the detriment of our ability to face death itself as part of our present reality. There’s a reason why its very rare to encounter someone who actually lives as a nihilist. We can romanticize death, but only inso far as we have a narrative to shape the future in its place, be it nature, human exceptionalism or progress. This is no diferent than attending to the very difficult tension of this present reality by means of faith in religion, desiring hope for the future that makes sense and can live up to its promise. The most egrarious challenge of secular society (I hate that term, but for lack of a better one) is contending for or acknowledging its own highly irrational assumptions when it comes to “meaning-making” or the necessary sentimentalization of this world. It does seem to be ingrained into the human condition to need to imagine a future and find some kind of hope in a meaning-making narrative. Secularists must contend with the fact that we then must thrive on “false” narratives that sell ourselves everday on something that is not true just in order to survive and keep moving forward.

The main character in The Tomorrow War is Chris Pratt. His challenge is finding meaning-making in a reality that seems to have revealed itself as meaningless. The future is revealed, and humanity will end. So what we do? How do we respond? How do we continue to exist and move forward? From where do we find hope, and how do we avoid simply collapsing into frivilous revelries of the moment and seizing the day, end of the universe or the world or life be dammed? More importantly, how do we make sense of those sentimentalisms that seem to still be pervasive in the souls of much of humanity? To what end is there worth in giving oneself for the sake for another and investing our time and energy into their well being when the same end point can be seen for all involved? These questions shift with the story in the film into different forms and different interests. But for a good deal of it they do permeate the activity and the choices and concerns that face our characters. And when they begin to take on a slightly different emphasis, it becomes easy to become skepical of the narrative that allows them to do this without seeming contradiction. It seems to both be pointing to some kind of universal truth about the human experience while also betraying this same truth. Which is also a reflection of the tension I’ve mentioned above. The real question is, is false hope made true simply because we believe it to be so, or does the fact this hope is false shed light on the meaninglessness of it all. Something tells me this depends on the questions we are willing to or want to ask in this direction.

And yet, for as skeptical as one can be, there is something unavoidable about the presence of hope within these narratives, our narratives, and the place it demands in our daily life. That seems to say something about how life, which to date has no real shared definition within the scientific community, works, and even more so how humanity (slightly more defined) works. The fact that it is within our humanity that we find the clearest definitions of life taking root seems to suggest this hope might be something we are forced to contend with, which is why I supposed this tension exists. Tension is, by its very nature, hope as much as it is doubt. And sometimes when it feels and appears all is dire and written in stone, that’s enough to carry us forward into the places that truly matter. And in pandemics, genocides, climate change and hothouse earth potentials, those happen to be places of hardship, struggle and suffering that desperately long for this hope to emerge.

Film/Series

Riders of Justice (Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, 2021)

Daring twists and turns and plenty of misdirection leads you through the full gammot of emotions. Sharp left turns into timely humor (this is a deeply and genuinly funny film) give way to philosohpical and existential wonderings before steering us straight into an action packed thrill ride. That it is also such a deeply felt character drama with a truly excellent ensemble piece is due to the compassionate and excellently crafted direction and another knock out role for the mighty Mads.

The Legend of Hei (Directed by MTJJ, 2021

A 2D Chinese animated film that is the perflect blend of dramatic precision and detailed art and bombastic, action packed story. It is steeped in Chinese culture, and thus draws us into that world of storytelling with is emphasis on the human-creation divide and the role of the spirit in healing that rift. It’s a beautiful story, if a bit familiar from animated films in this genre, but there’s a freshness to it all that quickly endeared me to its intentions and its craft. Plus it has a wandering cat spirit, which is a definite plus.

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Directors Ellie-Maija Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn, 2021)

This small but powerful Canadian indie gem Directed, performed and produced by an Indigenous Canadian woman was recommended to me with reference to another Director that I adore (Chloe Zhao). The comparison is apt, estblishing itself within the first 10 minutes- the desire to capture the natural movement of its characters, the slower pace, the emphasis on faces. But Tailfeathers and Hepburn set themselves apart by steering away from Zhao’s grand emphasis on cinematography and setting and instead giving us detailed structural design and framing devices. It’s all meant to play with persepctive, telling the story of two women over the course of an evening as they deal with the subject of abuse, and more specifically the confronting the cycles of abuse. Powerful, emotional and deeply meaningful.

