Wake Up Dead Man

 

Jo and I watched ‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ last night. It is excellent (and very long: we took a tea break part way through) and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The attention to liturgical detail is exceptional for Hollywood.

Some thoughts, hopefully not much by way of spoilers.

[1] The Whodunnit and How are pretty obvious to anyone with eyes in their head and a familiarity with misdirection. This is not a plot weakness. The Who and the How are always fairly banal in a good detective fiction. The real interest lies in motive, or motivation.

[2] While presented in the style of a cosy murder mystery, the story is more than a little inspired by JRR Tolkien’s majestic fantasy, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (don’t let this put you off if you aren’t a fan of fantasy).

Monsignor Wick is a Saruman, a man who is — inevitably — corrupted by the burden of institutional authority, amplified by the ways in which questioning voices that might hold him accountable are silenced by such hierarchical structures. A man who has come to believe that the only way to defeat evil in the world is to play by its own rules.

Father Jud is a Gandalf, a man who possesses no structural authority and who is shielded from its corrupting influence by the repeated humiliations of needing to persuade unwilling others of his insight into the times they find themselves in. A man whose experience tells him to love the little people. A man who is, ultimately, powerless to save himself; who loses his priestly vocation only to have it restored to him by a ‘eucatastrophe,’ (Tolkien’s word for) the unrepeatable intervention of grace.

Dr Nat is a Frodo, a fundamentally decent man weakened by the pain of great loss; a ring wearer who, in the final instance, and despite having a greater insight into the corrupting power of the cursed talisman than other characters, succumbs to the temptation that in his hands it can be welded to restore the world that has been lost. A man who is only spared that fate by another eucatastrophe.

Benoit Blanc is a Tom Bombadil, a clown character, who has no interest in taking power (and so is free) but only in the beauty of truth. A man who sees the goodness in others (in stark contrast to the cynicism of many fictional detectives, and an even greater proportion of real detectives) and who strengthens them to do what is right.

[3] I have seen some reviews that suggest that the film is anti-Christian — or, at least, anti the Church — but pro-Jesus. This is not the case. It is pro-Jesus and pro-Christian, pro-Church. A thoughtful exploration of grace, that avoids simplistic or sentimental understandings of how grace works, does not spare us the wounds that remain.

What we are also given is a thoughtful exploration of the Church as institution and as community. The Church is full of complex characters. People who come in search of hope, of inspiration, of re-birth, of healing, of a place to belong, of community, of acceptance, of identity and purpose, of certainty in an uncertain world that has left them disappointed, of somewhere to find significance through service, in search of God. So many motivations, all compromised, some considerably less healthy than others.

And the Church welcomes all. Welcomes all; but hopes for their transformation. Hopes for their transformation; but cannot make it happen. (When we attempt to, tragedy is at hand.)

Transformation involves ‘poio’ — choices we make — and ‘pascho’ — that which is done for us that we cannot do for ourselves, only submit to being done to us, or resist. And it is that capacity to resist — both the choices we know we must take, and the grace we must welcome — a resistance that is a deep survival mechanism — that leaves the Church a deeply flawed community.

This is its greatest weakness, and, in the end, its saving grace.

 

Love and Thunder part 2

 

The purpose of mythology is to help us navigate our own time. Key to Thor: Love and Thunder is an exploration of rebuilding life after your world comes to an end. The ways you can do so unhealthily, or healthily.

Following the destruction of Asgard, the surviving Asgardians founded New Asgard on earth. But it has become almost a parody of itself, its story told as a theme park for tourists rather than to provide their children with roots that go deep. Asgard no longer exists, at least in a physical sense; yet New Asgard, which does, is not as real. It lacks any thickness, lacks substance. What will it take to transform this, to reawaken a community?

Thor is lost to himself; his former girlfriend Dr Jane Forster is lost to herself; each is lost to the other. What must they let go off, in order to remain true? What fears must they overcome? What fears must they surrender to?

Thor’s magical hammer, Mjolnir, has also been destroyed, and lies dormant, a curiosity, a tourist attraction; but Mjolnir reassembles itself—its broken parts held together, visibly scarred—by the power of love. Not even love can heal a history that remains subject to denial; and the future we are yet to discover bears the marks of the past we did not entirely choose, though had some degree of agency within.

Heimdall’s daughter wishes to be known as Heimdall’s son. Thor is deeply uncomfortable with this. Does that make him transphobic? Or does he understand that there is a deep vocation to being the daughter of Heimdall, that should not be lightly laid aside, even for an alternative expression? Or is it enough to be able to say, I am uncomfortable with this; I have questions, and concerns, about where the limits of individualism lie; but, nonetheless, I will treat you with dignity, I will support you with love? In the complexities of life, we do well to extend honour, and not judgement, towards one another.

