My name is Mark, and I'm an ESPN addict. I turn Sportscenter on in the morning when I'm eating breakfast and drinking coffee, I turn it on in the afternoon while I'm making dinner for Around the Horn and PTI. My wife laughs at me because I will sometimes sit through the same story twice, and then I kind of have to admit that I'm not actually paying that much attention to it, it's just on in the background, because I kind of feel comforted, and very sporadically interested in what's going on. I mean some of the stuff is interesting, and the highlights are cool, but I could really care less if he Milwaukee Brewers just signed their shortstop to a contract worth more money than I will ever even see in my lifetime.
I would like to tell you that, as a practitioner of organized religion, I'm just studying the competition, but the cold fact of it is, I'm probably as soothed and comforted by listening to muscled men and surly coaches mumble platitudes to grovelling reporters as any Joe Football Fan out there.
And then came Marshawn Lynch, an Isrealite in whom there is no deceit. Lynch is the running back for the Super Bowl Champion and two time NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks. He is by all accounts, a really great teammate and he is an absolutely phenomenal athlete, but Marshawn doesn't like to talk to reporters, and Marshawn has never liked to talk to reporters, and Marshawn has been fined by the No Fun League on several occasions for not talking to reporters. Depending on who you are, Marshawn's defiance of the NFLs media policy, either rubs you the wrong way or it makes you like the big guy even more.
It's his job to play football, and of course, if you want to get paid millions of dollars to play a game, you need to recognize that TV is the big reason why that's a possibility. Before TV, football players had to have regular jobs during the week. But there are plenty of guys who will do just about anything to get themselves on the screen, like Richard Sherman, who is articulate and funny and not at all shy, who can give us out there in TV land something to talk about.
Then you have others, like Bill Belichick who will stand in front of reporters for the required interval, but actually not say anything. This is the large majority of player and coach interview content: "yeah, we're doing our best, yeah we just need to focus, yeah it's going to be a tough game, yeah we need to put the past behind us....blah, blah, blah."
And this is why I appreciate what Marshawn is up to this week. He shows up for his required media time and says nothing but, "I'm just here so I won't get fined," and the next day, "You all know why I'm here." In response to every question. And to be honest he tells me every bit as much about the drama of sports as many of the more sincere, but quite frankly dull, interviewees.
He's shining a light, and I suspect it may be at least a bit consciously, on the theater of the absurd that major sports have become in this country. He clearly thinks that his job is to carry a football down the field, to run over defenders and help his team win, and all of the other stuff is ancillary and unnecessary trappings of becoming a public figure, which he has little desire to do.
Some people thought Marshawn was somehow disabled at first, that he was painfully shy or had some expression of autism, but it turns out, that's not really the case, he is able to speak and even appear in commercials that mock his stoic media persona. It turns out that he just finds the questions that reporters ask to be stupid and empty and a waste of time, and let's face it journalism in general is kind of on a low ebb, thanks in large part to the nature of the television medium and the evolution of an audience that craves soundbites and disdains nuance.
I'm inclined to see Marshawn Lynch as social commentary. The fact that he probably doesn't want that is actually part of the point. Our culture fixates on heroes and extraordinary feats, which leads us inevitably to idolatry. Heck, we even flat out call these top athletes of ours idols and icons. It actually does my heart good to see one of them resist the machine that wants to make him into golden calf. It's as much his defiance of the system, which has proven to be a bit corrupt of late, as it is his calm but comical methodology that makes me want to cheer for Marshawn.
I need to cheer for something, I mean, it's the Seahawks versus the Patriots in the Superbowl. I think Marshawn versus the NFL and their Media hordes is much more compelling.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Guilt Trip
I heard a story on the radio this morning about a family in India who were the first in their village to own a refrigerator. You heard me right a refrigerator. The man of the house said he had saved a little money for 10, count em 10 years, to get a refrigerator, so that he could free his wife from the constant grind of always having to shop every day and make everything fresh.
To tell you the truth, I never really think much about my refrigerator, unless it's broken. In fact, I have two refrigerators, one in the basement that's mostly empty unless we just stocked up on groceries, or are having a big gathering. Sure it's a pretty major investment as far as household items go, but I was still boggled by the idea that the purchase and delivery of an appliance would be the life-altering, village-celebrating, event that it apparently was for this family and their neighbors.
Then I began to feel really spoiled.
It was one of those count-your-blessings-check-your-privilege moments, and I didn't need any self-righteous politically correct type to prompt me into it.
I thought of all the things that I consider disposable, which would be momentous acquisitions in much of the world: cars, refrigerators, a good well that supplies clean water. And I thought of the fact that this Indian man and his family probably work, in the average day, a whole lot harder than I do. And I have a hard time reconciling how this is justice. I was born into this hyper-consumptive world, where the reality is that new is often cheaper and more "sensible" than repaired. Likewise, some people are born into a world where "getting ahead" means you get to have cold water in the summer time, can actually store your leftover curried chicken.
You could hear the excitement from both the man and his wife about... leftovers.