Nobody (Directed by Ilya Naishuller, 2021)

Starts off as a cathartic fantasy for anyone who has ever felt like a nobody, insignificant in a large world full of seeming sombodies. Veers sharply into a metaphor for our dualing natures, progresses into one of the coolest action films I’ve seen in a long while, and ultimately strives to pull from this something of a redemptive narrative, albeit of the most unconventional kind. It all suggests that sometimes being a nobody is answer enough when it comes to existing in this crazy world. Unless your name is Christopher Lloyd of course.

About Endlessness (Directed by Roy Anderson, 2021)

Never before have I encountered a film that is so clearly having a blast entertaining it’s own sense of utter meaninglessness ane existential angst. To be even more frank- this film absolutely gets me on many levels. It is basically a series of sequences, some with reoccuring characters telling a somewhat succinct story about their own existential crisis. It mines questions of significance out of the most mundane moments, turning a subway ride into an opportunity to despair over an identity crisis, a dead car on the road an opportunity to sit in the wasted time and struggle that goes into simply getting from here to there, to the larger and more problematic existential crisis of faith and loss of faith. It’s all kind of humorous in its own way, for as long as we are able to laugh at oursleves along the way from time to time, and the film does find a way way to infuse moments of spontaneous joy. Ultimatley though it seems content to simply be here to help us raise a glass to the wonder of the existential crisis

Honorable Mentions: Come As You Are (I’m normally not a fan of sex comedies, but this one manages to elude the crassness and ultimatley ends up saying something really insightful about what it means to live in this world in a meaningful way); Light From Light (a wonderful exploration of grief, loss, and spiritual longing); Every Breath You Take (a flawed but really intersting and compelling psychological thriller starring Casey Affleck, who has yet to pick a bad project); Sunshine Cleaning (An unexpected comedy drama with a whole lot of heart that is all about the importance of family bonds); The Naked Island (a masterpiece and a true cinematc achievement, this simple, quiet, reflective piece on struggle, work and finding purpose in a post war environment grows into a universal statement on the relationship between work, land and God)

Books

Divine Action, Determinism, and the Laws of Nature by Jeffrey koperski

I confess, I understood about a quarter of this detailed book about the relationship between physics, philosophy and theism, but Koperski makes this so immensley readabe that this doesn’t really matter. He throws just enough of a bone every now and then to make sure someone like me is able to keep up. To be clear, this is now a book arguing for the existence of a god, although one is certainly free to find that within the data. Rather, what he is interested in is bridging the relationship between physics and philosophy by establishing a playing field in which such conversations can take place. By uncovering what the study of physics believes about itself, a practice that requires preestablished boundaries in order to function, he is able to tease out the spaces that necessarily surround these boundaries where philsophy necessarily intersects. And once we are able to perceive this, we can begin to ask questions about how it is that theism can imagine a god that participates within these laws, playing that back into some common ideas, misperceptions, arguments and theologies regarding determinism and freedom in a coheseive fashion.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Kindle Edition by Lori Gottlieb 

I knew very little about this book going in, but I was intrigued by the synopsis. When I was doing my Masters I spent a brief stint in the counseling stream before shifting to what was famously described as a choose your own adventure degree (that incorporated some of that counseling focus). I wish I had this book while I was engaged in these studies as it offers a really unique and very accessible look behind the scenes of the therapeutic and counseling practice and process. This is due to it being something of a memoir that tells the story of Lori Gottlieb’s personal journey from growing up to heading to medical school to becoming a therapist… from the lens of her own time in therapy looking back on her life (which is a part of the therapeutic and counseling process). The book is intentionally structured to locate specific themes within its story, affording some poetic undertones to its simple, linear arc. It has the feel of unfolding in real time while pushing and pulling us at any point through past, present and future contexts, all with a definite reflective quality that conotes its clear retrosective quality.