The purpose of a movie is to entertain. But, under the cover of escapism, sitting in the dark, questions are posed, explored, left unresolved, taken away with us. How has my world gone through these things? Or what might happen next? Questions always tied to our own personal histories, the ways in which our lives have been destroyed and reconstructed, securely, or insecurely. And to all our possible futures.

The New Testament reading this Sunday, from the Letter to the Hebrews, speaks of everything that can be shaken, being shaken, so that, in the end, only what cannot be shaken remains. Of inheriting a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and therefore of the possibility—truth even—of experiencing joy, in the midst of our world being shaken violently, to the core. Not entertainment, but sustainment. Not a settling for a shadow of the past, but the awakened hope of a more substantial future, calling us.

Our world is being shaken. How will we respond?

Love and Thunder part 1

 

We went to see Thor: Love and Thunder, which is loosely based on, but far less bleak than, the comic book Gor: the God-butcher.

When the gods do not answer Gor’s prayers that his dying child live, he sets out to kill all gods, inevitably becoming corrupted, and, at least in the comic book, ironically becoming the very thing he despises. (In this, Gor represents the human condition, for we have killed our gods and found not promised freedom but terror.) In this way the story explores the origins, perpetuation, and nature of suffering. Are gods to blame, or be rejected on account of suffering? And does anything good come from suffering; or, to put it another way, is there anything we gain from suffering that we would otherwise fail to embrace?

In Thor: Love and Thunder exploration of these deep questions is mostly reworked through the lenses of self-preserving distance, stage 4 cancer, and childhood nightmares, to explore our longing for love, and our need for courage. With a generous side-helping of humour, high-octane soundtrack, and dodgy costumes. Which is exactly what a 12A movie should do. Though, arguably, the best bit was the trailer for Wakanda Forever, coming this November, before the film started.

 

Bandages

 

Last week was February half-term. We had planned to spend it with dear friends down south. January and February had been relentless, and we needed this healing break. Then, two days before we were meant to be together, we got the call. Unexpectedly, M was going to have to begin another round of chemotherapy. We would not be able to stay with them after all.

Quickly, efficiently, and with the grace of God, Jo found us a Plan B. A holiday-let owned by the sister of a friend, in a quiet seaside village just along the coast from a seaside town, overlooking what, until the First World War, we commonly called the German Sea. And then we grieved, for our own loss as well as for our dear friends, for life is not a zero-sum game, nor grief competitive, but to be human is to weep—and to be comforted.

On the last evening of our break, we sat in the dark of a small seaside town cinema, having been sown to our seats by an usher, having admired the sashed curtain and the cinema organ in front of the screen. Thirty-seven people huddled together in the back third of the room—we need one another, more than simply needing some distance from the big screen; if we want to watch a film in the privacy of our own home, there is more choice than you can imagine—while every so often we heard distant rumbles from one of the other three screens. As I sat there, I thought of others, huddled with neighbours and strangers beneath the streets of Kyiv assailed by the pounding of distant shells, and prayed for peace.

And then the film began, the latest adaptation of Death on the Nile. Opening on the devastation of a Belgian landscape in the First World War. Providing a backstory for (Kenneth Branagh’s) Hercule Poirot, a farmer caught up in the great conflict, a man who hoped to be a farmer again, beyond this waking nightmare, and the husband of a farmer’s wife, and yet who possessed a rare mind and a great deal of youthful certainty. I was reminded of another retelling, not so long ago but on the small screen, in which (John Malkovich’s) Poirot was a Catholic priest, whose neighbours ran to the church for shelter as the Germans advanced on them, only to be trapped inside and massacred, Poirot alone surviving, left to carry the burden of faith in God and in humanity burnt to the ground, yet life carrying on. Agatha Christie herself takes little interest in her creation’s backstory: canonically, it is implied that he was a police officer in Belgium, but as Poirot is a notoriously and intentionally unreliable narrator of his personal history, this can not be taken at face value. He is undoubtedly a refugee who has made a new life. Why not a farmer, or a priest?

Sometimes life gets in the way of our plans. Derails them and then blows up the wreckage. It is not taking the road less travelled that makes all the difference, nor even making the path by walking it, so much as, what? So much as picking up the pieces and piecing them together, in such a way that life can carry on, not as it was before but as it can be now. There are no guarantees that this will be better than the life we planned or hoped for—life is not a benign benefactor, nudging us into something good we had missed at first glance, but the chronicle of all that happens, for better or worse—but it has the advantage of being where we find ourselves. And where we may be found. Where our wounds, visible and invisible, may be dressed by love.

 

Corresponding warriors

 

On Saturday, Jo, Elijah and I watched Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). Afterward, Elijah and I had a conversation about the rebooting (or journey of redemption?) of a character whose history is mired in racial stereotyping, to a place where a new cinema storyline creates space for no less than four female characters—brought to life by the brilliant Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, and Michelle Yeoh—as absolute equals to any male characters.