I also noted, in the story, that the whole village was happy about the arrival of a refrigerator, it was going to lift all the boats, so to speak. And this is one of the enviable aspects of poverty and hardship (yes I know, it's a stretch); community. People help each other, because they have to. They don't have to like each other or agree about everything, but they do have to help each other, it's survival.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the human need for connection, and the reasons why the church is foundering in Western Society, and I think it has something to do with the fact that we can all too easily do things for ourselves. People who live without the luxury and comfort of disposable income must rely on one another when times get rough. You hear stories about this from old time rural folk all the time, how when a barn burns down the community rallies to build a new one and temporary measures are taken to help out the downtrodden, because next month or next year it might happen to you and then the favor comes back around.
The impact of individualism is far reaching, and in most cases corrosive. Not-my-problem syndrome infects everything from how we invest in our children's education to how we treat our aging mothers and fathers.
All of the sudden, I didn't feel quite so bad for the poor people in India and Africa, and other places where everyone is pretty much in the same boat. But I felt worse for the poor people who live in the consumptive disposable world. We have kicked away all of the communal support mechanisms (the ones that actually worked) and replaced them with a welfare check, some food stamps and a handful of overwhelmed government agencies and said: "Good luck, work hard and you'll get ahead."
Once upon a time, I thought that enough good people being charitable could actually solve this problem, but I don't think that's true any longer. We need to reforge our connections to one another. We need to be held together by more than just tax-paying.
This could, and should, happen in churches, but I think we may have drunk the self-sufficiency Kool-Aid along with everyone else. Why are people consumers and spectators of our religious services and "performances" instead of fellow disciples? Why is it hard to get a commitment? Why do people float away from our communities so easily?
Because they sense somewhere deep down that we don't really need them.
And so they don't really need us.
As so many things do, this reminds me of the Beatitudes, those peculiar statements where Jesus said people were blessed, when intuitively they didn't seem to be: blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, etc. Maybe that Indian family who just got the first refrigerator in the village really are as blessed as they sounded.
To tell you the truth, I never really think much about my refrigerator, unless it's broken. In fact, I have two refrigerators, one in the basement that's mostly empty unless we just stocked up on groceries, or are having a big gathering. Sure it's a pretty major investment as far as household items go, but I was still boggled by the idea that the purchase and delivery of an appliance would be the life-altering, village-celebrating, event that it apparently was for this family and their neighbors.
Then I began to feel really spoiled.
It was one of those count-your-blessings-check-your-privilege moments, and I didn't need any self-righteous politically correct type to prompt me into it.
I thought of all the things that I consider disposable, which would be momentous acquisitions in much of the world: cars, refrigerators, a good well that supplies clean water. And I thought of the fact that this Indian man and his family probably work, in the average day, a whole lot harder than I do. And I have a hard time reconciling how this is justice. I was born into this hyper-consumptive world, where the reality is that new is often cheaper and more "sensible" than repaired. Likewise, some people are born into a world where "getting ahead" means you get to have cold water in the summer time, can actually store your leftover curried chicken.
You could hear the excitement from both the man and his wife about... leftovers.
I also noted, in the story, that the whole village was happy about the arrival of a refrigerator, it was going to lift all the boats, so to speak. And this is one of the enviable aspects of poverty and hardship (yes I know, it's a stretch); community. People help each other, because they have to. They don't have to like each other or agree about everything, but they do have to help each other, it's survival.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the human need for connection, and the reasons why the church is foundering in Western Society, and I think it has something to do with the fact that we can all too easily do things for ourselves. People who live without the luxury and comfort of disposable income must rely on one another when times get rough. You hear stories about this from old time rural folk all the time, how when a barn burns down the community rallies to build a new one and temporary measures are taken to help out the downtrodden, because next month or next year it might happen to you and then the favor comes back around.
The impact of individualism is far reaching, and in most cases corrosive. Not-my-problem syndrome infects everything from how we invest in our children's education to how we treat our aging mothers and fathers.
All of the sudden, I didn't feel quite so bad for the poor people in India and Africa, and other places where everyone is pretty much in the same boat. But I felt worse for the poor people who live in the consumptive disposable world. We have kicked away all of the communal support mechanisms (the ones that actually worked) and replaced them with a welfare check, some food stamps and a handful of overwhelmed government agencies and said: "Good luck, work hard and you'll get ahead."
Once upon a time, I thought that enough good people being charitable could actually solve this problem, but I don't think that's true any longer. We need to reforge our connections to one another. We need to be held together by more than just tax-paying.
This could, and should, happen in churches, but I think we may have drunk the self-sufficiency Kool-Aid along with everyone else. Why are people consumers and spectators of our religious services and "performances" instead of fellow disciples? Why is it hard to get a commitment? Why do people float away from our communities so easily?
Because they sense somewhere deep down that we don't really need them.
And so they don't really need us.
As so many things do, this reminds me of the Beatitudes, those peculiar statements where Jesus said people were blessed, when intuitively they didn't seem to be: blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, etc. Maybe that Indian family who just got the first refrigerator in the village really are as blessed as they sounded.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Paradigm Shifting
Yesterday, I saw this, honestly it has taken me about a day to sort of process what I just read. I needed to process the facts, as well as the feelings. For those of you familiar with the Myers-Briggs typology, I'm an INT(J or P change depending on mood when I take the test), which means that I am rather set on processing information (T) in a rational manner, but I prefer to gather information intuitively, which means, yes I'm a bit of a paradox (aren't we all?).
