The Best Film of 2009
I don’t read a lot of blogs, but there is one that I love to visit called “Three Hands in the Popcorn Bag,” created by a friend of mine and two of his friends, dedicated to reviewing movies of all shapes and sizes, beautiful and absurd. One week will provide captivating reflections on theologically/sociologically rich films like Babette’s Feast and City of God, while other weeks you can read the most insightful review ever attributed to Saw IV or Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus 3D. These guys maintain a great site, and I recommend it.
One of the things this blog provides, each year, is a Top Five list of films from each of the three contributors. Their latest ones, recently posted, reminded me that I used to do the same, though last year I did not provide a list mainly because I had moved out of the States before I was able to see several movies on which I had waited. Living in Germany makes it difficult to catch new releases, especially if you are on a missionary budget. I have to drive into Switzerland to catch movies in English, and there is no affordable English-dubbed Netflix or Redbox in Deutschland. It costs around $14 to see a movie in the theater, so I have only been to two since moving to Germany eighteen months ago. And as for independent films, like the kind my Waco friends and I used to drive up to Dallas to see on Saturdays, I have had to bid a sad farewell to almost all of them. The only blessing has been the occasional opportunity to download a new or recent release from some ethically-gray movie website. I promise, as soon as Germany installs a Blockbuster in the village of Kandern, or allows me an overseas Netflix membership, I’ll fork over the dough.
And yet, despite only being able to see a fraction of 2009 films this past year, I have nevertheless compiled my own list. In the past, this has been a Top Ten list, but I’m reducing it to a few different Top Five groupings because of a lack of material. So, without further adieu…
TOP FIVE FILMS OF 2009
1) The Hurt Locker
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie
I was lucky enough to find this one online last summer, but had I gotten the opportunity to travel to Switzerland, I would have considered the exorbitant cost worth it for. There are two kinds of war films – ones that focus on the overall glory/brutality of war, and ones that focus not on the war itself, but on the soldiers who struggle through it. Both can achieve greatness, but, by and large, I have always found the character-driven war films superior. The Hurt Locker is an extraordinary, character-driven war film. The Iraq War, with all its chaos and controversy, takes a back seat to three specific soldiers of the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), perhaps the most dangerous job in the war. It is as tense a thriller as they come, but also as moving and thought-provoking as any film I have seen in recent history. If you missed it in the theaters, add it to the Netflix queue or snag it from the Red Box. It should win the Best Picture Oscar, but even though it probably won’t, I don’t expect to see a better film come out of 2009.
2) The Road
Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Yes, it is depressing. Yes, it is bleak. Yes, the small strand of hope woven through the story is almost imperceptible at times. But just as this was perhaps the most moving novel of 2006, the film is a spot-on adaptation. The cinematography triumphs in an unrelenting display of a desolate, post-apocalyptic world. If the film could not properly capture this critical element, it simply would not work. But director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) succeeds with this and much more. I would go so far as to insist that the world he creates is more emotionally mesmerizing than James Cameron’s planet of Pandora. Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee are wonderful as the Man and the Boy, and brief appearances by Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Michael K. Williams and Guy Pearce are perfect in their tragic simplicity. The film only serves to remind me why I have fought to teach Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to my American Literature Honors class this year.
3) Zombieland
Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrellson
Those who know me and my affinity for moviegoing might be surprised that such a ridiculous film made it on my Top Five list. However, chalking its presence up to the fact that I haven’t seen that many films this year would not be correct. While there are several highly-regarded 2009 films that I still have yet to see, it is safe to assume that Zombieland would still fall ahead of many of them. The beauty of this horror-comedy is its intelligibility and its absence of adornment. It does not try to do or be too much. It is simply a road movie about four survivors of a zombie apocalypse seeking safety and togetherness. It contains a wonderful mix of pop-culture jokes, visual gags and chuckle-filled violence, not to mention the best star-cameo I’ve ever seen on film. And what other film would have its hero’s archetypical “Ultimate Boon” be as seemingly insignificant as a Twinkie? I have not wanted to see a sequel this much in a long, long time.
4) The Hangover
Bradley Cooper, Zack Galafanakis
The greatness of this comedy lies in its non-stop outlandishness. One cannot help but respect the wide inventiveness of the writers’ imaginations. From a mystery baby, to Mike Tyson’s bengal tiger, to the naked Asian in the trunk, I felt as amnesic as the three buffoons running all over Las Vegas trying to retrace their drunken, meandering steps from the night before. Is the film crude at times? Yes. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Is it believable? Absolutely not. But this is exactly the point. Like Wedding Crashers before it, this film deserves the laughs it yanks out of you, even if you can’t help but cover your mouth with your hand from the shock of it. This film surpasses so many mediocre screwball comedies of recent years. It is nice to know Hollywood can still do funny right.