These four Chinese-heritage women, along with others in supporting roles, entirely align with another ancient cultural understanding of the place and role of women, the biblical term ezer enkendu, or woman as ‘corresponding warrior’ who comes to fight alongside, and rescue, the male counterpart. Again and again, across two generations and both sides of a family line, women in this film enable their men—husband, son, nephew, friend—to discover and draw out his truest nature, and to set aside false projections of what it means to be a man, or indeed a failure as a man, including a protracted child-man state.

The film includes the lasting trauma inflicted when a gang of men kill the wife and mother played by Fala Chen, and the choices her husband and children, a son and a daughter, make in response to their trauma.

After Saturday comes Sunday, and at our service of Choral Evensong we read out another, longer list of women’s names: 108 women (plus the two very young daughters of one of them) who have been the victims of domestic femicide in our country in the past year. Women killed by their male partners or ex-partners, or family members.

Women are corresponding warriors. And sometimes they need to stand shoulder to shoulder with one another, and alongside male allies, to fight, in a way that is deeply, viscerally physical while at the same time non-violent, for justice, for transformation, for a redemptive story. Because not every woman has a peaceful end, not every woman gets to liberate a man—whether sexual partner, or father, brother, son—who is willing to make himself vulnerable to love’s transforming work.

We name them, in public and before God, looking to the day when we can fall silent because there are no names to offer up from the previous twelve months. We name them, in hope of the possibility of a new story.

 

In The Heights

We went to the cinema to see In The Heights. I loved it! Here are just some of the reasons why.

Genesis

You get to see the genesis of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s later musical Hamilton in the rhythms and cadences and some of the tunes of this earlier musical, like the workings pages of a maths exam, or up-cycling clothing or furniture. (I loved this, but Jo was disappointed by the extent of recycling.)

Place

The push-pull of place on our heart, and the recognition that for some of us, our hearts are caught between the push-pull of two different places. And, of course, that push-pull is connected to family history, past, present and future. Place is only ever loaned to us, to tend and then hand on. There is something here about loving place—with the joy and pain that comes with that—and the key to entering deeper into love of place is appreciating its unique street-noise musicality: “Let me listen to my block.”

Skin

Young women have beautiful bodies. Young men have beautiful bodies. Older men and women have more substantial, complex, interesting, storied, weathered, accommodating bodies—and souls. And the most beautiful feature of every human being is their eyes.

Colour

There has been some controversy around this film, that a predominantly light-skinned Hispanic cast and extras should (mis)represent a predominantly dark-skinned Hispanic neighbourhood. Whereas casting Black, Hispanic and Asian actors to play White characters in Hamilton invites us to think about race, whitewashing a community takes a back-step. What I value here is that LMM has responded with grace, not defensiveness, and promised to do better next time. He has done well, and can do better. We all can. ‘It is the little details that tell the world we are not invisible.’

Generations

Children, younger cousins, surrogate grandmothers. The at-times difficult relationship between parent and adult child. The messy creativity with which chance and necessity and ingenuity and love form family bonds. The raw materials of life, community. The relationship between In The Heights and Hamilton. A homage to love, made with love. The themes of responsibility for, and accountability to, each other, explored with sensitivity.

Dignity

It is in the little things, attending to detail with great love, that we assert our dignity, and the dignity of others.

Friendship

A joy to see LMM cast Anthony Ramos and Christopher Jackson again.

 

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Last night we sat down to watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). As with the more recent Jo-Jo Rabbit (2019), Taika Waititi—who in both cases wrote the screenplay adaptation of other people’s novels—shows that he is sensitive to a good story, a story-for-our-times; to children who are lonely and looking for a tribe to belong to; and adults who are, with good reason, suspicious of the dominant tribe; and what becomes of them.

To see the world equally convincingly through the eyes of vulnerable child and vulnerable adult is a rare gift. As a director, Taika Waititi is also clearly aware of others who might share this sensitivity. The chemistry between central child-and-adult actors, between Julian Dennison and Sam Neill in Hunt for the Wilderpeople and between Roman Griffin Davis and Scarlett Johansson in Jo-Jo Rabbit, is mesmerising, drawing you in to the story. So, too, the deftness with which dark humour and difficult subject matter (respectively, children’s social services in a broadly contemporary New Zealand, and the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany) combine in order to engage the audience. We may not all share rare levels of empathy, but we can be helped on the right path, to higher ground.

To be a ranger requires not only ‘the knack,’ but also learnt skills, and Taika Waititi’s learnt (and ongoing learning on the job) skills include the use of motif in storytelling. In Jo-Jo Rabbit it is as simple as tracking a pair of shoes. Hunt for the Wilderpeople employs a one-shot montage technique to convey the passing of time, recapping the story so far and moving it on, at times getting nowhere fast, at times covering ground at pace. Both motifs remind us that we leave a trail behind us as we go, which others may follow, paths crossing by purposeful intent or un/lucky chance.