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War Louis Menand

This is a bit of a beast to get through, but this sweeping and fascinating exploration of art and thought in the Cold War makes it worth the effort. Whereas the question of American culture is often examined in terms of its influence on the rest of the world, this sees it from the perspective on how it was birthed, shaped and influenced by the international movements that surround it. This offers us a way to make sense of what American culture is as a working dialogue with the rest of the world, shedding light on how this shaped the Country in immeasurable ways, especially with the creation of “pop” culture. Despite the length, the book never let’s one part of the unfolding narrative to get old. It’s always moving, and each story comes with its own insights and observations and historical interest, which leaves you more with a canvas than a singular, pointed observation or idea.

The Conference of the Birds by Ransom Riggs

I determined at the beginning of the year to finish this series, because evertime I read one book I’m reminded of how much I enjoy it, but then I inevitably fail to move on to the next. And what I really enjoyed about the book previous to this one is how the series was really starting to break open the worldbuilding process, providing less of a stand alone narrative and more of an interconnected story. This ensured that this one was able to hit the ground running, throwing us straight into the action and furthering the stakes. Its one of my favorites this far, and of course I can’t wait to pick up the next one. So hopefully I won’t wait.

The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities From the Heart of the Continent by Darren Bernhardt

A must read for any born and bred Winnipeger, and even for those interested in the city as an outsider. This is the kind of book that I love to seek out when I am visiting other places, so I imagine it works well on that level too. Some of these stories I knew, a lot I didn’t, but the story’s are written in such an entertaining style that even the familiar carried fresh perspective and detail. As one would expect from any city, Winnipeg is complicated, complex, intriguing and interesting in its dramatic history. Those who live here love to rag on it of course, which is true for most places you live in, but this book is a good reminder that what makes a place interesting are the stories, and this is one place to encounter some you might not have heard before.

Honorable Mentions: Love Matters More: How Fighting to Be Right Keeps Us from Loving Like Jesus by Jared Byas (one doesn’t need to agree with Byas’ inclusion on everthing to be challenged and enriched by his perspective on the problem facing the Church and imagining a way towards healing. One of the most concise and accessible treatments on the subject I have read); Forgiving What You Can’t Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again Book by Lysa TerKeurst (if you have ever struggled with forgivness this is a must read)

Music

Ellie Holcomb- Canyon

The perfect tonic to lift your spirits during the never ending pandemic, Holcomb’s Canyon is rich with her familiar tendency towards layered melody and instrumentation, but also recognizably hope filled in ways that are needed and welcome. If the title track canyon imagines a divide between the way things are and the way we long and hope things to be, a song like Paradox imagines how it is we carry this tension with us as we take steps forward out of the darkness and into the light. It imagines hope not as easy answers, but as a deeply rooted longing that endeavors to hold us and carry us and invite us into its mystery. And through Holcomb’s artistry this mystery truly does come alive and real.

Celeste-Not Your Muse

A relative newcomer, but arriving with the presence of a seasoned artist, Celeste’s recently released full length album Not Your Muse is the perfect showcase for her magical voice. The album moves, sometimes in drastic shifts between upbeat to downbeat, in a meandering fashion, but if one thing is made clear by the opening track, Ideal Woman, the journey we are invited on is her own, expectations be dammed. She will not be subsumed by the industry, and the world is a better place for it.

Jennifer Nettles- Always Like New

I’m a considerate fan of Nettles, and I have to say, this album really caught me by suprised. Say interpretive take on “Broadway” music fused with Nettles signature inventive Country-Blues-Rock style and I’m left scratching my head. Until I heard it. Then I figured out this was the album I never knew I wanted or needed from her. In line with the album’s title, this is unlike anything she has done before, which is what makes it so dang exciting.

Crowder- Milk and Honey,

He had been slowly dropping tracks for this new full length album for the last few months, so the full length effort arrives with some familiarity. What has been interesting in terms of looking at Crowder’s career up to this point is measuring his present reincarnation as Crowder with the illustrious legacy of his band years. While he remains best known for a handful of easily accessible worship songs, what once defined him was the creative edge of his instrumentation and the aristry of these complex arrangements. Accessibility was often something of an allusion that could catch some listeners off guard once they ventured past the radio cut of that Sunday morning staple. As Crowder he has been demonstrably more pared back. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can lead to a bit of inconsistency, as though he is trying to craft a clearer cut and grown up identity while still being that crazy and unpredictable persona that many of us love underneath. This album has many of those markings, but what I like about it is that he appears to be finding a way to navigate this with a greater degree of confience than some of his most recent works. Moving from song to song feels natural even though they represent wildly different flavors and styles. There are a few immediate hooks, but what I most appreciated is that this album feels like is offer lost to ruminate on that will require multiple listens to fully appreciate.