5) Inglourious Basterds
Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz
I’m still chewing on this one, to be honest. I only watched it a week ago. However, in the middle of my viewing, around the time Standartenführer Landa is sharing dessert with Shosanna, I was reminded of why this film should be considered great: it is a return to true Tarantino form – pitch-perfect dialogue. At one point, my wife asked, “Why is each scene so long?” I explained that Tarantino’s talent is finding a way to keep extended on-screen conversations riveting, and this is certainly true in Basterds. Kill Bill was good, but fell short of films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction because it traded away some of its dialogue for extensive scenes of gore and violence. But, with Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has returned to the balance that works best. Nevermind that the entire second half of the film is an absurd reimagining of the end of WWII. The tagline on the poster – “Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France” – reminds the viewer of the fantastical proposition of this story. The tightness of the storytelling, along with impressive acting all around, convinces me I will be hard-pressed to find a better film from 2009.
HONORABLE MENTIONS - Films Definitely Worth Seeing
500 Days of Summer – Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great, as is Zooey Deschanel. The freshness of the story, and its refusal to be a same-old, same-old romantic comedy, captivated me throughout.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – One of the two films I have seen in the theater in Switzerland (hey, I’m a Potter fan). This film was well done. I include it as an honorable mention even though, for some odd reason, the filmmakers played down the climactic final confrontation from the book, and instead included a whole new scene in the middle that finds the Weasley’s house on fire. Still, though, this is a vast improvement from Order of the Phoenix, and the presence of Jim Broadbent (as Professor Slughorn) was the best casting of a new character so far. Thankfully, the kids are continuing to hone their acting skills, even Ginny (Bonnie Wright), which is nice to see.
Avatar – Yes, the story is lacking in places (pretty much a Dances With Wolves rip-off just like The Last Samurai), but it is not nearly as painful to sit through as Titanic’s preposterous love story. Visually, it is an amazing cinematic achievement. Even for Switzlerland’s 3D screen costs, it is worth the price just to see Pandora.
Fanboys – Okay, it was a silly movie about a bunch of twenty-something nerds road tripping to Lucas Ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode One. But, on the other hand, it was about a bunch of twenty-something nerds road tripping to Lucas Ranch to steal a copy of Star Wars: Episode One. Full of Star Wars/ Star Trek humor, improbably road trip gags, and Seth Rogan’s best comedic role to date, this is worth watching if you have any appreciation for the original Star Wars trilogy.
District 9 – The jury is still out, as I just watched this last night. However, I have to give credit to the originality of both the story and the filmmaking. While I had trouble watching half the scenes in documentary-style when no cameras were supposed to be around the characters, I was drawn in quickly by this odd, politically-charged science fiction film. I cannot say I regret seeing it, especially when movies are harder to come by where I live.
TOP FIVE WORST FILMS OF 2009
Speaking of regretting films, here are five that either royally disappointed me, or went so far as to cause me to lament that story-quality in Hollywood has been thrown out with the craft services trash from the Avatar set.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - To be honest, I don’t know why I watched it at all. Maybe because I have little to choose from here in Germany. But just like its 2007 predecessor, this film royally sucked. Who needs coherent story and logic in Hollywood when I gots me a bunch a guys who can generate a mess o’ loud noises and blow crap up for two and a half hours?
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – Watched it with the wife. Aside from the fact that the screenwriters basically pissed all over Dickens, it only served to remind me that Matthew McConaughey is the go-to guy to play chauvinistic pricks, and that is not a good thing. If it weren’t for Tropic Thunder, I don’t think I could look at the guy anymore.
Pandorum - I wanted to like this film. I like Ben Foster. I think that he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are the two best young male actors working today. And the problem with this film was not its look or even its pacing. Rather, it was the balance. I knew what was going on not because the film clearly communicated this to me, but because I worked my way through this movie based on thinking like the writer and director. Insert crazy psychological twist here, add improbable situation here, apply creepy character here. All in all, it was too concerned with keeping me guessing to keep me interested.
Knowing – Actually started with promise, even if it felt like the filmmakers were beating me over the head to communicate Nicolas Cage’s spiritual crisis. However, the ridiculous spiritual allusions within this film left me shaking my head in annoyance. And then there was the lame Deus Ex Machina ending so far out of left field that its in the parking lot of another town’s stadium. I like a disaster film as much as the next guy, but I rolled my eyes so much during this film that I went to bed with a pulsating headache.
Funny People – I was excited about this film. I am a fan of Judd Apatow – well, the films he writes, not the pieces of crap he produces. I was interested to see his new dramedy. When it comes to Adam Sandler in a serious role, I’m on board. I think he’s got some chops. However, this film was a mess. A complete mess. It wanted to be too many things, a drama, a buddy-comedy, a romance, a coming-of-age tale… In the end, all I could think about was how many things I would change about the story. Too bad.
TOP TEN 2009 MOVIES I STILL WANT TO SEE
1 - A Serious Man – I heart the Cohen brothers.
2 – Invictus – I also heart Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood.
