I didn’t realizethat Project Grizzly, one of my favourite documentaries, was a National Film Board production. It is, and it’s available in full, for free, online. In fact, here it is:
It’s just over 70 minutes long. It’s a documentary about one man’s mission to build a bear-proof suit (for the purposes of study at close proximity). The guy, evidently some kind of bushman, seems just a little crazy. It’s very entertaining.
Some things you will see in this documentary: some impressive footage of two grizzlies fighting; the guy, besuited, getting hit by a half-ton at 40mph. Good times.
I handed in a paper today, one which has been looming over my semester, bogging me down, for several weeks now. Contrary to what I had expected, the “loominosity” hasn’t lifted. This might be because the paper was fairly open-ended, so I had to set boundaries to it which seemed somewhat arbitrary to me. It feels incomplete, but it probably would feel that way no matter how long I worked on it. So I handed it in.
Maybe that looming feeling relates to something else. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.
Maybe it’s the time of year. Strangely enough, I find early spring kind of depressing and bittersweet. The melting snow, the mud, the cool temperatures. I went for a bit of a walk the other day which was actually uplifting. Maybe in spring my soul longs for solitude. Maybe that’s it.
Anyway, last week I managed to watch one of the Academy Award contenders for Best Picture: A Serious Man. It’s a modern retelling of the story of Job and the film is as open-ended as that Biblical book (as well as their film, No Country for Old Men). But the lack of clarity or resolution is, I suspect, partly the point of the story, so it didn’t frustrate me as it might have. It’s a darkly funny film and the acting is terrific. It’s entertaining and thought-provoking and bears repeated viewing. 4/5 stars.
Also, last week I read most of James Smith’s Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. It was an excellent book, which argued for what has been called “ancient-future” worship: appropriating the traditions and practices of the ancient (or even simply premodern) church into a postmodern context. Smith is a proponent of “Radical Orthodoxy“, which is a position he argues for in the book, and he has piqued my interest in that movement.
My only critique of the book is that it focuses too much on the “emerging” church and the “postmodern” church, which, in my mind, seems to pin the movement to an “ism” rather than as an authentic form of church without strict ideological allegiances (such as “we are a postmodern church”). However, I suspect that one of the reasons he insists on doing this is because part of function of the book is a critique the so-called “postmodern church” which Smith argues is actually thoroughly modern (simply a revamped version of the “seeker sensitive” model).
I highly recommend this book, particularly for those who are skeptical of postmodern thought and its relation to the Christianity and the church.
Came across these during some morning “fun” (i.e. non-assignment) reading this morning.
II
I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
* * *
IV
What consolation it is, after
the explanations and the predictions
of further explanations still
to come, to return unpersuaded
to the woods, entering again
the presence of the blessed trees.
A tree forms itself in answer
to its place and to the light.
Explain it how you will, the only
thing explainable will be
your explanation. There is
in the woods on a summer’s
morning, birdsong all around
from guess where, nowhere
that rigid measure which predicts
only humankind’s demise.
(Both from “Sabbaths 1999″ in Wendell Berry’s Given: Poems)
via Darren Barefoot, here’s a video shot across the bay from a public broadcast in Vancouver of Sunday’s Olympic gold medal hockey game. Everything is normal until just past the one minute mark…
I just ran across a great post on Donald Miller’s blog about being a slave to public opinion and always pandering to this jury of one’s peers and superiors. It spoke to me directly. His punchline is great:
It really is a waste of your time to defend yourself to anybody but God Himself. And it’s even more of a waste of time to claim any defense other than Christ crucified.
Well said. But easier intellectually acknowledged than deeply believed, much less lived out.
I miss the Olympics already. It was fun to have an “event” that warranted having the TV on during supper. Not that it’s something to be desired, to have the TV on during supper, but it’s the kind of thing that children remember. ”When the Olympics were on we would watch them during supper.” Plus, it was nice to have 2-weeks of explicit and unquestioned solidarity with the rest of the nation.
It was strange to not have the TV on today, but probably for the best. I wouldn’t have completed any work if it had been on.
My assessment of the Olympics:
» The opening ceremonies started with a whimper. In fact, I was quite afraid that it was going to turn into an embarrassment. All I remember about the beginning was a video opening of someone heli-snowboarding and then a transition to the stadium where this snowboarder jumped through the Olympic rings as some snow poofed out of them. I think that was the low point. Forget the mechanical failure on the indoor “cauldron” (as it happened, that serendipitously turned into a great self-deprecating moment in the closing ceremonies)–the low point was the half-assed poof of snow as the snow-boarder jumped through the rings. But things picked up from there and it turned into quite an impressive show, full of heart-warming Canadiana. (It reminded me that I must read Who Has Seen the Wind? again soon.)
» Gold medal for Most Awkward Moment of the Entire Olympics games goes to Wayne Gretzky’s bizzare 10 minute ride in the back of a pickup truck, all the while holding the Olympic torch aloft, to get to the Olympic cauldron in order to light it. An utterly bizarre and poorly planned/executed moment. At the very least they could have made sure that fans were lining the streets, but they were nearly empty, as I recall.
