Avatar (no spoilers)

 

A few thoughts after seeing the movie Avatar last night.

1. James Cameron used 12 years, a few hundred million dollars, and promises of an innovative, revolutionary, epic movie-going experience to build hype for this project. Factor in that his last film was the highest grossing movie ever – literally, ever – and you’d think there was no way Avatar would live up to the promise. But it does. It’s a very old story – Dances With Wolves in a lot of ways – but told perfectly, and with the most impressive visual effects I’ve ever seen. 80% of the movie has to be CGI but I couldn’t tell you where what’s real leaves off, and I forgot all about the distinction 30 minutes in. As an exercise in movie-making, this film’s incredible.

2. Cameron – and I’m just guessing here – but he probably voted for Obama … which is just my ironically understated way of saying this movie has a message about environmental conservation, and the war in Iraq, and America’s track record at dealing with indigenous people … and he beats that drum early and often and – as is the case with most drum beating – it’s not very subtle.  And that’s all well and good, but it seems to me that movies with blatantly Christian/religious themes — the ones that seem to be a bit a preachy and over the top — often get blasted by critics for being heavy-handed. I just think there should be some equal opportunity recognition that movies — political or religious or otherwise — all have their moments of unsubtle agenda-pushing.

1. 3. The way Avatar approaches spirituality is very much in the Buddhist/Native American/Yoda “the spirit of god lives in everything” vein. I was thinking about why this idea appeals to people, and have decided that most people want there to be a god that gives us a purpose or destiny or whatever. AND we want that god to make us feel connected to the people around us, and give us a sense of community. BUT we don’t want that god to be a god with a personality, because that kind of god might expect something out of us. We want there to be a god, but we want him to be there only when we need him/her/it. And I used to say things like this with a wagging finger pointed outwards, but I’ve realized lately I’m the same way. I love the sense of identity and calling that Christianity offers, but I really struggle day in and day out with a God I’m accountable to. That’s the cool AND hard thing about Christianity: it offers a God you can know … but who can also know you, and expect things from you.

Chronicles of a starving artist … and a loving dad.

This isn’t something an aspiring writer-type such as myself is supposed to admit, but …

I usually only write when I feel like it. I’ve heard enough quotes from real writers to know this disqualifies me from their club, but it’s true nonetheless. Real writers, I think, are supposed to be miserable as they write. Writing for them brings self-loathing, and painful introspection, and torturous editing and rewriting and – well – there’s a reason Hemmingway was an alcoholic.

But this particular post – the one you’re reading right now – is different than normal for me. It’s not something I WANT to write exactly. I more feel compelled. I feel like not writing about this would be wrong.

***

 

It started with me sitting in my broken down car, complaining/petitioning/kinda-yelling at God. Now generally I don’t argue with God, for the same reason I try not to argue with Calvinists – I just end up frustrated, and with more questions than answers, and a nagging sense they’re more right than I want to admit.

But at this particular moment, right after my car broke down for the 7^th time in two and a half years, I decided I’d had enough – not just of the car, but in general. I was tired of my failed attempts to get a career going as a writer and a speaker. I was tired of opportunities drying up, stalling out, or sitting frustratingly out of reach. I was tired of wondering how far, exactly, my car could go with the low fuel light on and of wondering how I’d pay my credit card bill. I was tired of overdraft fees and uncomfortable silences when I deposited checks at the banks followed by the ominous words “teller assistance!”

And above all I was tired of complaining about how tired I was of all this.

The self-employed career path wasn’t working – at least not quickly enough – so I had already turned to Plan B a month ago, which was unfortunate for me because, like most  plan b’s, mine was like a fire extinguisher sitting on the wall of a public place: it’s nice to know it’s there, but you always hope it won’t be needed. Plan B was to find a part-time job to supplement life while I got things going. Plan B was my easy out if things fell through.

 But Plan B wasn’t working. I couldn’t find a job anywhere, and when I say “anywhere” I mean that in the Green Eggs and Ham sense of the word:

I could not find one as a cook, I could not find one reading books.