Watching Hunt for the Wilderpeople, I am also provoked to reflect on the Church, as relationships between unlikely people, variously damaged and hurting people, whose lives are brought together by an intermediary who has, at different times, sought both parties out and welcomed both parties in. Who, in turn, come to realise their need of one another, following on from a growing (and perhaps grudging) affection for one another; who discover the need for repentance (which includes reparation and accountability) and forgiveness (which—though necessarily following true repentance—involves commitment to reconciliation) as the ongoing process towards deeply longed-for personal wholeness, societal healing and unity.

There is a scene in the film where Taika Waititi takes on the cameo role of a minister conducting a funeral, in which he notes:

 

Minister: “You know, sometimes in life, it seems like there’s no way out…like a sheep trapped in a maze designed by wolves…And you know that if you’re ever in that situation, there are always two doors to choose from. And through the first door…oh, it’s easy to get through that door and on the other side waiting for you are all the nummiest treats you can imagine. Fanta, Doritos, L&P, Burger Rings, Coke Zero. But you know what? There’s also another door, not the Burger Ring door, not the Fanta door; another door that’s harder to get through. Guess what’s on the other side? Anyone want to take a guess?”

Ricky: “Vegetables?”

Minister: “N-No, not vegeta…No.”

Woman: “Jesus?”

Minister: “You would think Jesus. I thought Jesus the first time I-I-I-I came across that door. It’s not Jesus. It’s another door. And guess what’s on the other side of that door?”

Woman: “Jesus.”

Minister: “Jesus. Yeah, Jesus. He’s tricky like that, Jesus…So let us pray, to Jesus, please, and make it a bit easier to get through those doors, uh, to find you and your bounty of delicious confectionary.”

 

It is touchingly awkward, and yet profound. For in the initially disorienting space between the door and the door beyond the door, Jesus does indeed meet us, hidden in plain sight, and help us get through. That space, it turns out, might be a million hectares of New Zealand native forest (or, conversely, in Jo-Jo Rabbit, a cramped false room in an attic) or our own homes in a bungled pandemic lockdown. While we are here, you could do worse than watch (or re-watch) Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Who knows what you might find?

 

Soul searching

We watched Disney Pixar’s Soul last night. This might well be a minority report, but I didn’t love it. There was too much “Look, we've worked out how to animate crowd scenes where every individual is unique!” and not enough story. And the jazz is excruciating, in a way that I suspect it would not be if we were listening to it being played live, but we are not.

Joe is a middle-aged man who experiences a crisis that (eventually, and only after a great deal of unsuccessfully trying to fix the problem) disrupts his self-absorption long enough to reveal the irony that his obsession with not living an insignificant life is the very thing preventing him from seeing the significance of life, shared and constructed with others. So far, so It's A Wonderful Life, or The Muppets Christmas Carol. The very slight twist is that this discovery comes less from omniscient spirits and more from helping (unwittingly) another soul who is literally too afraid to live—a character called 22, cue laboured improv and visual gags around catch-22. Nonetheless, other films explore this basic plot with greater deftness, including (not only the two classics mentioned above, but also) Pixar’s own Coco.

That said, there is a reason why this is a basic plot, one of those stories we revisit and find new ways to tell on a regular basis. Life is not about getting it right, or seeing our dreams come true just as we imagine them. Rather, its beauty comes from the ways in which we riff off one another, as we see the world through one another’s eyes. There is plenty to be awakened to here concerning discipleship, and vocation. But in this regard, the stories that surround and touch upon Joe’s story—his mother’s, his barber’s—are paths I’d rather explore…

 

Update: 03.01.2021

I wrote the other day that I had watched Disney Pixar’s Soul and didn’t love it, concluding that I would have been more interested in the story of Joe’s mother or barber. This engaging post helps me see why more clearly. And to be clear, yes, transformation from human form sometimes happens to White characters, too—think Queen Elinor (and the three young princes) in Brave—but representation, and how it is handled, matters.

 

Three Billboards

 

Last night we finally got round to watching Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. As this film came out in 2017, I shall assume that I can talk about it without worrying about spoilers. It is challenging viewing, with language that some will find offensive, and dealing with issues such as rape, murder, and suicide, as well as systemic issues such as racism and poverty of economic prospects; but it is excellent, and well-deserving of the recognition it received. What makes Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri so good is how it tells its story.

There are no black-and-white heroes or villains here. Instead, there are characters we are led to sympathise with and root for (and in storytelling we are led to side with whoever we are introduced to first) who do things we surely cannot condone, and characters we are led to be unsympathetic towards who do things we cannot help but admire. And everybody hurts, everybody bleeds from an open wound. These tensions, and these assaults, are reflected in how different characters relate to one another, at different moments, and in how they behold themselves. How we view others, are viewed, and view ourselves.