Butterfly Ali- Preachers Kid,

Definitely a good candidate for album of the year, Butterfly Ali’s effectual project Preachers Kid is about as self defining an effrt as one can find. There’s little doubt this is an EP interested in digging underneath who he is as an artist- lyrically, personally, spiritually, communally, artistically, sonically, and it does so with such a vigor and an energy that it is impossible not to simply get swept away into that story and to experience what he is experiencing. It moves, it soars, it reflects and it inspires.

Honorable Mentions (Singles): Starflyer 59- Life In Red (if this song is any indication of what is to come, we are in for something special from this long running staple from the old days of the Christian music indie scene); The White Buffalo- Fantasy (catchy, creative, and worthy of repeated listens)

Podcasts/Youtube

The Biblical World- Passion Week (Episodes 6, 7 and 8)

This is a new podcast that made this space last month, and it continues to occupy my interest. What I wanted to highlight here is the three Passion Week episodes which walk through the archeology behind this particular portion of the text with interesting and eye opening information and history. It’s inspiring, immensely enjoyable and extremely interesting, and its from experts in the field so you always feel like you are in good hands as you traverse the lands and gain a sense of the world as it was.

Song Explorer- Arlo Parks- Black Dog

The full album easily could have made my list or top monthy listens, but for a deeper dive into one particular song, highlighting this episode will certainly do.

The Next Chapter- Ivan Coyote and David Alexander Robertson

Given the recent revelations of unmarked graves at residential schools across Canada, I recently decided to invest in some indigenous authors and their books. A small thing in what feels like insurmountable grief, sadness and tragedy. One of those authors is Robertson, and this is a great opportunity to hear a little bit from him as an influential voice and writer.

The Reluctant Theologian Podcast- Episode 74, Posthumanism with Christine Diagle

Every so often you encounter something or someone, be it a sentence, an idea, a revelation or an experience, that ends up digging its claws into you in a way that you can feel reshaping some of your perspetive. Diagle’s discussion surrounding posthumanism and how that fits with larger discussions about shifts in thinking and worldview offered me a way of thinking about this world, ourselves, and what this all means that I had never really considered before. Post humanism is in a way taking stock of where we are but also imagining where we are headed, opening up questions that are worth posing and thinking about.

Unbelievable: Episode 768 Paul Davies and Jeremy England, The Origin of Life; Do we need a new theory for how life began? and Episode 766, Gunter Bechly and Joshua Swamidass, For and Against Intelligent Design

I could pinpoint the entirety of this current series centered around subjects of science, universal origins, and different discussions relating to discussions of faith. The two I highlight above are my favorites, but perhaps more relevant for my purposes is the window this opened up to different books and authors in the field. There is some exciiting developments and shifts happening in terms of the broader conversation, and hopefully a greater embrace of the ways in which philsophy intersects with science (and the voices in the field that are interested in both).

Honorable Mention: The Business: Edgar Wright on The sparks Brothers and embracing Originality (Episode 179)- In prep for the upcoming release of this documentary on the Sparks Brothers. Directed by Wright, it has been getting much acclaim, and this short episode is a great primer.

“And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

• Revelation 21:5

Reading in Wright’s History and Eschatology this morning I found myself reflecting on this idea that Jesus “is” making all things new. It is easy to transport this passage entirely into a vision of the future where it reflects something that will some day happen.But this is not the view of the Biblical wrters. They understood that when Jesus died and rose again that something very real had taken place, not something that will happen someday in the future, but something that has happened and is happening in the here and now, in the unfolding of history. Jesus has in fact acended to the throne and the new creation project, this making all things new, has already begun. But, this feels like a difficult thing to believe and to feel in a world blanketed by a pandemic, the contined uncovering of rampant racism, abuse and genocide, and unending political, cultural and social divide, and so in some ways it is much easier simply to assign this vision completely to the future.