3 – Up in the Air – I actually downloaded this but haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. I liked director Jason Reitman’s Thank You for Smoking and Juno, but only somewhat. However, from what I’ve heard about this one, I’m more eager to see it than I ever was the other two.
4 – The Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson could direct a pro-Hitler movie and I’d watch it.
5 – Star Trek – I am still very eager to see this remake. I never saw the highly-praised reboot of James Bond (Casino Royale) either, and it’s ticking me off.
6 – The White Ribbon – I’ve heard this film is extraordinary, and living in Germany, I truly hope I can see it soon.
7 – The Men Who Stare at Goats – Still hoping I can locate a copy of this online. Looks like a great cast and an interesting story. One of our friends, Kristen, recently reminded me that I like Ewen McGregor.
8 – The Lovely Bones – Peter Jackson is a great director, plain and simple. I haven’t read this book, but I am definitely up for the film adaptation.
9 – Where the Wild Things Are – I’m wary of children’s books being turned into films, but this one looked intriguing.
10 – The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – Not only because it was Heath Ledger’s last film, and I think he was really starting to find his acting chops since Brokeback Mountain, I am also a fan of Terry Gilliam. I don’t know if it will be any good, but I definitely think it is worth checking out.
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And that’s all there is, friends. Please let me know if you have seen any of the above listed films, and your thoughts on them.
This must be stated at the outset: if it weren’t for archetypes, James Cameron would only be directing music videos at record-breaking cost, not major motion pictures.
However, it should also be stated at the outset that this is not a negative review.
I have loathed James Cameron ever since Titanic crashed into cinemas ten years ago and proceeded to sell out four screens-worth of showings for four months thanks to teenage and twenty-something girls seeking to be ravished by tragic, star-crossed love. (This was half a generation before Twilight could do the same.) I hated the film because it was a sub-par, predictable love story masquerading as an epic masterpiece, but no one seemed to care because they “liked the part when the boat busted in half and that dude hit the propellor thing.” Since then, it went without saying that I avoided James Cameron films, which I saw as nothing more than Michael Bay forbears – cool effects, but with holes in the story so large you could drive Optimus Prime through them.
But the guy is starting to grow on me.
I was told Avatar was something special. I was told this by people who, though they seemed the equivalent of those teenage girls (the ones who plastered posters of King-of-the-World Leo all over their dorm rooms), still spoke with the utmost sincerity. I was also aware that Avatar was best when viewed in 3D, and given my knowledge of James Cameron’s lame stories, I figured that if I was going to watch this movie, it would be solely for the visual effects. In the end, my better judgement lost a battle against my curiosity, and the wife and I scrounged up some cash, drove into Basel, Switzerland (the closest theater that shows films in English), and sat ourselves down in the theater, silly 3D glasses and all.
Visually, Avatar is stunning. It captivated me in a way few movies did when they first hit theaters. Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and Flight of the Navigator come to mind, the last one being released when I was six-years old, so cut me some slack if you know of it. Cameron is clearly a fan of bio-luminescence. The world he creates, Pandora, is something like what you would get if you fused Halo terrain, Lothlorien from The Lord of the Rings, and the Great Barrier Reef into one three-dimensional ecosystem inhabited by spiritually supersensitive blue aliens with tails and sparkly skin. As it stands, if what you are after in a movie-going experience is visual stimulation, then there probably has not been a more impressive display on-screen since George Lucas introduced Star Wars to the public in 1977.
But what about story?
One of the first units I teach in my high school English class is a series of lessons on literary archetypes. Simply put, literary archetypes are derived from the psychologist Carl Jung’s “archetype,” an aspect of the psyche that finds worldwide parallels across cultures, traditions and languages. In other words, an American, a Korean and a German can all have daddy issues that cause them similar psychological stress. Literary archetypes are, therefore, patterns, characters, situations or symbols that seem to surface in stories told across the globe. They are narrative elements that captivate people on an instinctual level. We all can recognize the Damsel in Distress, the Scapegoat or the Outcast. We all understand that Excaliber, Sting, the Elder Wand, and a silver bullet all represent the Magic Weapon. We accept that for a Hero to prove himself, he must first undergo some sort of test, initiation, or series of trials – this is in keeping with the Hero Cycle (also known as the Monomyth). It is the presence of literary archetypes that help audiences identify with characters so vastly different from ourselves, as well as with those who could very well be us. Samwise Gamgee, Donkey, Sir Galahad, and Timon and Pumbah are the Loyal Retainers. Morpheus, Gandalf, Rafiki and Doc Brown are the Wise Old Man. Harry Potter’s scar, Achilles’ heel and St. Paul’s thorn are the Unhealable Wound. The list goes on…
The reason Avatar works as a film is not due completely to the special effects, which are no doubt impressive. The reason the film works and entertains so many is the same reason Star Wars keeps people riveted, or The Matrix, or Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Godfather, or every Disney or Pixar film ever made. These stories, no matter how epic in scope, are comprised of similar archetypes – specific characters, situations and symbols that serve as the building blocks of story.