I like that there were studies done on this perspective of addiction, I like that there is "real world" evidence that this is true, because, as someone who has had some experience with drugs and addiction, I certainly intuit all of this to be true... and important.
If you didn't feel like taking the time to read the article, here's what it says: addiction is more about emotional state than about chemistry. Now this is not to say that there is not chemical component, but technically every addiction tracks back to dopamine, our body's Dr. Feelgood. Opiates mimic dopamine in a way that leads to an unrealistic level of pleasure response and pain elimination. Cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, marijuana (THC), and yes even my good friend caffeine stimulate our body's natural production of dopamine, and make you feel good, at least at first. But our bodies are stasis seekers, and a dopamine induced euphoria is not a sustainable state of being, so without chemical prodding our dopamine levels fall. Gambling, skydiving and pretty much anything that gives you a stimulating rush of adrenaline also increases your body's production of dopamine to sort of counteract the "rush" of adrenaline as your body seeks stasis again.
The biology and chemistry of addiction is fairly well understood, but unfortunately understanding and even short circuiting the chemistry doesn't actually solve the problem. The lord of methadone knows we've tried. My brother had several very expensive metal pellets surgically implanted in his arm which essentially blocked him from experiencing the high of heroin use, they worked. They chemically interfered with the opiate's ability to get him high, without that high, there really isn't much of a perk beyond the physical act of sticking the needle in (which also a thing that only those rather intimately acquainted with IV drug use, and cutters will ever know about. See Velvet Underground's song Heroin: "Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man, when I put a spike into my vein").
The really world shaking part of the above article, is the shift in perspective and the gathered evidence about addiction, which tells us that it needs to be treated as more than chemical dependency. Isolation is what leads to addiction. Which pops up so many truth flags its really rather disturbing. Speaking personally, why did I smoke cigarettes? Was it because I liked the way it made me feel? No way, at least not at first, at first it gave me a headache and made me dizzy and tasted like death. I discovered that people hung out in small groups to smoke. I hate big pulsing roomfuls of people trying to shout small talk at each other (pretty much a description of most of my Freshman year at Penn State). I liked getting outside in the cool air and meeting a few people who you can talk to without yelling, sometimes there were even girls out there. By virtue of smoking I could automatically join their group, no questions asked. Sure it was bad for me, sure it formed a chemical dependency, but it also helped me feel less lonely, it also helped me meet people I could actually be friends with.
Later, when I was out of college, smoking didn't seem to offer the same regular benefit, relationship-wise, and actually, I found it rather easy to quit, largely because I had started to form deeper relationships, with Michele for one, but also out there in life.
See here's what most people don't tell you about drugs: they're cool, at least at first. They make you feel good, you do them in social situations, you share an illicit and therefore exciting secret with a few people, in other words, they offer not only a good "high" feeling, but also a sense of belonging, of being part of the "scene." According to the article above, drug use begins as balm for loneliness or isolation, which in my experience is a painful truth.
It also explains why 12 step programs are about the only thing that work in combatting addiction: cultish insistence on connection, to the program, to a higher power, to working the steps, but more basically to the group of people who share your struggle. The fact that you probably started using whatever substance you used or whatever behavior (sex, gambling etc.) gave you that rush was because you wanted to be part of something, damn the torpedoes if it wasn't healthy, being alone is painful.
Why are 12 steps programs proliferating while churches are dying? Because they offer connection, real connection, and apparently churches are somehow failing to do that, which is a crying shame don't you think?
The article points out that the way we have dealt with addictions has been totally and abjectly wrong on a societal level: we shun, we incarcerate, we marginalize people with addictions, we treat them as though they're lepers, and in doing so we make the problem that drove them to the addiction worse.
Churches have been every bit as guilty of this as the society at large, other than hosting various 12 step meetings, we would rather not talk about addictions in church, they're just sordid stuff.
But sin is sordid isn't it? Aren't addictions just another example of how we can twist God's good creation? I mean think about all those things: adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, which are involved in the chemistry of addiction, aren't they part of our bodies and our minds for a reason?
We are made for relationship and connection and when we don't fulfill that need, we get broken really quickly. The idea that we should be above this sort of thing is absolutely wrong. We subconsciously tell people: you're welcome as long as your sin is under control, we love you as long as you act lovable. Where 12 steps have succeeded is in telling people that they're welcome and that they have a place no matter what, even if they're stoned, even if they're in active DTs, even if their lives are falling apart at the seams, they are welcomed and encouraged to come, no matter what.
Isn't that what church should be like too?
I like that there were studies done on this perspective of addiction, I like that there is "real world" evidence that this is true, because, as someone who has had some experience with drugs and addiction, I certainly intuit all of this to be true... and important.