It is also clear in this storytelling that our knowledge is partial and limited. Our foreknowledge is limited. Our best hope for growth, for moving forward, is hindsight (this is brilliantly set up from the very start); but our hindsight is also limited. At the end of the film, two characters set off to fulfil an act of vigilante justice. And we are left wanting to know what happens next. Enough has taken place to give us hope that they will not go through with it. Enough has taken place to carry the storyline onwards through further tragedy. Parallel universes diverge, and which road we take says something about which destination matters to us and which route we believe is most advantageous. At this point both roads leave Ebbing, Missouri, for wherever we happen to be. In my case, Sunderland.

What is absolutely clear and consistent throughout is that our actions (including turning a blind eye, which may be the best of possible actions in some circumstances) have consequences. Our actions (including our inactions) have consequences. It is not always clear what we ought to do, but what we do always has consequences—which we can hardly foresee and cannot control, once the word leaves our lips, once the projectile leaves our hand. Yet, it is these very consequences that carry us on down the road, with stumbling feet, in hope of being caught and held by grace.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a challenging and necessary story for our times, as much in need of mercy as of justice. For without mercy, justice is gutted to revenge; and, though justice be delayed, without it, mercy is abandoned to the bare bones of pity. Three billboards is a more than generous gift, if we will receive it. A rear-view mirror, unlikely travel companion, and an open road.

 

Ancestors

The year the world was introduced to Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of T’Challah / Black Panther, Boseman was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer. Everything he went on to do with that and other roles, he did while being hollowed out, from the inside out, by the cancer and by his surgeons. This is, now, his legacy.

Chances are, you don’t have cancer right now; but, also, that you are being hollowed out by some malaise of our times. Chances are even higher you aren’t a Hollywood actor; but, nonetheless, your life-work tells a story that can inspire others.

The best way I know of to both overcome the gnawing and live a life that invites others to live their life fully—and I think Boseman knew this—is to sit in the counsel of the ancestors before you sit in the council of the ancestors.

For me, this is very much still an ongoing struggle. Salve, Chadwick Boseman. Rest in peace and power. Rise in glory.

Living parallel lives

Yesterday, we watched Spiderman: into the Spider-verse (Sony, 2018). This storyline is set in an alternate reality, in which Brooklyn teen Miles Morales takes on the mantle of Spiderman, after having been bitten by a radioactive spider and witnessing the death of Peter Parker (the original Spiderman).

It is a fascinating exploration of human motivation and the multi-layered complexity of our actions.

Miles is Black-Latino, the son of an African-American father and Puerto-Rican mother, and this adds new dimensions to the depiction of superhero role models in New York, the city of immigrants. For them, danger is not ‘out there’ beyond. Both parents seek to make the world a better place for their family, and indeed for all: Jefferson Davis is a police officer; Rio Morales is a nurse at the hospital. They are assets to their neighbourhood (and, perhaps, feel that they need to be). They are aspirational for their son, moving him to a weekly boarding school, and, in the case of his father, putting him under pressure to make the most of the opportunities they have provided for him.

Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis, also looks out for his nephew, and is motivated by the desire to build a better world for his family—taking a villainous route that he hides from the family he loves. The contrast between Jefferson and Aaron is, on the surface, binary; but in fact, it is far from black-and-white. There is love, aspiration, a driven hardness, miss-steps, in each; and a cost paid by both men. In the end, Aaron chooses family over crime and he and Miles each see the other at a deeper level than before. We are also given hope that Jefferson and Miles will be reconciled—as Jefferson overcomes some of his pride, and Miles, his resentment—though they are not yet at the point of seeing one another face-to-face.

Jefferson and Rio’s relationship is also a beautiful blend. Both love, and are proud of, their son; but Rio is more understanding of him, and tempers some of Jefferson’s blunders, where, of the best of motives, he risks pushing Miles away.

The super-villains are no less complex. The central ‘bad guy’ is gangster Kingpin, who is funding the construction of a super-collider that risks destroying Brooklyn in attempting to open up parallel realities. He is motivated by the dream of being (re)united with (a version of) his wife and son, who died in a car crash, having left him when his wife discovered that he was a criminal. His criminal past, his hiding that from his family, and his present monstrous activity, are all motivated by love for his family, to such an extent that he is willing to sacrifice countless others.

Kingpin’s chief scientist is Olivia Octavius/Doctor Octopus, a scientific genius who appears to be motivated by the desire to push the boundaries of the possible, and to gain recognition for having done so (and again, a ‘classic’ character has been reimagined so as to explore fresh perspectives, in this case as a woman). Again, these are hardly motivations that are strange to us.

