4 posts tagged “cinema”
Jason Clark has published last month a review of a book, Did Jesus go to the Theatre? by an author named Nick Page. I love the title, and am interested in the book. Here is a link to a presentation by Page.
I loved the movie Juno. It was simple. It was authentic. It was a glimpse of broken folks getting better. It had great music. (I kick myself for missing Kimya Dawson's concert a couple of weeks ago here in town.)
Still, the movie was troubling--as all good movies are, at some level. What about having babies out of wedlock? The movie addresses the complications, but not the convictions, of this notion--leaving the rest of us to pick up the conversation.
In a profound article in Slate, columnist Emily Yoffe writes here about the dangerous trend that de-links procreation and marriage. Citing one letter she's received along these lines:
My boyfriend and I have a 4-year-old son. We've broken up but realized that we truly are meant for one another. My father was diagnosed with stage four cancer last year, and I've made it known to my boyfriend how important it is for me to have my father with me when I get married. When I bring up marriage to my boyfriend his reply is we will get married, I promise, but he has not asked me.
And then, towards the end, she describes a scene from the movie and concludes with a significant challenge:
There is a scene in the teen pregnancy movie Juno in which the title character, a 16-year-old who has decided not to abort her unplanned baby but to give it up for adoption, is having an ultrasound. The technician, thinking she has on the examining table another knocked-up teenager planning to raise her child, makes disparaging remarks about children born into those circumstances. We are supposed to loathe this character and cheer when Juno's stepmother puts her in her place. But I found myself sympathetic to the technician. Why is it verboten to express the truth that growing up with a lonely, overwhelmed mother and a missing father is a recipe for childhood pain?
Any Given Sunday attempts to take a hard look at the Real NFL. In it, Oliver Stone and Al Pacino team up for a controversial portrayal of the unvarnished, behind-the-scene lives of the professional football player of today. I have a hunch that, in the end, they reveal more about the cynical image Hollywood has of the league than the workaday lives of the average NFL player.
The result falls short of this lofty goal, though there are moments of real brilliance. Amid its raunchy, boobalicious, B-grade elements, one finds some profound insights into the modern, human condition. These insights address our fears, our failures, and our ever-present desire to quit in the face of oppresion and impossible odds.
The greatest statement in the film comes right at the climax, where the Miami Shark's soul hangs in the balance. Al Pacino, playing the tired, battle-worn coach, speaks with a silver tongue these amazing words:
I don't know what to say really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we are going to crumble. Inch by inch play by play till we're finished. We are in hell right now, gentlemen believe me and we can stay here and get the sh*t kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch, at a time.
***
You know when you get old in life things get taken from you. That's, that's part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game life or football the margin for error is so small. I mean one half step too late or to early you don't quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in ever break of the game every minute, every second.
On this team, we fight for that inch On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that's going to make the f****ing difference between WINNING and LOSING between LIVING and DYING.
***
Inch by inch. The inches we need are everywhere around us. Where does a person summon the strength to attack and conquer these inches? The inch to stay in a marriage? To get up and go to work one more day? To stay away from the bottle? The knife? The anger? The fear? The loneliness?
The coach answers the question of where by pointing the weary players to one another--to the team. "Either we live as a team or we die as a team," he says. And he's right. Strength to endure comes from community; it is part of our nature.
But why community? Is the ultimate hope of humanity man himself? With hope that shallow, we ought to be ashamed to call it hope at all. Ultimately, endurance in community derives from the transcendent character of a communal, Triune God, who the ancient writer, Moses, described in prayer as being "from everlasting, to everlasting."
We find strength in one another, on our teams, in our families, churches, schools, neighborhoods, to endure because He Himself endures. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in perfect community, in perfect unity, is both the ground and source of our endurance.
Shed tears over answered prayers? Seems counterintuitive.
Going along with the story, we see Capote had plenty of warning signs along the way pointing to the fact that he was in too deep. Basically, he lost all perspective and was drowned in his own pursuits. Sounds like burnout with a capital "B."
Burnout among church planters is a well-known phenomenon. As
envigorating as it could be (church planting could change my view of
church forever--and I welcome that possibility) it can also be
spiritually diminishing. How do I keep from becoming so enmeshed in
such a venture that my passion and vision for the pastoral ministry is
kept alive?
This seems to be a struggle not unique to church planting, however. Ask any pastor how he keeps his faith and he'll likely tell you, "by the grace of God." Well, there are worse ways to keep the faith, aren't there? I'll raise a glass to church planting "by the grace of God."
