For my personalized Liturgy Watchlist I chose a selection of films that I feel reflect the different virtues of the Advent season. Each lit candle symbolizes one of the virtues represented over the four Sundays of Advent, culminating in the Christ Candle as the true and full expression of these virtues embodied in the Christmas Eve/Christmas Day services.

As we move through a time of waiting and anticipating in Advent, each of these virtues brings us closer, with an increasing realization of the lights growing illumination, to the celebration of Christ as the light of the world. With each celebrated and recognized virtue the light grows stronger in the expectant arrival of the Christ Child. Through this journey we find JOY and PEACE as we come to reflect on what it means to HOPE in FAITH, a journey that is as interested in the darkness as it is the light. And as I reflected on in my initial post (see:
https://findingmeatfortysite.wordpress.com/2019/12/14/liturgical-watchlist-advent-in-film/), faith emerges as the most important virtue in this exercise. Faith is what endures when hope feels all but lost. Without faith in something we remain hopeless, and the truth of what faith is AS a virtue, which is equally so for each of the virtues that we encounter in the season of Advent, is that it arrives as a gift not an acquisition of merit.

HUGO AND THE VIRTUE OF FAITH
Hugo, a 2010 dramatized work by famed Director Martin Scorsese, is intimately interested in this question of merit. It follows a young, now orphaned boy as he finds himself holed up in the confines and hidden mazework of the machinated clocks that help document the time and function of a Paris train station and keep everything moving and on schedule (working like clockwork). Invisible to the public eye, Hugo observes the daily routines and functions of humanity from afar, evoking in him an existential query regarding questions of purpose and meaning, driven primarily around solving this perpetuating mystery around his fathers passing and this odd creation he left behind. At one point we see Hugo gazing over the expansive Paris landscape and wondering about the ways in which this seemingly intricate system of machinated function imposes itself on these greater and evasive ideas of purpose and meaning. Otherwise, he seems to ruminate, where does someone like him fit in this vast world?

This is a boy who knows and has experienced darkness, something we come to know has touched each character in the film in their own way- in war, loss, struggle, unforgiveness. From Hugo’s unique vantage point, Scorsese is able to give us glimpses of what this hopeful young boy sees, inspired not by the mindless routine of peoples coming and going (again, like clockwork) but instead by an intimate awareness of the smaller “human” moments that seem to disrupt and calm its flow.

Which is precisely what Hugo becomes over the course of this film, a disruption of the routine. An imposition into the organized chaos of life.

Which is precisely what the darkness is imagined to be as well. A disrupter. Only over the course of the film what we come to realize is that what the darkness disrupts is our sense of self reliance, the very thing that opens us up to this desperate and innately driven need of FAITH as the thing that can reorient us towards the light when things feel largely aimless, lost and out of our control. The same faith that can then shine a light into the world at large.

What permeates this discussion of faith is a reoccurring theme of brokenness. A broken situation leads to this broken creation that leads to and awareness of and feelings around Hugo’s own brokenness and the brokenness of others, including the shop owner that he comes into contact with over the course of this film. Interestingly, what initially unfolds within this relationship between Hugo and the shop owner is this idea of debts incurred and debts paid, a matter of merit. This is what the darkness submits us towards and enslaves us to. And yet it is by entering into this relationship and uncovering its mystery that true freedom, redemption and purpose is found. And the beauty of this picture, imagined in this grand intertwining of creator and artist, young boy and family lost and family gained, is that it is in our brokenness that we are being made whole.

This is what the light does. This is what Christmas celebrates. As we stand looking out over the world with our own existential questions and our own awareness of the darkness in mind, we are able to frame (or reframe) our place in the world not according to our weakness or our strength, but according to the idea that in our weakness we are a part of a grander story.

It’s no secret that Scorsese wrote Hugo with an understanding of his own life as an artist, and what he seems to be reflecting on here is the idea that in art, in our finite creations, hope and faith in something bigger than ourselves and our own brokenness is being expressed. Something with eternal and life shaping, or light shaping, power.

In Advent we recognize this power in a God who chose to enter into the human story rather than stand above or removed from it. The God-Human story is one built on our relationship to the one who gives us life and the world into which His light persists. God created, and called us to participate according to our own creative intuitions, each according to our experiences, stories and inspirations. What breathes life into these creations though is the light that guides it, forms it, shapes it and gifts it with a necessary and enduring faith. And it is towards the light that the darkness points.

FAITH AS WAITING AND ANTICIPATING
As we await the coming Christ Child over the Advent season, the second candle awakens us to the reality that Christ is the light of the world, the one in whom we find our purpose. Christ is the one whom shines in the darkness and that the darkness hopes for in faithful precision. Christ is the one to whom we find healing and worth in our most broken of places. Christ is the true gift of faith.

As Christ awakens us to the darkness, may He also gift us with the faith that endures as we continue to reorient ourselves towards the hoped for light.

I was inspired by a recent podcast episode from Think Christian to think about film in a Liturgical sense. Growing into a liturgical environment in my later and most recent years, Liturgy is something I have grown to challenge and cherish as it has helped to inform my relationship with God. This episode about faith, liturgy and film inspired me to be intentional about marrying my love of film with my love of God by way of liturgy, beginning with the Advent season.