If you didn't feel like taking the time to read the article, here's what it says: addiction is more about emotional state than about chemistry. Now this is not to say that there is not chemical component, but technically every addiction tracks back to dopamine, our body's Dr. Feelgood. Opiates mimic dopamine in a way that leads to an unrealistic level of pleasure response and pain elimination. Cocaine, alcohol, nicotine, marijuana (THC), and yes even my good friend caffeine stimulate our body's natural production of dopamine, and make you feel good, at least at first. But our bodies are stasis seekers, and a dopamine induced euphoria is not a sustainable state of being, so without chemical prodding our dopamine levels fall. Gambling, skydiving and pretty much anything that gives you a stimulating rush of adrenaline also increases your body's production of dopamine to sort of counteract the "rush" of adrenaline as your body seeks stasis again.
The biology and chemistry of addiction is fairly well understood, but unfortunately understanding and even short circuiting the chemistry doesn't actually solve the problem. The lord of methadone knows we've tried. My brother had several very expensive metal pellets surgically implanted in his arm which essentially blocked him from experiencing the high of heroin use, they worked. They chemically interfered with the opiate's ability to get him high, without that high, there really isn't much of a perk beyond the physical act of sticking the needle in (which also a thing that only those rather intimately acquainted with IV drug use, and cutters will ever know about. See Velvet Underground's song Heroin: "Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man, when I put a spike into my vein").
The really world shaking part of the above article, is the shift in perspective and the gathered evidence about addiction, which tells us that it needs to be treated as more than chemical dependency. Isolation is what leads to addiction. Which pops up so many truth flags its really rather disturbing. Speaking personally, why did I smoke cigarettes? Was it because I liked the way it made me feel? No way, at least not at first, at first it gave me a headache and made me dizzy and tasted like death. I discovered that people hung out in small groups to smoke. I hate big pulsing roomfuls of people trying to shout small talk at each other (pretty much a description of most of my Freshman year at Penn State). I liked getting outside in the cool air and meeting a few people who you can talk to without yelling, sometimes there were even girls out there. By virtue of smoking I could automatically join their group, no questions asked. Sure it was bad for me, sure it formed a chemical dependency, but it also helped me feel less lonely, it also helped me meet people I could actually be friends with.
Later, when I was out of college, smoking didn't seem to offer the same regular benefit, relationship-wise, and actually, I found it rather easy to quit, largely because I had started to form deeper relationships, with Michele for one, but also out there in life.
See here's what most people don't tell you about drugs: they're cool, at least at first. They make you feel good, you do them in social situations, you share an illicit and therefore exciting secret with a few people, in other words, they offer not only a good "high" feeling, but also a sense of belonging, of being part of the "scene." According to the article above, drug use begins as balm for loneliness or isolation, which in my experience is a painful truth.
It also explains why 12 step programs are about the only thing that work in combatting addiction: cultish insistence on connection, to the program, to a higher power, to working the steps, but more basically to the group of people who share your struggle. The fact that you probably started using whatever substance you used or whatever behavior (sex, gambling etc.) gave you that rush was because you wanted to be part of something, damn the torpedoes if it wasn't healthy, being alone is painful.
Why are 12 steps programs proliferating while churches are dying? Because they offer connection, real connection, and apparently churches are somehow failing to do that, which is a crying shame don't you think?
The article points out that the way we have dealt with addictions has been totally and abjectly wrong on a societal level: we shun, we incarcerate, we marginalize people with addictions, we treat them as though they're lepers, and in doing so we make the problem that drove them to the addiction worse.
Churches have been every bit as guilty of this as the society at large, other than hosting various 12 step meetings, we would rather not talk about addictions in church, they're just sordid stuff.
But sin is sordid isn't it? Aren't addictions just another example of how we can twist God's good creation? I mean think about all those things: adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, which are involved in the chemistry of addiction, aren't they part of our bodies and our minds for a reason?
We are made for relationship and connection and when we don't fulfill that need, we get broken really quickly. The idea that we should be above this sort of thing is absolutely wrong. We subconsciously tell people: you're welcome as long as your sin is under control, we love you as long as you act lovable. Where 12 steps have succeeded is in telling people that they're welcome and that they have a place no matter what, even if they're stoned, even if they're in active DTs, even if their lives are falling apart at the seams, they are welcomed and encouraged to come, no matter what.
Isn't that what church should be like too?
Monday, January 26, 2015
It's Getting Real Up in Here
The plane tickets are purchased. With fear and trembling, I booked two tickets, on a non stop flight from Philadelphia to Madrid, on April 8, 2015, and the return on May 20. Up until now, the impending pilgrimage was a dream, now there's an actual document, now there's a departure hour.
I would like to tell you that I am all in on this one, I would like to tell you that I'm yearning to get out there on the Way, but the truth is, I've got the fear. I've got the fear that something's going to go wrong, I've got the fear about leaving Michele and the kids for over a month. You name it, I'm probably worrying about it. It's a big thing, this trip. I have been feeling my empathetic connection with Hobbits rather strongly of late, and so I guess that the purchase of tickets is like Bilbo signing that contract with the Dwarves bound for Eriabor.
As much as it's been fun to plan and buy gear, and more gear, as much as I am actually looking for the purpose and simplicity of walking, there's a part of me that would just as soon stay in the Shire (or in my case Southern Maryland).