Meanwhile, an array of Spider-men, -women, and -pig, wrestle with the burden of expectations, self-imposed as well as projected upon them by others; and the inevitability of failure, and especially the failure to save someone they loved (an uncle, a father, a friend, a role model). Not allowing failure to define us, but allowing how we respond to failure to shape us for greater things, within a supportive community, is central to their journeys of discovery in alternative but coinciding realities. And not allowing death to be the end, but rather, a formational moment in redefining our kin relationships.

Why is it that we are capable of great goodness, making great sacrifices to make the world a better place? Why is it that we are also capable of perpetrating what is, initially at least, unimaginable evil—often from the most noble of motivations or universal aspirations? Why is it that we set out to do right by one another, and get it so wrong? Or that we are driven to be reconciled with those we love who have hurt us deeply? Why is it never too late, while we still have life within us?

These are deep questions of life, addressed by the world’s great faiths, including the Christian tradition...and also by the comic books.

In the words of Miles Morales, “anyone can wear the mask.” Not just the superheroes among us. But putting on the mask is just the beginning of the adventure.

As I look at the deep polarity of British society; our response, so well-rehearsed now it has become an impulse, to vindicate ourselves and castigate the ‘other’; I can't help but think we could do worse that sit down and watch Spiderman together.

Ragnarok

Last night, we watched Thor: Ragnarok with Elijah, who is working his way (and ours) through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is easily the most humorous of the films in the MCU so far. In any case, the Norse myths are hugely entertaining, and lend themselves well to retelling—we loved New Zealand’s contemporary tv adaptation, The Almighty Johnsons.

At one point, Thor, god of thunder, is thrown into a cosmic rubbish dump, and must escape from a nightmarish dystopia where enslaved champions are forced to fight one another, in order to return home to Asgard and defeat his sister, Hela, goddess of death.

When Thor finally confronts Hela, she gouges out one of his eyes. Near death, he sees his father, the one-eyed Odin, in a vision. Odin remarks that Thor never really saw very well when he had two eyes. (This would make more sense if Marvel had stuck with the traditional back-story of Odin sacrificing an eye in exchange for wisdom, and from then on seeing more clearly with one eye than he had done with two; rather than account for it as a battle-wound.)

In the Gospel reading set for Morning Prayer today, Mark 9:38-50, Jesus says that it is better to cut off your hand or foot or tear out your eye and to enter life in the kingdom of God maimed, than, with both hands, feet, and eyes, to be thrown onto the hellish rubbish dump.

The context is one of infighting between the disciples (Mark 9:33-37) and John’s attempt to win approval by informing Jesus that they had come across an outsider casting out demons in Jesus’ name and had told him to stop, because he wasn’t one of them.

Jesus’ response is uncompromising. You’re better off thrown into the sea with a millstone tied to your neck than you are preventing other people from ushering-in life in greater fullness.

The self-mutilation is hyperbole. And the hell is not some post-mortem punishment, but rooted in this life. Gehenna was Jerusalem’s rubbish dump, where refuse was burned, and where, when Jerusalem had fallen to armies in the past, the corpses of her fallen citizens were burned (this would happen again, at the hands of the Roman army, in AD70).

Essentially, Jesus’ teaching here is that we must live in peace with one another, and ruthlessly cut off at source any temptation to believe ourselves to be superior to others, or else we will find ourselves presiding over a wasteland. Better to compromise your vision than to have it intact, but be kings of the trash-heap.

This speaks to our political situation here in the UK, where we see competing ideologies fight to the death to rule over a nation reduced to rubble by their fighting. Better to compromise in order to work together.

And it speaks to our global environmental crisis, where westerners are unprepared to sacrifice their unprecedented collective privilege, prefering to be kings and queens of a wasted planet than work together for our shared home.

Thank God for those who seek to build common platforms, and imagine a new world. May God strengthen the resolve of the UN, in the face of many distractions.

Not ready

We’re continuing through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tonight, Dr Strange. It is certainly a strange insertion, but it contains this great exchange:

Dr Stephen Strange: “I’m not ready.”
The Ancient One: “No one ever is. We don’t get to choose our time.”

That’s the truth of it.

In the Gospel According to John, the first of Jesus’ signs takes place at a wedding in Cana. To the lasting shame of a family, the wine has run out. Jesus’ mother Mary brings this to his attention, believing that he can do something about this, but he responds, “my time has not yet come.”

I’m not ready.

No one ever is. We don’t get to choose our time.

Mary ignores him, and, essentially, forces his hand. Because his time has come, but it isn’t his choice. Because he isn’t ready, but ready isn’t the qualifying criterion.

The question is not, are we ready, but, will we step forward and make our lives count, for something bigger than ourselves?

Avengers

At Elijah’s request, we’re currently watching our way through several films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Captain America is the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, right?).