I had been writing a piece on this hopeful intention for this blogspace and it ended up getting published here: feel free to read this is you desire to know more about this process on my end, where it is coming from and where I hope it leads. 🙂

https://www.reelworldtheology.com/liturgy-watchlist-advent/

Matthew 3:1-12 English Standard Version (ESV)

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”^[a] 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

⁴ Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

 
ADVENT REFLECTION
Theologian and scholar Craig Keener suggests that, in order to truly understand John the Baptist, we must see him in the light of the prophets. In a world where the prophetic ministry had appeared to cease, Matthew 3:3 sees John as a sign of its expected fulfillment (Isaiah and Malachi).  The description of John as one who “came preaching in the wilderness of Judea” (vs 1) wearing a “garment of camel’s hair” (vs 4) evokes Elijah and the Exodus story, expressing the hope they, as children of Abraham, held for Elijah’s return and the promise of a new Exodus.

The audience in this passage are the children of Abraham (verse 7). The warning is for the presumptions they have regarding the nature of John’s baptism and their salvation. They expected John to be a sign of their coming salvation in an external sense. What they did not expect was the call for individual repentance.

According to Keener, a common understanding of repentance in the ancient Greco-Roman world would have been a change of mind or matter of thought. In the Judeo-Christian usage, repentance signified a complete change in direction, which is a matter of seeing. Contrasted with baptism through water in Matthew 3, which in John’s ministry is a matter of repentance, we find an emphasis on another type of baptism- fire and spirit (verse 11). The use of fire and spirit seems to indicate two unique and complimentary aspects of Jesus’ ministry- one is salvific (spirit), the other sanctifying (refining). This is the direction John desires his audience to turn towards, in the way of Christ.

So if John’s baptism desires to point us in the direction of Jesus, Jesus’ baptism is then God’s actual saving (purifying, refining) work. This is where John’s own prophetic voice in Matthew 3 begins to take root as an expression of renewed expectation through Jesus. For the children of Abraham, God was expected to establish His Kingdom in the world for their sake. John reforms their expectation by pointing them towards Jesus as the full expression of this kingdom building, which is refining us for the sake of the world.

Advent is a time of waiting and expectation as we anticipate Jesus. In this time of waiting, here are two worthwhile questions to consider. Where do our expectations need to be reformed, and how do our lives need to be refined?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Christmas is often seen as a time to stop, reflect and reorient ourselves from a life centered towards ourselves to a life centered on God and others. A breaking through of our routine. Liturgically speaking, it is the start of the Christian calendar, the beginning of that long road to being shaped towards this end.

But what if we saw Thanksgiving as the grounds on which we anticipate this “breaking through.”

THE GREATEST OF VIRTUES 
Faith, hope, and love are often seen, in the Christian view, as the greatest of virtues. They are what remain when all else is stripped away.

I looked up a couple definitions of virtue:
1. “Attitudes,and good habits that govern one’s actions, passions, and conduct according to reason; and are acquired by human effort.”

Sadly, it has been a while since I’ve visited this space. With this being the end of a decade, I have been dedicating most of my time to working through a lengthy watchlist of films from the last decade, with the hope of eventually putting together a definitive top list of the decade this coming December.

Which has been an enriching and enjoyable exercise to say the least. But it has also limited my time available to read and write.

What inspired me to write again was a recent message given by Pastor and Theologian Greg Boyd. What he spoke on is something I have been wrestling with over the last couple of years, which is the question, what does it mean to actually believe in something. I mean, to really believe. Or further towards his concern, what is the difference between believing and living in a truth.

 

CAUGHT IN THE PROCESS OF DECONSTRUCTION AND RECONSTRUCTION
I have recounted in this space a few times my personal journey with the idea of faith as both (to borrow a couple overused terms) a deconstructive and reconconstrive process, focused at once on what it was I could no longer believe in, and what I it was I was choosing to believe on. Which is a tricky distinction to make as a Christian, especially given how much power the word “belief” holds over doctrine, practice and theology, certainly as it relates to the marriage of propositional (believing in) and internalized (living in) forms. It can be damaging and confusing to say the least.

In this particular message from Boyd, he imagines belief as a “sight”, and wonders (as a strongly anabaptist leaning thinker for what that’s worth) if there is an important distinction, particularly for those of us who have gone through a deconstruction and reconstruction process, between what it means to look at something from the outside and to see something from the inside.

FALLING IN LOVE: THE NATURE OF THE SUBJECTIVELY OBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE
He uses the example of falling in love to explain this. For modern, Western thinkers, it is easy to look at a word like love and to describe it primarily as a scientific exercise using concrete and largely de-mystifying terms. All of which can be seen as “true” by nature of looking at something objectively and from a distance.

But what lovers know by default is that these terms cannot and do not accurately describe what we experience from the inside of falling in love. As Boyd suggests, no amount of “looking at” will ever be able to get you to “look along”, a sentiment he borrows from the richness of C.S. Lewis’ own thought process when it comes to understanding the nature of belief.

SCIENCE AND FAITH: SHARED FORMS WITH DIFFERING OBJECTIVES
Along with this recent message from Boyd, I also happened upon a debate between Marcelo Gleiser and Stacy Tasoncos on the marriage of science and faith over the last couple of days. One an agnostic, the other a Catholic convert from agnosticism, but both scientists, they professed a shared commitment to the idea of the great mystery or the pursuit of the unknown. Science, by nature of doing what it does, deals with what we do not know. Knowledge in the form of absolutes, in this view, ceases to be science and veers towards dogma or “scientism” (a worldview). Religion likewise embraces knowledge as that which we do not know fully, and this sense both religion and science share a similar foundation in which truth is that which we strive for rather than expect to attain.