I could not get one in a store, nor selling products door-to-door.

You get the idea.

The pressure – as tracked by debt and bills and email notices from my bank – was building. And then, as I was driving back to the apartment I still owed rent for, my car broke down. So I called for a tow truck using my cell phone that would probably be shut off in a couple days, and sat alone in a Shell station for an hour waiting.

That’s when I lost it.

pointing to God through pain

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about pain, and fear, and building character, and why God lets us go through stuff. Over the past week I’ve done a lot of venting/accusing/questioning of God — a lot of that will eventually show up in this blog I imagine — but recently my friend Jason Petty sent me this video of a pastor in Texas who just found out he had a brain tumor … it’s one of the more incredible examples of responding to God in pain that I’ve ever seen. Check it out.

http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=363

landed invasion*

*thanks to the incredible communicator Ben Stuart — a.k.a. the best preacher no one’s ever heard of — for the title.

I just finished up an essay for a side-project (read: project that pays nothing) I’m working on — a friend of mine and I hoping to make a 10-minute teaching video. It’s about the Nativity scene, and the importance of every good story having a villain, and revisiting the birth of Christ with the bigger picture in mind … anyway, here’s an excerpt from the middle section. Would love to hear any/all feedback. Email me at joshua.d.pease@gmail.com.

 

***

 

… maybe the manger scene is better viewed as an invasion.

The God-Man came in a manner that in some ways seems like a sneak attack: he was born to an inauspicious couple in a tiny little cave in some nowhere city and the only people told about it were a bunch of common shepherds. But the birth of Jesus meant that for the first time the Kingdom of God – a Kingdom untainted by sin and death and despair and hopelessness – had invaded the sin-scarred land of the Enemy. For the first time light spoke into the darkness, and pierced it.

And Revelation said that Satan noticed, that he swooped down to attack. So King Herod has every child under the age of two in Bethlehem killed, and Satan tempts Jesus in the desert, and ultimately Jesus is killed at the hands of a Roman Empire that had no clue who He was … all with Satan pulling the strings in the background. But He rose again, and conquered death and bridged the gap between ourselves and God. And it all started at the manger.

fresh air

I used to think that — whenever I was feeling far from God — what I was supposed to do was grit my teeth, sit in a quiet room, and pray at the ceiling until God crashed through it Kool-Aid-Man-style and answered me.

But then — thanks mostly to people like C.S. Lewis and John Piper — I realized that one of the greatest ways God expresses Himself to us is through joy. Not happiness or pleasure exactly — those often come thin as paraffin paper, and easily torn. I’m talking about a moment of deep richness, found in brief glimpses, that speaks to some core part of us — a piece of Eden less-tainted by the Fall than most. It seems to me that, when God feels far away, it’s these moments that bring us back.

Anyway, this quote from a famous old preacher named Charles Spurgeon made me think of that:

He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the woods, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy. A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours, ramble in the beech woods’ umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.

psalms

I was reading in Psalm 121 today — which talks a lot about God being our provider, comforter, deliverer, and all sorts of other helpful descriptors ending in “er” — when I realized something:

When I read these passages, especially in moments where I’m feeling like life’s out of control, I immediately make those verses into prayers, asking God to show Himself in my life in those ways. And there’s plenty of examples of people in the Bible praying exactly that way, so I suppose it’s not a bad thing.

However, today it struck me that instead of sending those verses outward toward God, I should be internalizing them, wrestling with them, asking myself :Do  I really believe that God is a God who provides? Do I really believe He cares about me? Do I really believe His plan for me is best?”

Because if I’m honest, what I’m missing most in life right now is not a lack of provision, but an inability on my part to believe that provision will continue.

It’s pretty obvious to say, but I don’t need to read those promises  to remind God of who He is … I need to remind me.

wind-blown

It was in Jr. High that I learned to whistle with my hands …

… which figures, because middle school is really just two years spent mimicking the behavior of a normal human, and fooling no one. And so it was in Jr. High that I discovered the multi-purpose delights of those moldable, clay-like art erasers; of gleeking (if you don’t know, don’t ask); and, as I said, of whistling with my hands.