But this is an adventure I need to take.
I have been battling the desire for control of this adventure a little too much. That's what worry usually amounts to: fretting about things you can not (and sometimes should not) control. Anxiety becomes a way of life... and it's not a good one.
Probably since the first time I read Tolkien, the prospect of taking a step out of my front door and just going, walking, driving, riding, whatever, has always fascinated me, but without some sort of inducement, it's not a thing that people do very much. After all, one knows there will be privations of various sorts, blisters and sunburns, drenching rains and stinging winds, uncertain access to facilities, and numerous invasions of the personal cushion we have become so used to in the modern world. I'm wondering about silly things, like what it will be to go a month without Sportscenter and being able to Google something at will. I'm wondering what it will be like to be a homeless wanderer in a foreign land, missing my wife and children. I'm wondering what it will be like to challenge my body, day after day, and to have my body change in response. On my four day trip last year my calves bulged out to 1.5 times their normal diameter, they were huge and as hard as a rock, this is a long enough journey that other changes (hopefully for the better) will occur physically. Also on my four day trip last year, and on my Appalachian Trail hike with Jack last summer, I suffered from dehydration. On my return from Santiago in 2013, this led to a kidney infection as the result of an obstruction in the bile duct, aka a stuck kidney stone.
It wasn't a very good welcome home present.
But still, this is an adventure I need to take, because I spend too much time sitting here in front of a computer screen, because I think I need to let go of some of this anxiety, because I need to get on the way, and embrace a simpler way.
I felt, when I came home in 2013, that I had unfinished business with the Camino, I had just sort of dipped my foot in the pool, even though I got my compostela, I was not really done. I may not really be done on May 20. I'm getting the sense that this sort of journey could become a way of life, actually I'm hoping that it does. Because in all this, for all the things I worry about, at least the worries are as real and plausible as can be.
Say what you want about it, but at least I know what I fear, and that's a pretty good first step.
When I come back I will be done with the Way of St. James for a while, but I'm going to have other journeys to take, journeys that are probably more dangerous and more important.
But first, this is an adventure I need to take.
I would like to tell you that I am all in on this one, I would like to tell you that I'm yearning to get out there on the Way, but the truth is, I've got the fear. I've got the fear that something's going to go wrong, I've got the fear about leaving Michele and the kids for over a month. You name it, I'm probably worrying about it. It's a big thing, this trip. I have been feeling my empathetic connection with Hobbits rather strongly of late, and so I guess that the purchase of tickets is like Bilbo signing that contract with the Dwarves bound for Eriabor.
As much as it's been fun to plan and buy gear, and more gear, as much as I am actually looking for the purpose and simplicity of walking, there's a part of me that would just as soon stay in the Shire (or in my case Southern Maryland).
But this is an adventure I need to take.
I have been battling the desire for control of this adventure a little too much. That's what worry usually amounts to: fretting about things you can not (and sometimes should not) control. Anxiety becomes a way of life... and it's not a good one.
Probably since the first time I read Tolkien, the prospect of taking a step out of my front door and just going, walking, driving, riding, whatever, has always fascinated me, but without some sort of inducement, it's not a thing that people do very much. After all, one knows there will be privations of various sorts, blisters and sunburns, drenching rains and stinging winds, uncertain access to facilities, and numerous invasions of the personal cushion we have become so used to in the modern world. I'm wondering about silly things, like what it will be to go a month without Sportscenter and being able to Google something at will. I'm wondering what it will be like to be a homeless wanderer in a foreign land, missing my wife and children. I'm wondering what it will be like to challenge my body, day after day, and to have my body change in response. On my four day trip last year my calves bulged out to 1.5 times their normal diameter, they were huge and as hard as a rock, this is a long enough journey that other changes (hopefully for the better) will occur physically. Also on my four day trip last year, and on my Appalachian Trail hike with Jack last summer, I suffered from dehydration. On my return from Santiago in 2013, this led to a kidney infection as the result of an obstruction in the bile duct, aka a stuck kidney stone.
It wasn't a very good welcome home present.
But still, this is an adventure I need to take, because I spend too much time sitting here in front of a computer screen, because I think I need to let go of some of this anxiety, because I need to get on the way, and embrace a simpler way.
I felt, when I came home in 2013, that I had unfinished business with the Camino, I had just sort of dipped my foot in the pool, even though I got my compostela, I was not really done. I may not really be done on May 20. I'm getting the sense that this sort of journey could become a way of life, actually I'm hoping that it does. Because in all this, for all the things I worry about, at least the worries are as real and plausible as can be.
Say what you want about it, but at least I know what I fear, and that's a pretty good first step.
When I come back I will be done with the Way of St. James for a while, but I'm going to have other journeys to take, journeys that are probably more dangerous and more important.
But first, this is an adventure I need to take.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
We Could Be Heroes?
Over the long weekend, I have read several interweb articles about the new movie American Sniper. I have read a few lamenting the fact that we make people who kill people into heroes, I have read rebuttals of that, and I think where I come down on the whole thing is: "come on people it's a movie."