Where these two forms of thinking do deviate though, which both the debate and Boyd uncover, is in the shift from belief in an idea to a focus on living in a specific truth. This is where Boyd’s distinction applies most directly. Science is dedicated to the consistent process of challenging and reforming our belief in a working theory. Religion is ultimately concerned not with the truth that we see looking at something from the outside, but how this reforming translates into a living, breathing truth.

To quote Boyd, “We can believe all the truth in the world, but belief is the active reality of living something as true.”

THE POWER OF THE MENTAL NARRATIVE
And here is why Boyd considers this to be significant. Because we all live in what he refers to as “a mental narrative”, which in simple terms is the way we subconsciously interpret the world around us. And the thing that he points out about this mental narrative is that it is conditioned, not chosen. As a world view, or a means of viewing the world, it is conditioned based on how and where we live. We don’t choose it, it chooses us by nature of us living inside of it. And by nature of this living, breathing, experiential belief of the way that the world is, it conditions what it is that we put our faith (trust) in on a daily basis.

So a couple of ideas to pull from this:

1. Science, by nature of what it is and does, is not a worldview. It offers observations about the world in which we live for the purpose of pursuing and testing that which is not known. But scientists, as all people do, live according to “a” worldview, a function of faith in a given, shared and accepted reality by which truth can be governed.

2. Religion, by nature, is a function of “a particular” worldview, and the religious, as all people do, live according to a particular worldview which is a function of faith in a given, shared and accepted reality by which truth can be governed.

3. Where we find a shared function (the uncovering and pursuit of the mysteries and the unknown), the two have differing purposes. If science is interested in asking the questions, religion is fundamentally interested in how our conditioning shapes the ways in which we live with these questions in a religious worldview.

And as Boyd argues, to be conditioned by a belief (or any belief), we need to be inside it (the worldview that governs it) in order to be conditioned by it.

OBJECTIVELY UNOBJECTIVE
What complicates this in Western society is that, we have grown a tendency to believe that it is possible to live above our beliefs, that we can be an objectively objective people, or rationalizing rational creatures. The problem that Boyd points out though is, “it’s not your conscious beliefs that determine how you believe or how you live, it is your unconscious beliefs.” It is the stuff that we don’t even think about, the patterns that shape our actions in the day to day, the things we take for granted, that matter most, not necessarily what we know objectively.

Looking at the verse from Romans 12 that reads,

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

Boyd argues that the word “conform and “transform” are words that essentially mean seeing “alongside of” or “on the inside of. They call towards a pattern of living. They indicate “a fundamental structure that holds things together.” And the only way to truly discern the will of God is to be living in this pattern. But what is interesting about the word “renewal” here is that it begins to uncover a relationship between what is conditioned and what is choice. All of these things- conform, transformed, discern, are things that happen to us based on what we are being conditioned by. These are not things we gain on our own. They are given to us and we are given to them. But the notion of renewal calls forth this idea of these things being made new over, and over and over again. It suggests a daily function, which indicates the presence of a choice. Once we recognize that our mental narrative is something that has been conditioned, we can recognize the role that faith plays in being reconditioned, or renewed, by placing ourselves where we can be shaped by a particular experience of the world and a particular pattern of living. This is where we find the idea of spiritual discipline and formation. And where we place ourselves is an active choice. 

So what does it look like to be renewed according to the “mind”, that shared construct that exists for both religion and science? Boyd argues that this comes down to the idea of the “sanctified imagination”.

THE SANCTIFIED IMAGINATION
Let’s go back to the example of falling in love. When we fall in love, we are experiencing that from the inside. We are living it. It is an involuntary action that drives us to do (some very stupid things).

In the movie Tolkien, one of the most powerful scenes in the film is when Edith and Tolkien are eating together, and we see Edith challenge Tolkien on his love of words by suggesting that, words only gain their meaning by nature of what we attach them to. Love, by nature, gains its meaning not by recital or definition, but by experiencing it as meaningful. By living in it and seeing it from the inside as more than just an objective reality to be pragmatically demystified.

But there is a definitive connection between living in and our imagining of, and this connection is called faith. Once we begin looking at things from what we imagine something to be (faith), that is when we begin living it from the inside. That is when something becomes accepted. And as Boyd says, when it comes to the idea of the “sanctified imagination”, the idea of being renewed to know what is good and perfect,  it’s not what we know that changes us. Information looks at a subject. It is what we imagine this to be in our life that changes us. And in religious thought, we rest in a worldview that imagines the result of love long before it is actualized. This is what differentiates the product of love as a chemical reaction, and the purpose of love as an imagined reality. This is what differentiates the condition and the choice. Once we imagine what love is, we can then become conditioned by it in a new way. And when it comes to this particular worldview, this god given love conditions us towards the self giving, sacrificial, justice serving, restorative, resurrection narrative that it invites us to imagine.

HOW I HOPE TO BE RENEWED AND RECONDITIONED THIS SUMMER
So why did all of this inspire me to write? It might be because of the long winter we just experienced and lived in. This and other factors took a toll on my own mental conditioning over the last few months. And in my life long battle with depression and anxiety, these phases of my life tend to exasperate the deconstruction process more than the reconstructing effort.

But its precisely at times like these that I need to pattern myself again around this idea of living in a new narrative. Summer is on the horizon.