I remember encountering in 2020 this idea that the whole of scripture is basically composed as one big hyperlink to the first 6 chapters of Genesis, and since then I’ve made it a practice to revisit these chapters any time I am working through or reflecting on a passage of scripture. And it is striking how true this is. Through this lens scripture uncovers this ongoing movement between the old and the new, the struggling and the healed, the sinful and the forgiven, the broken and the restored. And yet it does so from within this consistent and often desperate need to make sense of this truth within an already-not yet reality. Perhaps one of the most powerful realizations of encountering this narrative vision in the pages of scripture is the simple recognition that I am not alone in wondering how it is that we make sense of this proclomation- I am making all things new- when things feel very much to the contrary. It perhaps points to the idea that we all need hope, and yet where we locate this hope can be one of the most difficult things to reconcile. It feels more like Genesis 6 where the ordered creation is continually crashing back in to chaos over and over again than the ordered vision of Genesis 1 and 2 that imagines rivers leading out from its life giving source to feed the world with a much needed promise of continued newness, love and hope.

Wright contends in his book that where Modernity has largely seperated the idea of Jesus from the idea of history, relocating Jesus within history remains one of the most important tasks of the Christian today. And also one of the most challenging precisely because it forces us to contend with this vision of the new creation being enacted and declared in the here and now, this notion of heaven and earth coming together rather than being pulled apart. Here I’m reminded of a song from Elie Holcomb’s new album called Paradox. In the first verse Holcomb sings,

I thought if I could stand on top of the world and see everything

I would see You so clearly

High enough for You to hear me

I thought You wanted me to reach for heavens out of reach

I would know everything You know

But Your love’s pulling me low, pulling me low, pulling me low

This is as true when I parse through the local, national and global stories as it is when I contend with individual stories that express and live with deep pain and struggle every singe day. This resonates so powerfully in my spirit with another song from Holcomb’s album called Constellations, where she pleads to the heavens to “promise me I (we) are not alone” out here in the dark.

I have a lot of good friends for whom this paradox remains something that cannot be reconciled. And I get this. I am often asked by these friends why (or maybe how) I still hold to the Christian faith. And honestly, I don’t always know why, especially in times when we collectively need to find a way to reconcile the great abuses of the Church with the promise of this hopeful vision. I’m not sure there is a narrative that can address this paradox without carrying this tension and falling prey to the same scrutiny, particularly when it comes to those bigger questions of what makes this life worth living and how it is we collectively buy and sell ino this grand idea called hope with any degree of certainty and conviction.

What I do know though is the worth of knowing and hearing that we are not alone in this endeavor. There is an intimate connection in scripture between the promise of new creation and the equal proclamation that we are being swept up into this new creation work as transformed people, people who are in fact being made new within the very fabric of this working paradox. And how is this made true? Through the fruit of our willing participation in the new creation project. If Christ is true then Christ must be true within history, not as some grand and distant reality that exists out there. And within the Genesis vision of humankind bearing the very image of God, we know the truth of Christ only when we participate in the realm of history. This is where hope is made real, is when we are able to say to another, you are not alone. As Holcomb imagines, hope is made true when we enter into the low places where suffering and struggle persists. If we are to hear the voice of God telling us “we are not alone” in the darkness, we must look low before our gaze can be lifted upwards with Holcomb’s resonating chorus,

And now I’m in a valley, looking up

You have never felt so close

Canyons all around me, stars above

Meet me in the depths below

Where the lost is found

Where the broken is crowned

Where the souls risе up

From the ground

You got me in the vallеy, looking up

I am reminded of the clear Genesis hyperlink in Isaiah 43:18-19 where this hope filled vision resounds,

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

How hard it is to believe in the truth that God is in fact “doing a new thing”, and to say that “now it springs forth” in the way of the ordered creation where rivers flow not from a garden, the functioning image of a temple where God dwells in our midst, but from he wilderness and through the desert. The question, “do you not perceive it” carries a sense of familiar exasperation not because it is unexpected, but because this paradox is so very real. This becomes easier to believe when we see someone embodying the words and making them their own by entering into the low places with us. The question we ask then is, am “I” doing a new thing? Am I making a way for others where Christ has gone ahead of me?

https://youtu.be/7MXefKEVGOU

In the beginning of 2021 I started a personal research project on the subject of memory, something I’ve been giving some time to off and on over the past 6 months. One of the aspects of memory that I have found interesting to dig into was this seeming competing relationship between how it is that we remember the good and the seeming ease with which we remember the bad.