Last night, we watched Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Tony Stark builds a system to protect the earth, but when the system becomes new-born sentient, it concludes that it is the Avengers from whom the earth needs protecting, and so they must be destroyed. Further destruction follows.

It got me thinking about mass shootings, suicide bombings, and white supremacy; none of which I think we understand correctly.

When a brown-skinned young man commits an atrocity, we say they have been radicalised. When a white-skinned young man commits an atrocity, we say that they were very mentally ill; and then we might point to how rare it is for mentally ill people to kill others to emphasise how they were so very ill, there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it: we are not at fault. But these political moves are an exercise in missing the point.

Like those who embrace white supremacy, or indeed misogyny (think The Handmaid’s Tale), those who seek to destroy others are not immoral. Indeed, quite the opposite.

We, humans, are moral beings, with moral desire, along with a longing for order and a place to call home. You have, in fact, to work very hard to kill that desire, to be a true psychopath.

This (almost) universal moral desire is, I think, what people have in mind when they tell me that most people are, fundamentally, good. But we are not fundamentally good; we fundamentally possess moral desire: a desire that can be turned towards good or evil.

Our moral desire is undifferentiated in its form, and in need of a framework. In the absence not only of a robust framework but also of patterns of initiation—in a highly individualistic society where we are largely left to fashion our own morality—the vacuum is unsurprisingly filled by those who will offer a moral certainty and the promise of a world in which we might experience order and a place to call home. Certain groups—women, non-whites, those of a particular religion, those who reject religion—are presented as a threat to moral behaviour, that needs controlling, or removing. This is reinforced by honour-shame structures, in which the accommodation of such ‘shameful’ people shames our own honour.

What is lacking is not a moralistic pattern. Indeed, moralism, which works on the basis that others are immoral, is the oxygen of evil. Instead, we need to recognise that people are naturally possessing of moral desire, that needs to be robustly ordered. (Politically, the Right fails to recognise that all people possess moral desire; while the Left fails to recognise the difference between moral desire and essential goodness.)

The so-called Golden Rule—do to others as you would want them to do to you; or, treat others in the same way that you treat yourself—is, arguably, foundational. But even this is inadequate, in a context where we are left to work out for ourselves how we ought to be treated. If, for example, we believe ourselves to be in need of ‘tough love’ we will treat others harshly. Often the Golden Rule is adapted to, ‘Do what you like, with consent, so long as no-one else gets hurt.’ But this raises complex questions as to the nature of consent, and of hurt, and of who gets to decide.

What is missing is not a global monitoring system, but communities of intentional discipleship, where we might wrestle with our moral desire and longing for order and a place to call home, together, honouring and refusing to shame one another, so that we might learn from our mistakes and failures. Where we might come to discover difference not as threat but as a source of wonder, and, indeed, strength. Where we might come to know self-giving, for others, as glory.

The Avengers are as dysfunctional a family as you could hope for. But, we are all heroes, in search of home.

Beyond liberalism

Waaay behind the curve, we went to see The Greatest Showman. It is fantastic.

It is a film about roots/rootlessness and family. The trailers beforehand were also for films about rootedness and family. This is perhaps not surprising, as trailers are pitched at the audience: if you like this, you will probably also like these...More surprising, all the advertisements before the trailers were also about roots and family. One was for a bank. This is the zeitgeist of our times.

The Greatest Showman is so loosely based on PT Barnum it is best treated as fiction, and is, of course, a story for our own times. Barnum seeks to transcend his roots, as a self-made man. To this end, he will use other people, holding out the same promise. He is charming, but his philosophy is ugly. It is the philosophy of our times, liberalism*. But today that philosophy is under unbearable strain. Hence roots and family, among other things—including protectionism, and violence—as we look for an alternative philosophy.

As the story unfolds, liberalism proves to be an inadequate answer to the prejudices it (certainly) faces. Another solution is offered and explored: virtue. To be fair, two of the characters who most represent virtue are seduced by money—by the liberal dream of self-made autonomy—though not necessarily irreversibly so. This is a genuine struggle between world-views. But in the end, virtue has her new day: a loved but unlovely man (for whom love was not enough) finds redemption through the love of the unloved and perceived-as unlovely.

This, however, is only possible when the ‘freaks’ move beyond the social contract (heartily embraced, in stirring song) that enables them to be self-made individuals, to see themselves as family. Family not in the social-contract sense of class snobbery, nor in the vice that holds together the ethnic/territorial gangs of New York, but family defined by virtue.

This family is composed of people who have no roots, having been disinherited. The roots they need, then, also tap-into virtue, far older than the values of their society—which turns out to be more fake than the circus. Virtue goes far deeper than acceptance within a community. It transforms trauma into hope.

There is so much here for the Church to draw on, as we rediscover virtue, and hold it out.