When I walked away from my faith, I was convinced I was divorcing myself from an oppressive pattern of indoctrination, and freeing myself to think and live objectively, towards a greater truth and pursuit of knowledge. What pressed back on me, and HARD, was the fact that, in this view, I had traded one pattern of indoctrination for another. I was simply placing myself within a different worldview and accepting a particular pattern of conditioning. Only, I found that I was now detached from the imaginative process, something that ultimately led me into even more deep rooted depression and anxiety. Which is where I find myself retreating to when I revisit these times of persistent cynicism and oppressive feelings.

What helps me in times like these is writing of course. And immersing myself in particular types of narratives. Getting back into more hopeful stories that recondition or renew my faith into more hopeful outcomes. And re-familiarizing myself with the Gospel story as one that is intended to liberate me from oppression, not indoctrinate me towards it. Which is what I hope to do over the coming summer months. I am lucky enough as a school bus driver to have this sort of automatic sabbatical. And I am looking forward to some dedicated reads, travel (Toronto and Boston), meeting some new friends (from my online movie discussion group), helping out with some youth programs, and enjoying the summer days and movies.

My prayer would be for you to be able to find the same, no matter your schedule and your routine. That grace would afford you a chance to recondition and renew where ever you find yourself.

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰ The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. (Luke 2:39-40)

My word for this year (see my ROSEBUD resolution challenge in this space) is Perspective. Thinking about lost perspective. Gaining perspective. Changing perspective.

If you are someone who engages with the liturgy of the Church calendar, you will know that following the Advent of the Christmas season, we celebrate the 12 days of Epiphany, beginning on December 25th and ending on January 6th. This celebrates the in-betweeness of Christ’s birth, the culmination of our waiting during Advent, and those who personally discover and encounter the Christ child.

In the liturgical sense epiphany is about the “manifestation” of God into the world. Christ being declared as God incarnate. In the popular sense of the word it also carries the meaning of a revelation or a sudden burst of knowledge. God being made known through the coming of the Christ child. To encounter Christ is to experience the ultimate shift in perspective. The sort of shift in perspective that looks to turn our world, my world, upside down.

At my Church this past Sunday we talked about the time after Epiphany. It is known as the Ordinary time. A time when we begin to settle in and gain perspective. A time when we begin that slow walk with Christ from baby to boy to the ministry of the Cross that awaits us at the end of this long and winding road of seeing Christ manifest Himself in the everyday, ordinary routine of life.

A time when those resolutions have a chance to sink in and take root.

We reflected on Christ as child become boy last Sunday. We engaged in the imaginative process of what it would have been like for that boy to grow into a man. The years that scripture remains quiet on. And we settled in on that phrase, a phrase which is repeated twice in 2:40, and 2:52- the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him, with one small caveat. In verse 52 it adds and Jesus increased in divine “and” human favor. 

If I am to see this ordinary time as the slow walk with Christ, a chance for Jesus to change my perspective, the idea of “growth” becomes central. Not simply physical growth, as in the boy becomes man, but growth in wisdom or knowledge. And not simply knowledge of this world, but knowledge of Christ as the son of God. This is what the Epiphany sets up after all, this slow, breaking through of God into the ordinary. This is what this notion of “the favor of God” is about- increasing in our knowledge that we are known by God.

The way we grow I am certain will look different from one person to the next. But in the spirit of imitating Christ, I was able to pull three things from the context of this child become boy in Luke chapter 2 that help me see God’s favor increase in my own life.

1. It begins at home- This is where the ordinary life is lived out. This is where we imagine the boy growing in favor, in Galilee, in Nazareth. Christmas is about that sudden burst of knowledge in all the magic and wonder of the season. But what Epiphany prepares us for is the slow, gradual manifestation of God’s favor being poured out in the ordinary of the everyday. In the homes that we have built out of which we do these things like family and work and play.

2.  It is about a continued liturgy- Advent is the start of a new Church Calendar. It is about fresh beginnings. Coming back to the story of God that is being made known in our lives and our world. Re-centering ourselves on the narrative to which Epiphany welcomes us into, to be participant in. This is where we find Jesus growing, is not simply in the everyday, ordinary of home life, but in their engagement with the liturgy of their faithful tradition as it says “every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover” (2:41). It’s a reminder that our year is just beginning. The story of God is just beginning to unfold. The wonder of Christmas is still being made manifest in the everyday, ordinary world. And if we are to see favor, the best place to find it is by entering into this story with fresh eyes.

3. “After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” If it begins at home and participates in the liturgy, the other defining aspect of this child become boy story in Luke is surrounding ourselves with others whom can help shape our perspective. And what marks these others in our lives are those opportunities we gain from listening and asking questions. Of allowing others to teach us. When we listen, when we ask, when we are willing to be taught, this is where we grow. And what’s so significant about this last point is that this is where that added phrase “in divine AND human favor” gains force. Making time for the others in our life is where Jesus insists he “must be”. And in the context and understanding of the word favor this carries a dual force. In relationship we grow in knowledge of the other and others can come to know us. We gain the opportunity to know and be known, and on those terms increase in the favor that can reveal to us the ways in which the divine broke through into the humanity of our world. This is the story, after all, that our liturgy is telling. This is the epiphany that we are carrying forth into the ordinary of our everyday.

God has come. God is with us. God is growing us in favor. This is my prayer for my everday, ordinary life, that in this favor God will help me to see where I have lost perspective, where I need to gain perspective and that I would have the courage to let him shift and change my perspective in both divine and human favor.

“It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.” 
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

Poetry.
Poetry in motion.