When I explain to my students that almost every story – tall-tale, book or film – contain archetypes, they sometimes accuse me of insinuating that every story is just a copy of something else. But this is not the case. While it is true that many stories follow similar patterns – this is sometimes called the “type story” – it does not necessarily mean the writer had no better ideas and simply stole outright from something else. Archetypes are as important to storytellers as they are to story readers.
So, is this why James Cameron’s Avatar is essentially Dances With Wolves in space? Yes and no. Yes, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a Kevin Costner military outsider who finds himself living among a tribal people, just as Tom Cruise was in The Last Samurai. However, if you were to scour the history of narratives, you would probably find a similar story that predates all three of these tales. Why? Because the sentiment that goes with this story arc should not be, “I’ve seen this all before,” but rather, “This story type is compelling.”
Now, this does not mean that I am letting Cameron’s storytelling off the hook. It is one thing to utilize a type story. Cameron has done this with every one of his films, from the Terminator films, to Aliens, to Titanic. A type story may or may not have depth in its simplicity. Of course, we are drawn to both, but those of us who truly cherish the power of story will be more impressed with those tellers who took care to express their version of the type story in a unique way, full of detail and well-rounded characters. In contrast, Cameron’s Titanic was a clichéd mess, a parade of shallow characters floating across the deep blue sea. Avatar, though, is an improvement. The narrative is not as powerful as Dances With Wolves or other films that have won awards for their stories. However, in a film where it is obvious that the visual effects are meant to be center stage, mindful moviegoers can accept the thinness of story to an extent.
I recommend Avatar, which is not something I thought I would be writing before I sat down in the theater with those ridiculous glasses on my head. I will even go so far as to state that Avatar is groundbreaking filmmaking. Perhaps, in ten more years, James Cameron will have learned even more about the writing process, and will trump himself. In the meantime, even the simplicity of Avatar’s story only goes to show that there are things that move us all. There are elements in the stories we read, the stories we watch, and even, if we are intentional about it, the stories we live that remind us that life is extraordinary.
My last post hinted that this was coming.
Almost every year, I feel compelled to make New Year’s resolutions. These commitments are usually more whim and spur-of-the-moment than carefully calculated. Jesus encourages even those who decide to follow him to “count the cost,” but rarely do I do so even when determining what behaviors, habits or vices I am endeavoring to change, whether from a spiritual standpoint or not.
And so, this year, like all the rest, I have a list of resolutions. I do not mean to approach them with complete pessimism, here on the first day of the new year. However, thirty years has shown me that human beings struggle with the concept of commitment, one way or another. And in light of my past failures, where my resolve faded into vapor and dissipated completely before the end of March, I find it difficult to expect much more from myself. Recent studies show that while more than 50% of people who make resolutions are confident in their commitment, only around 10-12% actually achieve the results for which they are hoping.
And yet, I will once again make my resolutions, and perhaps some of you unidentified readers may even check in on me from time to time, to see if I have been able to keep them. March will be a crucial month, only because to make it through that will mean that I have broken my previous record of commitment longevity.
Resolution #1 – Losing Ten Pounds – I’m not shooting the moon with this one, as I have been known to do in the past. Nor am I keeping the resolution ambiguous by simply resolving to “lose weight.” I have come to the point in my life, however, where I have moved past mild embarrassment to outright disgust of my weight. The ironic thing is, I have the exercise tools and the understanding necessary to make this happen, but hardly any willpower. So, this resolution hinges on coldly forcing myself to stick in a P90X DVD or lace up my running shoes when I return home from a long day of teaching, rather than my usual routine of crashing onto the couch like a plane full of soccer players into the Andes mountains.
Resolution #2 – Pray the Daily Office – At this stage of my life, I know it is probably beyond my ability to take up the discipline of an oblate, which is a commitment I hope to make and keep later in life. However, if I am completely honest with myself, it has been a very long time since I have experienced any fresh commitment and devotion to the God whom I serve as a missionary here in Germany. The reason for this, I believe, stems from the struggle I have with prayer. I have never been good at it. Don’t get me wrong, I can communicate with God, but continual, ritual prayer is something that I avoid, and I’m not sure why. I suspect it has something to do with the low esteem in which I hold myself (my inability to truly rest in God’s grace), and the pointlessness I feel most of the time when I pray. Nevertheless, I have a Book of Common Prayer and a special Daily Office prayer book, and, if necessary, I will view this spiritual exercise in much the same way as Resolution #1. I will force myself to remember the hours of prayer, at least Lauds and Vespers (morning and evening), if not Sext (noon). Why? Because I need to reconnect myself to, as Eugene Peterson puts it in his translation of Scripture, “the unforced rhythms of grace.” Irony surfaces again, since it might take forcing myself to keep the Hours that I encounter the “unforced” grace of God.