 Now when I say whistling with my hands, I’m not talking about that two-fingered, ear-splitting, fan in the baseball stadium whistle that everyone in the world hates except those who can do it. The whistle I’m talking about is more of a bird call … though I can’t imagine what sort of bird would respond to it. Maybe a turkey?

Anyway, it’s a whistle that involves cupping both hands together as tightly as possible — as though you were going to hold water in them – and then bringing your thumbs together so that your hands create an air-tight cavern with the only entrance/exit being the gap between your thumbs. You then put your mouth partially over said gap and blow.

At this point one of two things happens. Either you’ve made a low, deep whistling noise sure to impress the other 7^th grade wannabe-humans around you … or you discover that the “airtight cavern” you thought you’d made with your hands wasn’t so airtight, which creates a noise sounding suspiciously like … cupping your hands together and blowing into them.

What was frustrating for me in mastering this talent* was that no matter how tightly I cupped my hands together, no matter how intensely I tried to block out any and all air-flow detours, there would always be a hole I missed.

*using the loosest possible interpretation for that word

This is what my life feels like right now.

once

I remember a few years ago seeing the movie Once in an art house theater in San Antonio, walking out, and knowing I had to buy the soundtrack the moment I got back to my house.

So tonight when I was offered a free ticket to go see The Swell Season (a band featuring the main guy and girl from Once) I jumped at the opportunity. It was a phenomenal show, even if my back started aching so bad from standing in one spot that I resorted to these awkward, in-the-middle-of-a-crowd deep knee bends between songs to ease the pain (didn’t work).

There was one moment at the end of the concert that really stood out to me. Glen Hansard was encouraging the crowd to sing along to a particular part of the song, and then the band slowly faded out, and all that was left were a few thousand voices resonating in surprisingly tight harmony through this ornately decorated, expansive and echoing theater. And as the voices filled the room I could see that Glen was visibly moved by it, and I have to admit — even as someone who’s a bit of a group-think, beware-the-emotion skeptic in these circumstances — there was something powerful (dare I say the most overused word “spiritual”?) about that moment.

As the song ended and the voices faded, the crowd was uncharacteristically quiet for a second, as if realizing something significant had taken up residence among us, and deserved to dissipate in silence. And then the clapping and yelling and song requests started back up and the moment was gone. But ever since then I’ve been wondering what about that moment was so powerful. Here’s my best guess:

lazarus

Lately I’ve been revisiting the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, and remembering how this is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. About a year, ago, right after I learned some new details about this story, I wrote the thoughts below. Thought I’d post them now.

I love finding out new things about the Bible. I imagine it’s kind of like being married to someone for years, and one day seeing a mannerism or quirk you’d missed to that point, and in that moment falling in love with them all over again. That’s what it feels like for me.

Anyway, I was listening to a sermon on the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and the speaker was explaining how the translators of the Bible have been hesitant to record a couple words accurately from the Greek. And so in many versions it reads that Jesus was “deeply moved and troubled in spirit” when he sees the grief of Mary and Martha, and again is “deeply moved” as he observes the mouners weeping.

Problem is “deeply moved” doesn’t really echo the meaning of the original text.

starbucks

I’ve gotten really tired of comparing the Church to corporations. And I’m just tired in general of critiquing the Church. It’s starting to feel like poking fun at your old, slightly senile grandma. Sure she’s a little crazy, but you love her not just because she’s family, but because we’re all a little crazy right, and who are we?

I just felt like I had to get that out of the way before saying …

… that I was at Starbucks today getting some writing done. And as happens every holiday season at Starbucks an employee was cruising the store, passing out dixie cup shots of caffeinated holiday cheer. Today’s was egg nog coffee. Bad idea.

Anyway, Promotional Barista Guy offered a sample to these two ladies who were sitting at a couch talking and one lady turned him down saying “I’m not really a coffee drinker.” And all I could think was “really? You know you’re at Starbucks right?”

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Starbucks is absolutely brilliant.