This is how I would describe If Beale Street Could Talk

One could argue that the cries for acceptance, healing and freedom run deeper in Jenkin’s previous, Oscar winning Moonlight, but the dance of these same longings colors the surface of If Beale Street Could Talk in a way that leaves more room for him to revel in and play with the details.

And the details are gorgeously realized. The light. The use of colors to heighten and contrast different emotions.

It’s the colors in fact that form the movement of the narrative, sometimes illuminating a moment captured in time by creating an ethereal and angelic glow, while in others calling us back towards a moment now seemingly lost in time as the color fades into or settles into the background. This is the movement that opens the film, a glorious burst of color that settles in on the image of that glass wall which separates Tish and Alonzo, a working symbol of all the things that can separate us from capturing the beauty of a moment.

The Beauty of A Human Moment
I know it’s not appropriate to measure one film against another, but the whole time I was watching this my mind kept going back to my experience of Roma, another Oscar hopeful that holds similar themes. Both are exceptional works of cinematography. Both films are also anchored thematically by a concern for illuminating culture and giving us a picture of the oppressed. They both hinge on a scene of conception (or in the case of If Beale Street Could Talk, a series of scenes that set the stage for the conception), and both hinge on a birthing scene. Most importantly, both films are equally interested in the question, do you want this child? A question that is framed against the backdrop of a world filled with oppression, racism, culture, personal hurt and poverty. This is the world they are bringing this child into and the knowledge that continues to haunt them.

Two different culture, two different worlds but two similarly interested films in working with the nature of this divide.

And yet, where Director Alfonso Cuarón keeps the divided world of his film sharply in focus with his use of slow, panning shots and detailed setting, Jenkins illuminates a world that is also beautiful. A world in which human connection can burst through the dimmed colors of that distant reality at any moment. The tenderness of the conception, the beauty of the birth scene, the slow dance of the central characters romance and imagination, the subtle importance of the acceptance they find in family. These things underlined for me what was missing in Roma- that human connection.

The backdrop, the music, the way the camera is able to hide and conceal and reveal all in a single scene. The way it layers the romance in shots of perspective. The way it follows the baby out of the water in a symbolic burst of light. Where I felt the cinematography overwhelmed the humanity in Roma, here it accents the beauty of these moments, giving us room as viewers to not only immerse ourselves in the world of culture and division, but to revel in that sense of longing that is so pervasive throughout this story in way that helps us see and experience a journey, a movement.

The film is not absent of the despair and struggle and everyday monotony that is so prominent in Roma. There is division and there is the pain of an isolated and oppressed culture. There is the corrupted image of a street that holds in its stone promenades the story of a divided Country. This is the one side of that glass wall. But it doesn’t want to leave us there. It allows the characters to bridge the coldness and the distance in order to give us that sense of closeness, intimacy, warmth and love that its centrals characters, and we if we are honest, so desperately long for.

It shows the two sides of this world, one their given reality and the second their hopeful reality. And sometimes hard work, the hopeful work is required to capture the notes of the second.

It’s a bit of a lengthy quote that I did my best to condense, but I really like how author DeRay McKesson puts it in his book “On The Other Side of Freedom: The Case For Hope”, a book he wrote about and for the given reality of African Americans in this Country:

“Faith is the belief that certain outcomes will happen and hope the belief that certain outcomes can happen…. Faith is rooted in certainty, hope is rooted in possibility- they both require their own different kinds of work. That faith is rooted in certainty does not mean that it never wavers… (but) the work at hand is hope-work… the absence of hope, not its presence, is a burden for people of color… I think faith is actually the burden that people have misnamed as theburden of hope… when my faith waivers, my hope carries me through.

Freedom is not only the absence of oppression, but is also the presence of justice and joy. We are fighting to bring about a world that we have not seen before. We have never seen a world of equity, justice and joy. We are trying to create something altogether new. And it is impossible to create something new in the absence of hope.

We have a hope rooted in a belief that as sure as hands have made the buildings that dominate the skylines of our cities, hands have made the institutions, practices, and customs that perpetuate racism and injustice that permeate those same cities. What is made by human hands requires maintainance. Buildings can be torn down and built over. Parking lots can become parks and vice versa. Institutions can evolve, change, or be dismantled.

Hope is the belief that our tomorrows can be better than our todays. Hope is not magic. Hope is work. Let’s get to work.
– Deray Mckesson

The Hopeful Work
“From my chair, I looked out my window, over these dreadful streets. 
The baby asked,
‘Is there not one righteous among them?” 
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

The characters in this story, all bound by their current reality in one form or another, are at this hopeful work. Bound to their reality but also desperate to hold on to the belief that tomorrow can be, and will be better.

Like the gaze of those eyes that once held them so firmly together in the ability to know and be known in a difficult world, now drifting through the course of this film against the confines of that glass wall. The way it culminates in these eyes meeting once again.

Like the differing experiences of faith in God that culminates in the hope of that final scene- hands held, hearts open, eyes now shifting towards the illuminating sense of that fresh glimpse of a new burst of color that now occupies their space with them.

Or the way it takes the hopelessness of this journey, the moments now lost in time, and finds them again anew in unexpected ways and unexpected places. The subtlety of dancing through the streets to the slow and winding rhythms of the films glorious soundtrack. The slow curve of the absolutely wonderful Kiki Lane’s smile forming out of the sadness.

A Street That Paves The Way Forward
This is a truly beautiful film framed by closeness, intimacy, warmth and love. But most of all framed by its ability to capture those human moments, both lost and in time. The image of that conception and the birth taken together is what bridges both sides of this mirror. It is the picture through which the human moment is allowed to burst through the faded colors of their past. And it is a reminder of the power of the human moment to create something beautiful in its midst. A street that paves the way forward towards hope.