First of all, I have not seen the movie, but I have seen movies about war before. In fact, three of my favorite movies of all time (Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon) are war movies and I am of the opinion that some of the most powerful human drama and therefore some of the most important stories surround war. One does not come out of a really good war movie thinking: "Man that seemed like fun." Having only seen the trailer for American Sniper, I can be pretty certain that this one is no exception. There are moments in the trailer that feel like a gut punch, particularly where he's sighting in on an Iraqi kid who is maybe 10, who has just been handed a bomb by his mother, and the sniper is flashing mentally through thoughts of his family and his own child, and that's just absolutely gut wrenching, even in a commercial.
I'm pretty certain this isn't a shoot 'em up romp about how heroic war turns out to be. If you want that though, you know there's always any of The Expendables, movies.
What this comes down to is the actual purpose of storytelling. Should all stories be neat and clean and safe? I think not. I don't know if American Sniper is going to make it on my list of favorite movies, the way life is right now, I won't find out for about eight or nine months, but let me say that telling a good story, a powerful story, even if that story is a little hard-edged, is worth it.
One of the things the Bible has to teach us is that heroes don't have to be heroic in the same sense that mythological characters need to be: Abraham does not have to roll the same way Achilles rolls, David is not Odysseus, and even Sampson has way more weaknesses than Hercules. Perfect heroes are mythological. Over the years even Superman had to have some weaknesses (even going so far as getting killed at one point). Without weaknesses there is no drama, and stories with no drama really only appeal to small children. Television has perhaps lulled us too much too sleep, most popular shows follow the formula where a crisis (in the case of drama) or a mis-communication (in the case of a comedy) creates some tension which is then resolved by the end of the show. Most of the time you know that somehow, by the end of the show, everything will all be back to normal. Only the best and the worst shows leave you hanging. That's the funny thing about it, if it's good, it leaves you with a pit in your guts that makes you think and challenges you. If it's bad there's a pit too, but the pit is of a different character, it's un-constructive confusion and bafflement. Things that don't make sense, but for all the wrong reasons, characters that have not played well their hour upon the stage.
In other words, bad stories tend to be the most like real life. Good stories place all of that in a context that makes some sense.
That means we tweak a soldier, who serves his country and does his duty, but who is ultimately a tool of violence, into a hero or a villain depending on the story we want to tell. In absolute reality there are no heroes or villains, there are only flawed human beings doing what they do. Only the best stories are able to capture this ambiguity and not utterly confuse the audience, and there is a fine balance to be had. It is much easier to create characters who are blunt instruments and paint from an unmixed palette, that's what most movies do. Those movies do not offend, or challenge, or move anyone to very much of anything.
That's why, whenever I hear that a movie is creating some stir or offending some group or other I generally want to see it. Even, and perhaps especially, if I think I may be offended as well.
This is far from fool-proof however. For instance, Showgirls was super controversial, but it was one of the absolute worst movies of all time. Maybe being controversial because of the amount of nudity is the exception, because after all, nakedness does not necessarily correspond to good storytelling (in fact there may be an inverse correlation).
I guess it boils down to the question of what is offensive. Is it the premise? Because maybe that means it's a button that needs pushed. Is it the execution? Because it's never a good idea to give a hammer to a baby.
What I know about Clint Eastwood, the director of American Sniper, is that he's no fool when it comes to story telling (incidents with empty chairs aside). He has managed to tell some pretty powerful and gritty stories: Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Grand Torino. I suspect he will help us learn a little bit more about our human predicament, even if it does feel a little like a gut punch. I'll let you know when it comes out on cable.
First of all, I have not seen the movie, but I have seen movies about war before. In fact, three of my favorite movies of all time (Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon) are war movies and I am of the opinion that some of the most powerful human drama and therefore some of the most important stories surround war. One does not come out of a really good war movie thinking: "Man that seemed like fun." Having only seen the trailer for American Sniper, I can be pretty certain that this one is no exception. There are moments in the trailer that feel like a gut punch, particularly where he's sighting in on an Iraqi kid who is maybe 10, who has just been handed a bomb by his mother, and the sniper is flashing mentally through thoughts of his family and his own child, and that's just absolutely gut wrenching, even in a commercial.
I'm pretty certain this isn't a shoot 'em up romp about how heroic war turns out to be. If you want that though, you know there's always any of The Expendables, movies.
What this comes down to is the actual purpose of storytelling. Should all stories be neat and clean and safe? I think not. I don't know if American Sniper is going to make it on my list of favorite movies, the way life is right now, I won't find out for about eight or nine months, but let me say that telling a good story, a powerful story, even if that story is a little hard-edged, is worth it.
One of the things the Bible has to teach us is that heroes don't have to be heroic in the same sense that mythological characters need to be: Abraham does not have to roll the same way Achilles rolls, David is not Odysseus, and even Sampson has way more weaknesses than Hercules. Perfect heroes are mythological. Over the years even Superman had to have some weaknesses (even going so far as getting killed at one point). Without weaknesses there is no drama, and stories with no drama really only appeal to small children. Television has perhaps lulled us too much too sleep, most popular shows follow the formula where a crisis (in the case of drama) or a mis-communication (in the case of a comedy) creates some tension which is then resolved by the end of the show. Most of the time you know that somehow, by the end of the show, everything will all be back to normal. Only the best and the worst shows leave you hanging. That's the funny thing about it, if it's good, it leaves you with a pit in your guts that makes you think and challenges you. If it's bad there's a pit too, but the pit is of a different character, it's un-constructive confusion and bafflement. Things that don't make sense, but for all the wrong reasons, characters that have not played well their hour upon the stage.