*Alan Roxburgh quotes Patrick Deneen’s definition of liberalism:

‘It conceived humans as rights-bearing individuals who could fashion for themselves their own version of the good life…Political legitimacy was grounded on a shared belief in an originating ‘social contract’,

adding:
‘The basis of this liberalism is the autonomy of a self-making individual operating within a social contract with others.’

(Roxburgh, Journal of Missional Practice, Winter 2018)

Dragons

Dragons.

The trailer is out for the next instalment of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. I don’t know what fantastic beasts will play a part, but the world into which Harry Potter will one day be born is certainly inhabited by dragons.

Shrek has a dragon.

The Hobbit has a dragon.

How To Train Your Dragon has a plethora of dragons.

We tell our children stories of dragons; and then we shame them, telling them there is no such thing as dragons (as if imagination is not real); and confuse them, explaining dragons away as ‘just’ a metaphor (imagine dismissing metaphor so lightly); because our parents shamed and confused us in a coming-of-age rite of passage.

Story-tellers and children know better.

For more thoughts on dragons, see here.

Hidden Figures

Back in February we went on a family outing to see Hidden Figures, the film based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s non-fiction book about Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and the many other women, both black and white, whose work at NACA and later NASA helped America to win the Space Race.

Initially Jo had thought it might be a good film to take Susannah to see, but on second thoughts felt that Noah and Elijah needed to see it too. As the credits rolled and we stood up to leave the cinema, the boys declared, ‘That was fantastic!’ and, ‘When that comes out on dvd, we need to get it!’

Inspired by the film – which is excellent but, as the nature of the medium requires, conflates story- and time-lines – I bought the book, which is a masterpiece of research, as readable as it is meticulous.

On a day off, I was sitting in a local café reading it when a waitress came over and enthusiastically asked if I had seen the film. We got chatting, and I recommended the book to her. I recommend it to you, too.

I passed the book on to my daughter, and she showed it to her History teacher.

The lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson weren’t exactly hidden. From the outset, for propaganda reasons, NASA conducted its work in public. And these and other women also worked tirelessly in their locality and, in time, far beyond, to inspire and raise up future generations to overcome gender- and racial-barriers in pursuit of new horizons. It is more that they were overlooked. It is more that their stories weren’t gathered and recorded, deployed, and told in a unifying narrative that wove together apparently unconnected trails like pages and pages of elegant equations advancing towards a breakthrough that changed the game forever. Until now. That is what Margot Lee Shetterly has done, in her extraordinary history.

These stories deserve to be told, and heard. To be celebrated. They have the power to inspire far more than future scientists. They have the power to inspire future life itself, in all its diversity.

The miles before us, the miles behind

Yesterday I watched The Straight Story, a film given me by my brother for Christmas. It is not a new film (1999), but I had not seen it before. It is an unlikely film (directed by David Lynch and distributed by Walt Disney) based-on the unlikely true story of Alvin Straight who, in 1994 and aged 73, his eyesight too poor to hold a driving licence and disliking travelling as a passenger, rode 240 miles on a sit-on lawnmower to visit his estranged brother, having heard the news that his brother had suffered a stroke. At a top speed of five miles an hour, and with various mishaps along the way, the journey took six weeks.

If you like your movies larger-than-life, this will not be the film for you. There is drama, and humour, but it is very gentle. Very slow. Nothing much happens, other than the common-or-garden you-won’t-believe-what-so-and-so-has-gone-and-done of any-town, anywhere.

It is a film about making peace, with oneself and with those whom it matters most to make one’s peace with before it is too late.

A film about the ways in which we rebuild our lives to accommodate those events we cannot change; and the consequences, good and ill, of our coping mechanisms.

A film about the redemption and transformation – for and in us, for and in others – made possible by telling our stories.

A film about making those changes we can, and the power of both repentance (the decision to change) and penance (the desire to make amends, often through symbolic action as well as practical action).

It is a film about neighbourliness, and the willingness to trust those we know and love, and those who are a stranger to us.

A film about generosity and hospitality; sending out, and inviting in.

A film about the gift of the present moment, to disrupt the flow from past to future in surprising and joyful, life-giving, ways.

A film that explores the limits of what we are able to receive from others; the limits of our interior landscape (Alvin is stubborn and proud, but a good man. He brings an end to his stubbornness and swallows his pride in order to repair relationship with his brother; but, being stubborn and proud, must negotiate limits on the help he is willing to receive, which is less than that he is willing to offer).

It is a film about the complex, wonderful beauty that is a human being – every human being – made in the image of God and deeply loved, for all its flaws.

It is a film about aging, all the more poignant because the lead actor, Richard Farnsworth in his final (and Oscar-nominated) film role, was living with terminal cancer at the time (the following year, he took his own life before the cancer took it from him).

It is a film, from a time that is perhaps now past, or passing, for our times. Before it is too late.