“I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass.” 
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

It’s 3:00 A.M. on New Years Day. A cup of coffee finds me still awake and finishing off some of my blog posts and resolutions and thoughts of the year that has just past.

In the dim light of the lamp that now sits in the corner of the room where our tree once graced us with its dancing threads of colored glow, I can see a picture of my girl Lucy staring back at me with that still familiar sparkle all her own. And seeing her, I feel it’s finally time to post this tribute so that maybe, just maybe the year ahead will be able to thrive in her memory.

In That Moment
I can still remember the moment we returned home, having been gone longer than we expected to be in our effort to make a day trip out to a local festival. We opened the door to find a sick dog racing for the back door, barely able to walk. As I helped her out to the back yard she eventually collapsed on the ground. Racing over to pick her up I found myself standing there in my socks and with my jacket half off, a sense of desperation taking over. I was trying to hold her up as best as I could as she did her best to go to the bathroom. Knowing that she had been slowing down over the last couple months, and that the strength in her hind legs was fading, I had been spending extra time encouraging her with words of routine praise in the hope that I could keep her motivated enough to make it outside rather than going to the bathroom in the house. In the dark of that night as I stood there helplessly holding her up, all that I could muster were some faint expressions of that praise. And what I remember is that, despite not being to stand on her own, and despite her need for aid in what had been an independent exercise as recently as that morning, she looked up at me and simply wagged her tail.

That was my Lucy.

That night would find her clearly in pain. The next morning would find her oddly silent, a silence that would persist all the way from the car to the vet to the eventual process of having to put her down. I had been in this place before. Jen and Sasha had not. It was the first and only time I have witnessed genuine and unrestrained sadness in my son. A sadness I know all too well for myself.

Meeting Our Pups For The First Time
13 years prior to this we found ourselves at a house down the road greeting these two puppies whom couldn’t have been more opposite to each other despite being from the same litter. Charlie was cowered in the corner while Lucy was desperately trying to claw her way out of the box that held them both prisoner. We had fallen for them both in a matter of seconds, and for as much as they would eventually grow into a healthy sibling rivalry, those early days which found them snuggled up tightly against one another would still manage to surface from time to time as a demonstration of their inseparable nature.

Our Mirror Images
Over the years it became very clear what these two dogs meant to both Jen and I. They were mirror images of us. Charlie was me. Anxiety ridden but loyal and dependable, a dog who played by the rules because he was too afraid not to. With Lucy, the rules went out the window very quickly. She was emotionally all over the place, shifting from boundless energy to quiet seclusion at the drop of a dime. And her decision making was not always the best. However, when she loved she loved. When she was demanding she was demanding (and boy did she have some demands). When she was upset she was upset. She did everything all in and at full speed or not at all.

Yep, she was Jen.

It’s no wonder I had such a ready and easy connection to her. Charlie and I had and do have a relationship, but it has always been from a slight distance. Jen understood that distance, and in return they have grown the closer bond. He needs to be in the same room as Jen at all times. Not right beside her, but just close enough to know he wasn’t alone. Like lying at the foot of the bed rather than at the head. He accepts the odd pet and attention, but by and large he is content to just be. To just know that she is there is enough for him.

Yep, that’s me.

Lucy on the other hand had no problem invading your personal space until you got the hint that she wanted your affection and attention. Her token spot on the bed was either right by our heads or squished tight in a cuddle. In the times that she needed it, the more physical closeness there was the happier she was. And then when she didn’t want it… well, you were most likely to find her in whatever room you were not in at the moment.

Yep, that’s Jen.

Lucy was constantly upsetting the status quo, frustrating us at many points with her constant shifts in mood and her need to be catered to. But always, always, always the life of the party. She would love and accept anybody anywhere who was willing to give her attention without any inhibition.

She also happened to have a stomach made of steel. Or something otherworldly anyways. We have so many stories of the stuff she managed to eat and emergency trips to the Vet’s office, only to have the Vet throw up his or her hands in exasperation because they can’t get her to do what they want her to do. I remember one time she ate so much cocoa powder that she was flying off the walls. We took her to the vet and they tried to induce vomiting. And tried some more. And tried again.

Lucy just outright refused.

Vet sent us home saying they had never seen a dog take so much to induce vomiting before. Lucy just looked up with a look that said, “sorry, not going to do it.” And so we were sent home, she recovered and went on to find the next thing she could ingest. Like the crab apples off the apple tree that never sat well with her but for which she would sit underneath and take flying leaps straight up in the air just to get. Or our efforts to grow Broccoli only to find the new roots completely consumed. Or the woodships. Or the underwear… well, maybe I’ll stop there

A Girl With Spirit and Untamed Desire
Of all the things I miss about her I think I miss her great, untamed affection for the outdoors. She loved her walks. and we would often find her just staring longingly out the window. There was little more joyous site than seeing her bound through the fields of the off leash park or jumping in the water and swimming so far out that we would wonder if we were going to ever get her back in again. She always came back, but not before she went out and did what she needed to do, which by all accounts was living her life to the fullest. Which is what I like to imagine that she did. Just like her mother who dreams of one day hitting the road on her motorcycle.

All The Second Guessing 
There is so much about that day that still haunts me. I question so many things and second guess decisions and replay it in my head at least a couple times a day. I feel utterly guilty and devastated and spend a good deal of time blaming myself for what happened.