Resolution #3 – Discipline My Writing – It is frustrating to know exactly what you want to do with your life, yet not have the time to do it even as a hobby. For me, if I could do one thing in this life, I would write. Unfortunately, one can choose either to write or to pay bills and provide for a family (unless you’re one of the lucky ones who is somehow able to carve out time to finish a major work, and then actually find a publisher willing to pay you for it). Right now, as an educator, free time is hard to come by, especially once I add Resolution #1. I know I will not always be teaching, but once I stop, I most likely will not be moving on to full-time writing as my vocation, because, as I have stated, I have a family to care for, and no one pays an unknown writer for writing. However, the kicker is not the lack of recognition; seriously, I can live without that. It is the lack of discipline I maintain when even attempting to write. I have maybe two hours a day – at most – to write, and that includes stealing one of my school planning periods. In this time, one question plagues me – what do I work on? I have multiple ideas, multiple projects, but no ability to choose. I’m the John Kerry of amateur writers. I flip-flop between stories every week. And, while I am overjoyed that my first child will arrive in May, I know that caring for him or her will significantly lessen my opportunity to sit down to keyboard and canvas. All in all, this is one resolution that I have no idea how to approach. All I know is that I have to figure out how to create my own committed rhythm in this realm of life as well.
Resolution #4 – Practice Spending More Time on My Family – The baby will be here in May, and with that, Leigh and I will officially begin a family that includes more members than just ourselves. However, I am terrible about spending enough time with Leigh, let alone this new child. I believe that what people tell me is true, that I will fall in love with this child and my life “will change.” However, one thing I know is that I have no idea how to be a husband and a father. I’ve had almost three years to practice the former and I’m pretty sure I’m not very good at it. And the latter is being thrust upon me, ready or not. Needless to say, I’m afraid of becoming even worse of a caregiver. Leigh needs attention, and not just because she is a woman. It is how she is wired. Unfortunately, my wiring reflects more of a loner mentality. I am perfectly fine with being alone. I do consider myself a writer, after all, and writing is a lonely craft. A writer has a creative mind, and because of this, he or she spends a lot of time rooting around in their minds, considering, pondering, musing. Most of the time, a writer is unaware that the or she has retreated into the mind. For a person who requires significant amounts of attention, being hitched to a writer is a difficult thing. I can’t imagine what it is like to be the newborn child of a writer. So, I have to figure out a system of checks so that I do not regress to alienating my wife or my child. This will directly challenge Resolution #3, which only goes to show that I do not expect to keep all of these resolutions. Let’s just hope the important ones win out.
Resolution #5 – Get Rid of the Anger – I have surprised myself over the last few years, and not in a good way. I have noticed that I react angrily and pettily to many things, even little things that do not deserve any focus whatsoever. I think Leigh and I both have a tendency to blow things (responses, questions, lazy statements) out of proportion, as do most people who forego paying attention to their integrity – that is, who they are and what they are about even when no one else is around. And yet, my anger has become something that I truly battle, even so much that I struggle with prayer because of a heavy sense of guilt at being so angry. I have to end this undertow of anger – to thinking and speaking out of bitterness and cynicism. This is perhaps the most difficult resolution of all, but perhaps the most important, even more than dropping those pounds.
So, here I go. I’ll revisit these in one year, and we shall see how successful 2010 turned out to be.
Another Christmas has come and gone, and a New Year approaches rapidly now. On the other side of the 25th, the New Year still seems far away; plenty of time for wonderful, holiday procrastination. But the day after Christmas, everything changes. You realize that in only seven short days, a New Year will be upon you. And, if you’re like me, you feel a compelling need to make resolutions even though experience has taught that you only have perhaps a 25% success rate with those things, at best. Then again, if you try to stay in tune with the Christian calendar like I do, you realize that you’re already four weeks into a new year; Advent is coming to a close and the Church doggedly progresses toward Epiphany.
With each passing season, I find that name – “Epiphany” – the strangest, and silliest, of names for a season of the Church. I know I could look deeper into the etymology of the word and learn the reason behind it, but I haven’t done so yet. Instead, I head toward Epiphany hoping for my own little epiphany – that around the time many people in the western world seek to establish and keep New Year’s resolutions, I spend fleeting moments in wishful thinking, longing for a kind of life-altering epiphany that changes me from within – that burns away the mounds of “bad” and enhances that remnant of “good.”
Chasing epiphanies is a hard habit to shake, like smoking. It’s unhealthy hope, but it is a kind of hope, and that makes it hard to give up. I recently turned thirty, but it didn’t take that many years for me to learn that epiphanies like the kind I have described don’t usually take place in real-life, at least not with the same secure finality. Sure, you can learn something, or make a new, drastic commitment to something (or someone – marriage anyone?), but all the “bad” – the struggles, the temptations, the anger, the fears, the insecurities, the vices, the false gods – doesn’t magically disappear because your commitment or resolution is large. Instead, things just get harder.