In other words, bad stories tend to be the most like real life. Good stories place all of that in a context that makes some sense.
That means we tweak a soldier, who serves his country and does his duty, but who is ultimately a tool of violence, into a hero or a villain depending on the story we want to tell. In absolute reality there are no heroes or villains, there are only flawed human beings doing what they do. Only the best stories are able to capture this ambiguity and not utterly confuse the audience, and there is a fine balance to be had. It is much easier to create characters who are blunt instruments and paint from an unmixed palette, that's what most movies do. Those movies do not offend, or challenge, or move anyone to very much of anything.
That's why, whenever I hear that a movie is creating some stir or offending some group or other I generally want to see it. Even, and perhaps especially, if I think I may be offended as well.
This is far from fool-proof however. For instance, Showgirls was super controversial, but it was one of the absolute worst movies of all time. Maybe being controversial because of the amount of nudity is the exception, because after all, nakedness does not necessarily correspond to good storytelling (in fact there may be an inverse correlation).
I guess it boils down to the question of what is offensive. Is it the premise? Because maybe that means it's a button that needs pushed. Is it the execution? Because it's never a good idea to give a hammer to a baby.
What I know about Clint Eastwood, the director of American Sniper, is that he's no fool when it comes to story telling (incidents with empty chairs aside). He has managed to tell some pretty powerful and gritty stories: Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Grand Torino. I suspect he will help us learn a little bit more about our human predicament, even if it does feel a little like a gut punch. I'll let you know when it comes out on cable.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
I Have a Dream
The kids have a snow day today, a two hour early dismissal tomorrow, and the next two Mondays off, so much for any sort of regular schedule this month. I told them that they had Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. day, and she said, "I love that guy!" And it wasn't just because she gets next Monday off either. The man has been practically canonized by America. And mostly, he deserved the laud and honor that he gets, but I wonder if Martin would have been really comfortable with it.
Sometimes I think we make him our civil rights mascot and use our collective love and admiration of him as a mask for some of the flaws in our character that remain not so carefully hidden. He's a super hero, and because of his assassination, a martyr. And often you lose the ability to clearly see the man behind a martyrdom, we even do it with Jesus, why would MLK (or JFK or RFK for that matter) be any different.
He was a man who had a dream, a vision actually, and it was a good one, but his dream was not without detractors. Some, most famously Malcolm X, thought that King's insistence on non-violence was holding back the change that needed to happen "by any means necessary." And we love us some non-violence, but we sometimes confuse non-violence for patience and inaction. King went to jail for his activity, and was vilified by defenders of the status quo. In other words, he did stuff, some of it unpopular, some of it not extreme enough in the eyes of many, but he did something.
In an arena (civil rights) where there is a lot of talk, and generally not much action, sometimes any action can seem like a quantum leap. We love heroes in this country, but we also love to chop them off at the knees. In an ironic twist, James Earl Ray may have done the greatest service to King's legacy by killing him. At the height of his prophetic voice, before compromises or human failings could really lay him low, a bullet actually made him immortal.
Every once in a while the voice of hater pops up and mentions that he may not have been as perfect as he seemed, but they cannot really touch him, not really. Now what we think of when we think of MLK is that voice echoing out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, now what we think of is a letter from Birmingham Jail, his is a face forever set before our children as the face of justice and equality.
That's all good and fine. But actual justice and equality have eluded us for far too long. The fact that King is still the primary person people think of when you talk about Civil Rights (followed probably by Abraham Lincoln, which is even more depressing). It means that since 1968, no one has stepped up and taken the reigns of the movement, and it's left to people of dubious reputation like Al Sharpton. People like Jesse Jackson, who stepped out for a minute into the bright lights of King's Legacy, get pretty much beat down and ridiculed. In the long run it seems that no one is fit to wear the hero's robes.
Because this is not a problem to be solved by a super hero, it's a problem to be solved by ordinary people who have the courage to stand up and say, "I have a dream." We need to stop waiting for someone to rise up and become the cult of personality that we think we want, and simply get busy and changing our own hearts and minds with regard to racial justice and human dignity.
And we should not allow ourselves the illusion that MLK was the end of the struggle. He acknowledged in his prescient, "I have seen the promised land," speech that he was not going to "get there." (delivered in Memphis, April 3, 1968, King was shot April 4, 1968) He compared himself to Moses, who could lead the people to the brink and point the way to justice and equality, but was not going to get to walk across the Jordan.
There has been no Joshua.
And even though we celebrate him with a day off, we're a long way from honoring his legacy.
Sometimes I think we make him our civil rights mascot and use our collective love and admiration of him as a mask for some of the flaws in our character that remain not so carefully hidden. He's a super hero, and because of his assassination, a martyr. And often you lose the ability to clearly see the man behind a martyrdom, we even do it with Jesus, why would MLK (or JFK or RFK for that matter) be any different.