These are things I will never know. Things that I have to live with. Which is a big reason for why even considering submitting this into this physical space was so hard. There’s a permancy to writing these words. A finality. As if to say, yes, this happened. She is gone and it hurts like nothing else.

A piece of us, gone. A comfort and companion to Sasha as he made his transition to Canada 4 years ago. Gone. The girl who ate his very first ice cream cone. Gone. The girl who comforted me through some very dark times. Gone. The one who provided us with so many memories and funny stories. Gone. The one whom occupied so much or our time and space, but at the same time gave us a sense of purpose, a place to focus our care and attention outside of ourselves. Gone.

But I have to believe, I have to have hope that she is being restored. Remade. Renewed. I have to have hope that she is freeing me from the burden of all of those decisions and choices that we had to make in the moment. Because that is truly what I hoped for her in that moment, on that day. Freedom. As best as I could imagine it, as best as I could offer it in my doubts and failures and shortcomings. Freedom just like she offered us when she came into our lives as a young puppy. A spirited puppy whom helped shake us out of a tough time in our first year of marriage. A spirited puppy we have never known a year of marriage without, nor a Christmas. She will be missed. Missed dearly. But also remembered. And above all, cherished.

We miss you Lucy girl. Desperately. You went and left your paw prints all over our hearts and made permanent imprints. And for that we that we are forever grateful.

It’s that time again. As I spend time looking backwards, I’m also looking forward.

Here is what is topping my personal most anticipated list for 2019:

 

14. Teen Spirit
A follow up to A Star is Born or its own thing.
More likely its own thing.
And dang if it doesn’t look like an even better thing. Not that I’m hating on A Star is Born. As a musically driven film I enjoyed it. I just didn’t fall in love with it. As a musically driven film I feel like I might fall in love with this film.

13. The Mustang
Produced by Robert Redford.
A film about the bond between horse and human.
Deeply affecting moments in the trailer about healing and forgiveness and redemption.

Yah, I’m all over this one.

12. Chaos Walking
I read the book. I loved the book and its deeply felt and deeply imagined apocalyptic setting and adventure story. I’ve been anticipating this film for a long while now. Bring it on 2019.

11. US
All the conversation that is already bubbling over for Jordan Peele’s follow up to the fantastic Get Out is impossible to avoid. And I’m all for both the conversation and this film, not simply on the grounds of Get Out, but because everything about the film looks incredibly compelling in terms of those psychological-horror elements.

10. Captive State
The teaser got me hooked, and as desperate as I am to avoid any other trailers (I’m already hooked), I keep wanting to get another glimpse of this film. It looks ridiculously entertaining.

9. You Are My Friend
Yes, some of us remain skeptical of the idea that we needed a biopic in 2019 when we got such a wonderful and exceptional documentary in 2018. And yes, it’s hard to see past Tom Hanks in that sweater vest. But I don’t care. Hanks is a legendary actor for a reason, and I think our world can use all of the Fred Rogers it can get. My anticipation for this film remains high on my list.

8. 1917
Directed by Sam Mendes and backed by Spielberg and company, this World War 1 film looks like it might occupy that necessary space for compelling war films in 2019.

 

7. Star Wars 9/Avengers
It’s hard to separate these two massive blockbuster events in my eyes. One bringing to an end an exceptional Star Wars trilogy with all the intrigue of its shift in director in tow. Say what you will but I am completely and absolutely compelled to see where this last one takes us.

And the End Game is here. The end of an era. That finality of the story we have fallen in love with. The launching pad for a new era. Given what they did with Infinity War, I absolutely anticipate this film will break all of my cinematic expectations.

And of course this wouldn’t be complete without throwing the whole pile of Marvel and Superhero driven films into the mix as an honorable mention. With Captain Marvel and a new Spiderman and finally seeing those XMen centered films getting a release, it should be an amazing year ahead.

6. Knives Out
Moving from Star Wars to Knives out and back to Star Wars, this break in Rian Johnson’s commitment to that intergalatic saga fits nicely on that list of films I am most intrigued by in 2019. What puts this on my most anticipated list is what Johnson did with his Star Wars story. For as much as that film was an experimental narrative, sometimes for better and at times something other, it contained some of the most compelling and creative and beautiful sequences and scenes of the year for me. So I am really curious to see what he does here.

5. Pokemon Detective
I didn’t care. The trailer made me care. What else can I say but I’m really anticipating seeing this film and I’m excited to share that anticipation with my son.

4. John Wick 3
Rumors that this will be the most bombastic John Wick film yet has convinced me to be there opening day. To be honest I didn’t need much convincing though. I am really looking forward to seeing how they conclude the series.

3. Toy Story 4
Given my love for these films it was impossible not to have this edge out some other intriguing animated films to be released in 2019. I am hugely excited to see Tito and the Birds and I am hopeful for Missing Link following a very effective trailer. But given its track record, Toy Story 4 is going to hit me in all the feels all over again, and I am so ready for it to hav its way with me and all of my emotions.

2. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
If there is a film that occupies a category all its own this year it would be this one or The Irishman. I  have very little expectation that The Irishman will ever make it to the big screen, which is where I really desire to see it, so Quentin’s newest edges it out in terms of anticipation. Everything about this is calling my name.

1. Rambo 5
Yep. He’s back. And given my love for the last Rambo film and all that I’m hearing about this new one, it’s not only time to introduce my son, but it’s due time to jump back into his story.