And so it goes…
In Germany, they call this Boxing Day. Well, actually, I’m not sure what they call it, but the English translation is “Boxing Day.” It’s the day after Christmas. The stores aren’t open. Mail doesn’t circulate. The Recyclinghof is closed. It’s a kind of sabbath, actually. People stay in their dens where it is warm and the door that leads back into the world stays closed, at least for one more day. It’s nice. I know that if I were still living in the States, I would probably be suckered into all the sales at all the stores, just like the day after Thanksgiving. Why is it that after holidays marked by rest, family, thankfulness and love, so many people are so willing to leap back into the frantic mess of a world from which they are so excited to procure time off? It’s a strange phenomenon, I suppose. But I believe there is something there, a layer of worldliness that we need to peel away and burn, rather than simply check on the coat rack by the door that leads back into the world. At least for one more day. After all, a New Year, full of turmoil, bitterness, stress, confusion and disillusionment, is fast approaching. We would do well to take one more day to build up our immunities.
I was thinking recently about the ramifications of turning thirty, which is happening today as I write this. A lot of people freak out when they encounter their thirtieth candle, and a few may even go so far as to begin age-denial before it is really warranted (that should happen a decade later, I think). On Friends, Joey weeps and cries to the heavens not only at his own thirtieth, but at each of his friends’. With all the trepidation and anxiety of turning thirty, one would think the transition was an excruciating transformation on par with David Naughton’s sudden lycanthrophizing in An American Werewolf in London. In reality, I don’t feel much different today, and I haven’t noticed any extra hair on my palms or the gradual emergence of a uni-brow.
I was explaining to a friend that thirty doesn’t seem so old when you avoid the big picture perspective. In other words, as long as I only consider myself no longer twenty-nine, the change seems hardly significant. However, were I to consider the cold, hard truth that my twenties – an entire freakin’ decade! – are over … well then, that might cause my stomach to lurch or compel me to curl up into a fetal position in mournful denial of what is taking place.
The other day, as I walked the dogs along the strips of grass between the plowed fields that surround the farm on which we live, I told God I was sorry for the way I lived my twenties. Specifically, I confessed that I had spent the bulk of my twenties living quite selfishly, not to mention lazily. Sure, there were good moments: the summer of ‘03 before seminary, which was the last time I can remember feeling comfortable singing praise songs in the car, May of ‘05 when I was ushered into the richness of the Church’s liturgical tradition courtesy of the monks at Christ in the Desert, and that one shining day in April of ‘07 when I made a vow and swore to keep it. I believe these were sacramental moments, times when God and I met together in perfect allegiance. However, I have come to realize that in between these good moments are a plethora of days in which I rejected His sacramental nature, where I turned a deaf ear to His song, where I cast my eyes away from his wonder.
There were too many days lived within the bleak, black tunnel of my world, rather than the vast, rolling vista of His landscape.
I prayed to God that this new decade of life – should I be blessed with another full set of ten years – would find me turning aside from myself and falling graciously into His purposes.
May it be so for me now, on this day, and for you as well, no matter what day, year or decade in which you find yourself.
So, here is the problem that has kept me from this blog as of late.
Leigh and I are out of money.
When you work as missionaries, this is a significant problem. When you work as missionaries who are required to raise their own support, this is a catastrophe.
It all comes down to the fact that eighteen months ago, as Leigh and I were engaged in initial fundraising before leaving for the field, we received numerous gifts from supporters, many of whom attended the church where I worked and we worshipped. These gifts came in the form of one-time donations rather than monthly contributions. But these monies were sufficient, and allowed us to live comfortably for the first year. However, upon sending out letters to these same supporters last September, we received a repeat gift from only one family. The rest of the requests went unanswered. This took our support from 100% to 37% in the span of a mere two months. We have been forced to rely solely upon the gifts of supporters who donate monthly, and though these people are saints, the cumulative amount of monthly donations is simply not enough to keep us on the field.
We discovered this paucity in our finances a few weeks ago, and while “quarantined” at home to avoid Swine Flu, we spent our days writing letters, updating our website and sending e-mails to as many people as we could think of who might be willing to give. Metaphorically, we have dropped to our knees before these people, hat in hand, pleading with them to consider supporting us financially. The simple fact is, if these pleas fall on too many deaf ears, we will be forced to pack our belongings and leave the mission field during the Christmas holidays. As such, we will leave the school high and dry in a year where everyone is already struggling to cope with a lack of staff. Who will teach the 11th grade class if I leave over the break? I do not know, and, sadly, neither does the administration.
Often, I deny any thought that my life truly affects others, at least in a straight-forward way. I see now that it most certainly does. But sometimes, even that is not enough reason for potential supporters to become committed supporters.