He was a man who had a dream, a vision actually, and it was a good one, but his dream was not without detractors. Some, most famously Malcolm X, thought that King's insistence on non-violence was holding back the change that needed to happen "by any means necessary." And we love us some non-violence, but we sometimes confuse non-violence for patience and inaction. King went to jail for his activity, and was vilified by defenders of the status quo. In other words, he did stuff, some of it unpopular, some of it not extreme enough in the eyes of many, but he did something.
In an arena (civil rights) where there is a lot of talk, and generally not much action, sometimes any action can seem like a quantum leap. We love heroes in this country, but we also love to chop them off at the knees. In an ironic twist, James Earl Ray may have done the greatest service to King's legacy by killing him. At the height of his prophetic voice, before compromises or human failings could really lay him low, a bullet actually made him immortal.
Every once in a while the voice of hater pops up and mentions that he may not have been as perfect as he seemed, but they cannot really touch him, not really. Now what we think of when we think of MLK is that voice echoing out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, now what we think of is a letter from Birmingham Jail, his is a face forever set before our children as the face of justice and equality.
That's all good and fine. But actual justice and equality have eluded us for far too long. The fact that King is still the primary person people think of when you talk about Civil Rights (followed probably by Abraham Lincoln, which is even more depressing). It means that since 1968, no one has stepped up and taken the reigns of the movement, and it's left to people of dubious reputation like Al Sharpton. People like Jesse Jackson, who stepped out for a minute into the bright lights of King's Legacy, get pretty much beat down and ridiculed. In the long run it seems that no one is fit to wear the hero's robes.
Because this is not a problem to be solved by a super hero, it's a problem to be solved by ordinary people who have the courage to stand up and say, "I have a dream." We need to stop waiting for someone to rise up and become the cult of personality that we think we want, and simply get busy and changing our own hearts and minds with regard to racial justice and human dignity.
And we should not allow ourselves the illusion that MLK was the end of the struggle. He acknowledged in his prescient, "I have seen the promised land," speech that he was not going to "get there." (delivered in Memphis, April 3, 1968, King was shot April 4, 1968) He compared himself to Moses, who could lead the people to the brink and point the way to justice and equality, but was not going to get to walk across the Jordan.
There has been no Joshua.
And even though we celebrate him with a day off, we're a long way from honoring his legacy.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
And Now, Back to the Outrage
The news coming out of Europe is bad indeed. I'm getting this strong feeling that much of the world is now joining the United States in getting absolutely fed up with terrorists. Why now? Why not a decade ago? Why did it take so long?
I don't rightly know.
Maybe it's just that terrorism, in most cases, simply fits the "not my problem" category. After all, even 9-11, as much as it shocked our nation and effected the course of our world for the past 14 years, was still just a "so sad for you," kind of moment. The French are wondering right now if the rest of the world really understands what they're going through. I have heard impassioned pleas from Nigerians for help in dealing with Boko Haram, but even their own government seems to think that the thing can be contained.
Maybe it's that all too familiar bugaboo: failure of empathy.
Maybe we really will put up with far too much as long as it doesn't directly effect us.
Maybe this has gotten to a point where so many people have lost their innocence in this regard, that there is going to be a reprisal. That's the dark undertone one might hear if you listen hard, even from among Muslims, there's this sense that the terrorists have gone too far. There seems like there just might be a truly brutal clamp down coming, or the sort that bends even the most noble intentions into vengeance.
There was this movie from a while back called Starship Troopers, it was the story of what happened when earth was attacked by a race of giant insects from some planet far away. The bugs are terrifying, really terrifying, and all of humanity finally unites in their quest to defend Earth against the menace. You see all races and creeds working together to fight the bugs. In the course of the movie, you get the gist that the director is making a point about our inhumanity when we get scared, we get violent. You could very easily see the bugs as evil and once you do that, pretty much anything is fair game, any kind of violence, torture or genocide.
The question asked by the movie, which is otherwise not a very good movie, is also asked by the more recent Ender's Game, do the ends justify the means?
Will it really advance the collective glory of our species if we rise up as a global community and curb stomp the terrorists?
It would certainly make me feel better, for a second.
The problem is that I suspect a new evil would rise: remember how we "defeated" communism, we actually did so with fairly non-violent means (though we had the constant threat of mutual annihilation all the while). But when Communism was gone, we were left with the twisted offspring of the cold war, and they turned on us.
We trained the Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets, and the Mujahadeen became the Taliban. Osama Bin Laden cut his teeth fighting for Afghanistan, and when that was done he turned his sights on the next great Satan... that would be us.
Boko Haram, ISIS, the Taliban, they all need to be stopped, they're twisted and violent, they're the next incarnation of the hatred and fear that has driven the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge, but how they are stopped is important. The superhero approach is not going to work.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the world is fed up with this sort of nonsense, Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Atheist, we're all freaking tired of the mess.
But how do we clean it up without making a bigger mess?
How do we wade into the quagmire without getting stuck?
It's pretty clear that we need to get the bad guys, but can we do it without becoming bad guys?
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