For example, it is a common when we take a trip and go on vacation to experience the vacation in the moment as challenging, frustrating and exhausting. And yet for most, when we look back on that vacation after the fact we tend to remember the good rather than the bad. While this appears to connect directly to whe ways in which we establish our memories and translate those memories to an accepted narrative, what is intersting to note is that research also seems to suggest that it is far easier to remember the bad than the good.

Despite still knowing very little about how memory works, theories abound about how these two seemingly contradictory truths seem to work together. But one thing seems to be clear- if most of our brains are prone to remembering the bad (which seems to biologically be the case, developing as a survival mechanism), the way we remember something as good is by thinking about our memory and actually (actively) reforming that memory into something good or emphasing the good portions of that memory. For example, it is possible when recalling a memory and thinking about that memory to take what was wholly negative in the moment and associate it with something humorous, allowing ourselves to laugh at what at the time made us frustrated. Or we can choose to elevate that sunset as the interpretive picture through which to understand the flat tire. On the extreme end we can also actively control the flow of the narrative, shaping the plot of a that vacation in a positive direcion.

In other words, while our brains might be designed to remember that encounter with a bear or that flat tire or that horrible hotel room, it would seem that there is a degree of natural agency in how we translate those bad memories into a good experience. Biologically speaking it seems to be true that the good takes longer to store and requires thought to retrieve, but what might be even more important is the ability of our minds to translate bad experiences into a positive or good narrative that, in the larger scope of our life story has the power to actively reshape our understanding of ourselves, others, God and the world.

I’ve been thinking lately about what the dominant narative of my own life is. I have found that, as someone with an anxiety disorder, that I tend to struggle between the bad and good on a daily basis, and when I engage in exercises that try and recall and locate the story of my life and make sense of how it is that I find myself where I am today, there is a strong tendency to wrestle with competing storylines that can write that in one direction or another. This is likely why many tend to call me positive and optimstic, while at the same time I find I dwell a lot on the negative and hold a high degree of cynicism. This is the challenge and power that memory holds.

Case and point, the other day I was visiting an old house and street where I used to live when I was a young boy (see photo): It was easy to remember the chronic nightmares I experienced sleeping in the shared room on the top floor adjacent to my parents. In fact, these form the earliest memories I have of my life as a young child, reaching back to when I was 4 and 5 years old. When I dug a little more into the faint hints of that past, out came more positive memories that seemed to be equally ingrained in my mind, just buried a little further down, including days spent roaming the block with a neighborhood friend (and similar aged indiginous boy named Arnold) and encounters with super sized killer bees the size of my shoe (at least that’s how my memory recalls it).

There is also this particular memory of an old shop at the end of our street that used to sell ice cream.

What I remember about this ice cream shop was Mr. Mugs. Mr. Mugs was not only a favorite children’s story I still recall reading, butit was also a dog who looked exactly like Mr. Mugs and which used to hang out in front of the shop every day, usually lounging and waiting to say hello to passerby’s and visitors.

At the time, my young mind was convinced this was the real Mr. Mugs come to life, and I used to imagine the adventures of the book playing out in real time as a I hung out with this oversized white and grey bundle of fur. Little did I know that this would be the beginnings of a life long love affair with imagination and story, something that would serve me well in equally challenging years that lied ahead.