This is a discouraging time, though not in the way you might think. While it is hard to hear back from people who tell you they cannot or will not support you, what is most discouraging is when you do not hear back from people at all. Even in an hour of extreme need, people simply ignore your e-mails, throw aside your letters, and avoid your calls. Discourtesy is an understatement. Whether or not this reflects a selfishness or an arrogance in my attitude, how can I not feel like the Jew beaten on the side of the road, watching through one swollen, bloodied, half-open eye as the Priest and the Levite, who have the means, pass by me because they do not have the heart? This brings me to one simple truth about fundraising.
Fundraising is, essentially, searching for Samaritans.
Leigh and I wait, and are surprised by, the unlikely supporters. The people who are willing to give whatever they can to help, and are willing to do so without condition, without even an assurance that success will come as a result of their gift. We are praying for Samaritans who will encounter our condition, be it through e-mails, letters, or blog posts, and find themselves unable to look away. The Priests and the Levites perpetuate the biggest hindrance in a missionary’s efforts – that is, “out of sight, out of mind.” So many people find it so easy to look away. It is the Samaritan, the most unlikely of givers, who find they simply can’t ignore the problem, no matter how much it might inconvenience them.
Yesterday, Leigh and I received word from a friend of ours here at Black Forest Academy. She is a fellow missionary, struggling her own self to maintain her finances. Yet she finds herself in a much more manageable situation than we do, and so with her own gifted funds, she has committed to supporting us $50 per month for as long as we need, or as long as she is able. This came as an extraordinary shock. One missionary, who has every excuse in the world not to stop and tend the wounded (since they so often are the wounded), still indulging a willingness to give. That is stewardship at its most beautiful.
That is true Samaritanness.
We are struggling. We do not know if we will have to say a too-soon good-bye to this mission field we love. But still, we search for Samaritans, and we pray that God would make us into them as well.
Swine Flu.
Six months ago, it was just another fly-by-night disease with a funny animal name, following in the footsteps of such classics as Bird Flu and Monkey Pox.
Three months ago, it was a serious problem, but one that dwelled far away in the mystical land known as Somewhere Else.
Today, it is a mind-warping, logic-breaking, pain-in-the-curly-tail bastard of a disease, spawned from the putrid, unholy depths of the ninth circle of an apocalyptic lake of fire. I half-expect the next development in this living medical nightmare to include either flying monkeys in bell-hop outfits, or chain-rattling ghost pigs rising from some local farmer’s pig pen that was accidentally spread over an ancient Anglo-Saxon burial ground.
My school is seeing attendance in classes drop left and right as more and more students fall victim to the fevers, the coughs, the vomiting, and all the other wonderful things that this latest global catastrophe has to offer. It doesn’t help that the administration here is continuing to take the “let’s wait and see” approach even after having more than one confirmed case and a local doctor telling us that the school should be shut down. The humor in all this – or is it irony? – is that my wife, the Head Nurse at the school, is forced to remain at home this week and the next, this out of precaution because of her pregnancy. So she is out of the loop, unable to help. What is more, today I and several other teachers who have susceptible family members were asked to wear face masks and Latex gloves while working with students. Have you ever seen a dentist teach American Literature to smirking high school students? Had you been in one of my classes today, you would understand what such an absurdity might look like.
Right now, there is a lot that remains up in the air. The school might close, per the insistence of the Gesundheitsamt, one of Deutschland’s equivalents to the CDC. The school might remain open despite serious concerns. The school might mangle another week’s schedule by sending students to their dorms for the majority of next week, then calling them back for a Friday-Saturday catch-up. The school might be turned into the world’s first ham-from-humans processing plant. All I know is, I’ll most likely be at home, taking the “better safe than sorry” approach, watching movies with my wife and probably blogging more ridiculous wonderstuffs.
In the midst of all this, it is nice to know that love, affection, friendship and tenderness still exist. And when those four crazy cohorts are out to lunch, there remains the silly ritual of boys at Black Forest Academy creatively asking the girls to the upcoming Christmas Banquet. Below you can watch some of this awkward goofiness unfold in my very own classroom, as one of the members of my small group takes advantage of a poetry reading exercise to pop the question to his date. I told them I felt like Cupid, but really I feel like Cupid’s grouchy and “toof”-less Uncle Roy – the one who owns the ranch down the road from Mount Olympus. The one who is shaking his fist at the sky and cursing Zeus and his pals for making bacon so delicious. “If i’ weren’, we’d'n’ have no Swine Fwu ta bagin wif!”
Yesterday, Leigh and I had our third doctor’s appointment for the baby. I had been nervous for the past few weeks, mainly because the nausea Leigh had experienced earlier, in the first few months of the pregnancy, had subsided. I was wondering if the little guy (or girl) was still in there, still alive and, if it had grown legs, kicking. My nerves were calmed, though, when we got to see the ultra-sound. It is a surreal thing to look into that compact, grainy screen and see this little alien being reclining in its tiny, cramped space. I don’t really know how to react. I mean, I smiled, but at the same time I’m wondering how normal parents respond to the sight. This goes to show that I still don’t feel like a parent – at least, not a normal one. However, I think it is pretty clear I’m not going to be a normal parent. Is anyone?