Honorable Mentions:
Glass– The only reason this doesn’t make my most anticipated list is because it is coming so early in the year. So there’s not much waiting. But I am really, really REALLY looking forward to seeing where M. Night takes this.
Arctic– Looks like a perfect seasonal film to help get me through the long winter.
Escape Room– this years Game Night perhaps (not in terms of comedy, but in terms of building an entire film around a single concept)? It could be gimmicky, but it also looks fun. Label me intrigued.
The Kid Who Would Be King– I’m a sucker for these types of younger adventure stories. I’m still sad about the box office failure of Mortal Engines. Hoping this one fares better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(amended from last year: a working description of what ROSEBUD is)
A few years ago I began a New Years Resolution Plan called Rosebud. I heard about it on one of the podcasts that I follow. The process essentially looks like this:

Step 1: List Three Roses-
This is the stuff that I would consider the greatest strengths, successes or accomplishments of the past year, the stuff that has managed to blossom into a Rose.

Step 2: List One Thorn
This would reflect my greatest personal struggle of the past year.

Step 3: List Three Buds
This is a list of what I would like to “bud” into Roses in the coming year.

Step 4: Come up with a word for the year
This should be a single word that can help reflect the direction I want to head in the coming year, a single word that can give my year a theme or a recognizable focus and narrative.

*A note on the thorn category: Previously I had them listed as 3. The actual ROSEBUD plan only asks you to consider one thorn so as to keep the process focused on the strengths, the positives and the hopeful buds. I have made that change here for the coming year.

The great part of the Rosebud system is that it allows you to document these things by year so that you can follow your growth, keep yourself accountable, and target the yearly summation of your  hopes and expectations in ways that are more practical, personal and balanced.

So here goes…

LOOKING BACK ON 2018
In 2018 my 3 buds were:
1. Manageable Travel Goals
2. A more focused reading Challenge
3. Creative Giving

My single word for the year was: Intentional

So how did I do?

1. Travel Goals:
Much of the plans I had set out for creating manageable, budgeted (read: cheap) travel goals got rerouted through Nashville after an opportunity presented itself to drive a group of youth down to a conference this past summer. While this trip was nowhere on the radar at the beginning of the year, it went on to inspire a number of blog posts in this space and actually helped give definition to what will be my single word for 2019 (see below). It proved why these Travel Goals are an important part of my personal growth.

There is certainly room for me to reshape the goals I did have at the start of 2018 for the upcoming year, especially considering much of the upcoming year already shows potential for the following:
1. Two Weddings in Toronto- a chance to see our family out there before Sasha graduates.
2. And since we are in that neck of the woods already, an extended trip following one of those family weddings South of the Border through New York, the Catskills and up to Boston where we have been offered a place to stay.
3. Snowboarding to Duluth (for Sasha) in January/February
2. Reading Challenge:
I saw the most growth in the reading challenge this year. I read less books, but the books I read were far more intentional and focused overall.

It has inspired me to do three things this year:
1. Narrow my list even further, which I have done by setting out some seasonal reading choices to act as a foundation to build off of rather than a whole pile of books to read towards.
2. Focus on recommends from my favorite Podcasts, as there are a couple that I am finding tend to play the biggest role in adding to my TBR list.

3. Creative Giving:
When I made this goal last year it was with 2 things in mind- expanding my parameters for giving so as to open up the creative lines beyond simply financial means, and secondly to offset my tendency towards social anxiety/isolation and my struggle to know how to give in a world where I don’t feel like I have much to give. It was meant to open up the means for being intentional about recognizing where needs intersect with my small section of the world and in which I can know I have something to give. I was really wrestling and struggling with not knowing where to give and how to give in a way that actually makes a difference.

In considering how this went in the past year, this was probably the biggest setback of the three, largely because my struggle with social anxiety and isolation really pushed back in a powerful way. I already wrote and shared about a timely shift in mindset following our trip to Nashville, which will certainly play into my 2019 goals below. Up until that point I was feeling fairly defeated and lost and even more frustrated with knowing where I fit in and with what I have to offer and how I can even find places to give in a world that is as competitive and overwhelming as it is. The hope is fresh goals can build on this resolution with a fresh perspective.

So with all that in mind…
MY ROSEBUD GOALS FOR 2019
3 Roses (my strengths):
1. Reading Challenge
2. Living 1 full year without Credit Cards
3. Social involvment with an online group of cinephiles

1 Thorn (a recognizable weakness)
A growing cynicism

3 Buds:
1. Reconsider where I am with Ministry.
My Pastor sat down with me the other day and wondered with me whether Ministry, as a vocation, was done with me or if there was still more of that story to tell in the years to come. I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know following my trip to Nashville is that there is more healing that needs to be done, and perhaps some of that will involve taking some more specific steps towards figuring that out.

2. Find ways to talk to and hear the stories of strangers on a more consistent basis
I am an introvert. Deeply introverted. And I struggle with social anxiety. I have shared a few stories lately on my social feed and in person about how taking a small step towards engaging others that I do not know has opened up unexpected doors to hearing stories I otherwise would not have heard. In 2019 I can do more of this.

3. Give specific attention in my life, in my viewing of film and in my reading challenge on growing a sense of place and growing in perspective.
In one of my film discussion groups I am doing a very specific movie related resolution. My books are also going to be more intentional this year with a revamped reading plan. I am hoping that these can be a stepping off place into bringing this notion of growing in perspective into many corners of my life with intention.

One word: Perspective