Which is all to say, while its a bit disconcerting to think about the ease in which our brains hold onto the bad, there is something liberating about the idea that we also have the power to reshape those memories and reform them into something positive and good. That we have some degree of control over the way we tell our stories. To be sure, this brings up some other unsetlling thoughts about just how reliable memory is and the danger and possibility of manipulating our stories in order to ignore and avoid the bad, but at a very base level knowing that intentional investement and thought can bring about change is a hopeful idea. In fact, one could argue that if we are prone to remember the bad as a survival mechanism, being able to reshape our stories as good memories is an equally important tool for living. The reason we do this after all is because while vacations might reflect difficult and frustrating experiences, we also know that vacations are important and helpful and necessary for life to prosper. To remember them as good means we will be driven to take another one even if the last one proved a disaster. Equally so when it comes to our experience of relationships. This is the power of perspective in play. And as we approach the summer and a province (where I live) still in lock down and entrenched in Covid restrictions, longing and imagining that potential vacation as something good holds a lot of sustaining power right now.

For anyone interested, this is a really interesting article on the science behind such agency to actively change and reshape our memories. It’s focus is on research into things like trauma and PTSD, but it has implications for everyday living. Of note is the fact that they are finding memories to be malliable and shapeable in that space between embedment and recall, and that this persists through the whole of our lives. Which means that even when our brains make these concrete connections between experience and memory, with that connection becoming stronger and stronger the more we recall, the fact that the memory remains shapeable everytime we recall it means that we have the opportunity to control the way we see and understand that memory as a working narrative. We can shift it, replace it and reassociate it, opening up opportunities for the bad to become something positive and good. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/251655#how_do_memories_form

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ

Galatians 6:2

The purpose of this blogspace was to provide me with opportunity and (hopefully) motivation to dialogue with and capture the stories that inspire me, form me, challenge me, make me laugh, cry, or shout out in anger. These stories come from film, books, music, podcasts, people, experiences, friendships, family. Some of these stories spark deeper and more extensive reflection. Others simply arrive and say something in the moment.

This post captures the latter, inspired first by an episode of a favorite television show (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), a powerful film from my movie diary this past film, and a new song from one of my favorite bands (Needtobreathe).

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist: Season 2, Episode 10

I promise, no spoilers in case you are still catching up on the latest episodes. I’m a few episodes behind myself, having recently finish episode 10. A big, big fan of the first season I was very excited when they anounced the renewal of the show for Season 2. And dang it if Season 2 didn’t come out of the gate strong. I was super impressed that they avoided simply narrowing in on and playout out the back and forth relationship drama that easily could have occupied most of its attention, opting instead for an almost stand alone thematic episodic format that emphasized different themes and topics. For as strong as season 1 was, the first quarter of Season 2 I felt was churning out some of its best work yet.

The latter half has been a bit more hit and mess, leaning back into the relationship drama and playing that out in an overly familiar and at times tired fashion. I’m far more interested in seeing where they take the story of this community beyond the back and forth love affair that I feel we got plenty of already in Season 1. That’s not to say there haven’t been solid moments of inspiration in the back half thus far. It has still been enjoyable. But it hasn’t reached the level of that first quarter… until Episode 10.

Ironically Episode 10 is almost a story of two halves. The first half immediately sets up for the familiar relational drama that has been informing the previous episodes. But then it finds its way in the second half to reach those inspired levels it is capable of achieving, particularly in its inspired final 10 minutes.

So what stood out for me personally? The way it works all of these relationships together in a mutual co-dependency struck a chord in the midst of a never ending Covid lockdown. As summer sits beckoning on the horizon, any promise of open Provincial borders here in Canada and opportunity for escape from the confines of our humble abodes still feels like a faint hope. What this episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist spoke loud and clear (for all to hear) is that although it might feel like it, we are not alone, and this truth reminds us that we not only have an opportunity to be that place where others can unpack and unload pent up emotions, but we can also take solace that there are others in whom we can unload our own. In probably its most striking move, the show frames this notion arond the picture of a cross and a Church, framing this as a three way connective relationship- God, ourselves, and others. We all need a place to lay our burdens, and God invites us not only to lay those burdens at the feet of the Cross, but at the feet of one another. We are called to see Christ in one another, and to be Christ to one another and in this find healing and hope.