Here is the cool part. My son (or daughter – still another month or so before we can clarify that) waved at us! At one point, as the doctor pointed out the little torso and spine, the almost microscopic legs and arms, and the proportionately massive head (my kid is going to be a Mensa genius, I’m sure), we noticed one of the little arms in motion, smoothly moving back and forth. He or she was waving at us:
“Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad. How’s it going out there in breathing-with-lungs land. It’s a little cramped in here these days – feels like my apartment is just getting smaller and smaller by the day. Weird. But, hey, I’m enjoying the food you’re sending down, especially those Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups you snagged last week at the Ramstein Air Force Base commissary. More of those, please. Also, Mom, I apologize for the pressure on your bladder. I know it makes you have to pee every half hour or so, but, I gotta tell you, it’s the most comfortable pillow I can find. Don’t know why they built my apartment right on top of it, but I figure I might as well take advantage of the luxury. Dad, I’m looking forward to some reading sessions, and I’m glad to hear that you plan to skip all those lame children’s books and move right to some George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, or Jack London. When you live in a cramped little apartment like this, imagining wider, greener vistas is ideal. Apologies in advance for the kicking I plan to do in a few months. It’s just exercise – I gotta stay in shape, and Mom’s intestines will make a great punching bag.”
Yes, I got all of this out of the little wave our baby threw us. It’s nice to know our kid is so straightforward. As I mentioned, Mensa International should prepare themselves.
~bo
“We’re watching a scary movie,” I told them, “because it’s Halloween and that’s what you do.”
My wife and her visiting friend agreed to this insistence without much prodding, which was nice. So, after picking up a couple of pizzas (then driving back to the place and exchanging the one with squid all over it for the normal mozzarella and basil I ordered), we settled down to watch a modern classic, 28 Days Later. Since my hard drive crashed, I’m pretty short on movie choices, at least ones I have not viewed multiple times. I had never seen Danny Boyle’s rejuvenation of the zombie movie all the way through, so, as far as I was concerned, this was a treat. I only hoped my wife and her friend could make it through the whole thing.
What is it about being scared that can be addictive? Especially on Halloween, there is a tendency for people – and I’m referring to normal, run-o-the-mill folks – to desire a good fright every once in a while. Now, I am adamantly opposed to gorefests, particularly the ones that reject genuine suspense and fright for dismemberment and horrific, voyeuristic slashing. I would rather watch a bad Hitchcockian film than any movie Eli Roth has made. The only real scares in those movies comes from the suddencacophonous blasting of the soundtrack to startle the audience, instead of actually building the suspense and cultivating genuine unease. Thankfully, 28 Days Later, while at times extremely visceral and in-your-face, is a quality scary movie; it cultivates emotions with well-drawn characters, just like a good drama. In a way, it is a drama. A drama about zombies.
It is interesting to watch the transformation Jim (Cillian Murphy) undergoes throughout the course of the film. From wandering the seemingly deserted streets of a post-apocalyptic London, to entering into moments of tenderness and friendship with his fellow survivors, to his escape and subsequent assault on the rogue military men’s headquarters, in which he becomes “Rage” without being infected by it. His is a steelier, more calculated Rage. His is a Rage of redemption rather than damnation. I read on the Internet that Boyle and Garland, the screenwriter, did not like the ending they settled on as much as an alternate ending that found Jim dying in a hospital bed much like the one in which he awakens from his coma at the beginning of the film. They felt Jim’s character came full circle in this way rather than the way the film ultimately ends. However, one of the most delightful paradoxes in storytelling is that you don’t always have to return to the beginning to come full circle.
As far as the frights were concerned, 28 Days Later delivered. But it delivered more than fright, which, even on Halloween, is a welcomed thing.
Remember when the seasons changed when you were young, when autumn spread itself like a gray blanket over your bright summer and the sweat on your forehead and upper lip was replaced by the wonder of seeing your breath in little, wispy clouds that would grow larger as the temperature dropped?
I was reminded of such things this morning. For today is the coldest day of the year since winter thawed into spring. Autumn has no doubt come, with its gray skies and morning chill and that funny thing it does to leaves that were lush and green only a month ago. This morning, in preparing to walk my dogs, I didn’t simply grab my jacket on a whim. I searched for it. Overnight, my jacket became a necessity. Something about that makes me smile.
I walked up the road – or rather, I was dragged by two dogs who are certain something very important is going on without them just over the next hill – and I enjoyed watching my breath clouds dissipate before my face. Like most kids, when I was young I imagined I was smoking. Not because smoking was taboo or even because it looked “cool.” Smoking was adult. For some reason, even in their carefree innocence, kids are always looking forward to getting older. And adults always wish they could revisit earlier, carefree days. Double irony, it seems.
The lines of an old song I used to listen to in high school came back to me today. “You have been more faithful than the changing of seasons,” it goes. More faithful than the inevitable. Hmm, now that is something to ponder.