Needtobreathe: What I’m Here For (Single)

Leading up to the full release of their new album titled Into the Mystery and an upcoming tour by the same name, Needtobreathe has been slowly releasing singles over the past couple months. Their latest, released late last week, is titled What I’m Here For. If the three songs released thus far are any indication, this new album is going to have an intentional and very real relatonal focus, thus far spanning familial themes, love, God and community. As the chorus in What I’m Here sings,

I don’t need silver linings
I don’t need so much more
I just need room to be wrong sometimes
That’s all I’m hoping for
I feel like we could find it
If we knocked on heaven’s door
I’d say God I’m only human
You’d say that’s what I’m here for

It’s unclear precisely who these lyrics are speaking of (and speaking to), but as has been documented regarding the accompanying “making of” documentary,

Over the course of three weeks, they resided under one roof, laughed during meals, explored their surroundings, and recorded together with co-producer and engineer Konrad Snyder and special guests. Out of this de facto creative hub and “extended summer camp,” they handcrafted an album reflective of the moment, yet independent of all expectations – even their own.

Which is to speak of this moment of isolation and this need of togetherness, a place to begin to unload the unspoken burdens that such a time can bring. If the larger arc of the song appears to set it in the context of pursuing dreams and the tension of success and failure that comes with striving to be and become and perhaps mean something in this messy existence, the message readily plays into that universal story of being “only human”, an endeavor we inevitably embark on and journey through together, whether we know it or not. Once again we find that 3 way connective relationship expressed- God, ourselves and one another, and as we bring our burdens to God we also find the room to be wrong with one another in those necessary ways that make us human.

Faces Places (Directed by Agnes Varda, 2017)

A joint endeavor with French potographer, artist JR, this most recent effort by reknown and studied French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda is an equally striking study of what it means to be human together. Speaking of her pesronal legacy, Film Critic A.O. Scott for the New York Times had this to say about the film in his review.

At 89, Agnès Varda is an artist with nothing to prove and everything to discover. 

He goes on to describe the documentary of their largely unscripted travels across the French countryside and its villages and communities to simply capture these “faces” as the are in the given moment with their struggles, joys, fears intact and unhibited.

Despite its unassuming, conversational ethos — which is also to say by means of Ms. Varda’s staunchly democratic understanding of her job as a filmmaker — “Faces Places” reveals itself as a powerful, complex and radical work. Ms. Varda’s modesty is evidence of her mastery, just as her playful demeanor is the expression of a serious and demanding aesthetic commitment. Almost by stealth, but also with cheerful forthrightness, she communicates a rich and challenging array of feelings and ideas. As we contemplate those faces and places we are invited to reflect on the passage of time and the nature of memory, on the mutability of friendship and the durability of art, on the dignity of labor and the fate of the European working class…

Without pressing a political agenda or bringing up matters of ideology or identity, they evoke a history of proud struggle and bitter defeat, a chronicle etched in the stones of the villages and the lines on the faces…

Beneath the jauntiness and good humor there is an unmistakably elegiac undertone to this film, an implicit acknowledgment of lateness and loss. The places will crumble and the faces will fade, and the commemorative power of the images that JR and Ms. Varda make will provide a small and partial compensation for this gloomy inevitability. The world and its inhabitants are protean and surprising, but also almost unbearably fragile, and you feel the pull of gravity even in the film’s most lighthearted passages.

One of the interesting things about the way Varda esablishes the movement of this journey into and through the lives of others is that she uses it to comment outwardly on her past relationship with fellow French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard, someone whom she shared space with in her dedication to the French New Wave and avante-garde stylings, and further yet on the developing relationship unfolding on screen between her and JR. As we apply this to the relationships we enocunter through their photos of others, Faces Places (or in its French translation, “Visages Villages”, which connects the person intimately to both time and place) becomes undeniably about the need for those unspoken struggles and burdens and those moments of often fleeting happiness and joy to be shared with one another. To be seen by an other.

A powerful and needed sentiment that rings true for me in the midst of never ending lock downs and isolation. It is true that it is easy to feel alone. Sometimes we need that reminder that we are not alone. This is where we can say with the apostle Paul, “we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness” (5:5), which is the hope that what is wrong will be made right even, as it indicates in Chapter 4, the barrenness of the present moment feels all to real.