» Thrilled and frustrated throughout the Olympics with the performance of and results for Canada’s. Many a tear came to my eye at the medal ceremonies. The men’s hockey team in particular nearly gave me a heart attack with an ulcer attached, wrapped in a bladder infection. In fact, they nearly shut down my entire body. But it was all worth it in the end. I had hoped that Crosby would get the winning goal and he did. I know next to nothing about him, not having followed hockey closely for some years, but somehow it seemed fitting. And the assist to Iginla. Perfect.
» Jay Onrait, incidentally, was a joy to watch and listen to. I’ve always enjoyed his anchoring work. Apparently he’s a “d-bag”. That may well be, but I’ll reserve judgment. If he is, he’s a terribly funny “d-bag”.
» Closing ceremonies were a mixed bag–dull speeches about the triumph of the human spirit spoken in a French which even a newborn could tell was butchered and then a series of humourous, self-deprecating moments (I’m curious to know how non-Canadians interpreted all the voyageurs, inflated beavers, moose and mounties), including fun appearances by William Shatner, Catherine O’Hara and Michael J. Fox.
And then a totally fitting rendition of “Long May You Run” by Neil Young. In my opinion, “Long May You Run” should have ended the show, but the show went on.
Now, I have nothing personal (other than my tastes) against all the other artists who performed, but what was intended to be a display of Canadian talent ended up mostly being a display of “People Who Were Born in Canada”, the initial message seemingly “Canada: where everyone in search of fame and fortune moves away” or “Canada: We repel our talent”.
The arc of the closing ceremonies went something like this: from world famous people who no longer live in Canada (and some not for decades) to artists who actually live and work in Canada but who are unknown even to Canadians. Somehow the organizers missed the middle way.
I think for a rock concert in the context of the Olympics, they should have had artists who we might consider our Best Kept Secrets. In my books that would include the likes of Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Bruce Cockburn, Brent Butt, Red Green, etc. (I don’t expect you, dear reader, to agree with my choices.)
At one point I suggested that a performance by The Arcade Fire would redeem the whole thing. Of course, that means I wish for the very thing I’ve been criticizing. Or do they still live in Montreal? Let’s say they do. At any rate, they did not perform.
In spite of all this, I give the closing ceremonies a (tentative) thumbs up and the Olympics as a whole an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Dixie and I have made a switch for the week. She’ll be in class all day every day (”Psychopathology”) and I’ll be at home all day every day. A change of pace for both of us.
I’m not sure I can figure out how to compartmentalize my time in an efficient way. This is something at which Dixie is exceptionally skilled and it can sometimes be frustrating. I’ll be agonizing over a paper due in a couple of days while she’s completed a draft for a paper not due for several weeks. In fact, she may even have completed most of another paper due in April. For undisciplined, a poor time manager, and constant progress comparer (such as yours truly) this is frustrating.
Nevertheless, I march on. I shall overcome.
Dixie has tried to help me by preparing a menu for the week (my Inner Cynic tells me that she’s doing this to show me how much she accomplishes in a day, but I mustn’t listen to my Inner Cynic). If a menu was not prepared, supper decisions would be made approximately 30 minutes before mealtime and would consist of daily variations on pasta or eggs.
Last night, after Dixie had already gone to bed, I had a look at today’s supper item, per the menu. Corn chowder. In the slow cooker. The instructions alarmed me. I marched to the bedroom.
“Dix,” I said, “are you serious about this corn chowder? It’s for the slow cooker and it says it takes 8-10 hours to cook! This means I’ll have to start supper first thing in the morning.”
“Yes,” she replied. ”Then it’ll be done!”
By the time I got everything together this morning–figuring out in what manner one chops and “cooks” (a rather generic term, if you ask me) celery and onions in preparation for the slow cooker (which, it seems to me, would cook both ingredients anyway); locating the bay leaves; not burning the bacon; cleaning and cutting the potatoes, etc.–it was 10:40. And by my calculations, that would mean supper would be ready at 6:30 at the earliest, which, of course, is unacceptable.
In the middle of this, Dixie’s mom called. After I explained my dilemma, she told me that she makes corn chowder on the stove in about 30 minutes! Alas, by this time most of the ingredients were already simmering in the slow cooker. So I had a day of preparing two supper meals to look forward to.
Things turned up when Dixie came home for lunch. She explained that the slow cooker cooks hot, so it would probably be ready for an on-time supper. She was right.
Stand on a bridge before the cavern of night
Darkness alive with possibility
Nose to this wind full of twinkling lights
Trying to catch the scent of what’s coming to be (in this…)
World of wonders…
Somewhere a saxophone slides through changes
Like a wet pipe dripping down my neck
Gives me a chill — sounds like danger
But I can’t stop moving till I cross this sector (of this…)
World of wonders…
There’s a rainbow shining in a bead of spittle
Falling diamonds in rattling rain
Light flexed on moving muscle
I stand here dazzled with my heart in flames (at this…)
World of wonders…
Moment of peace like brief arctic bloom
Red/gold ripple of the sun going down
Line of black hills makes my bed
Sky full of love pulled over my head
how faint the whisper we hear of him! (Job 26:14, TNIV)
* * *
Here
is bigger than you can imagine
Now
is forever (Bruce Cockburn)
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about pain and suffering and genocide and natural disasters and…God. Without diminishing the pain and horror, and without denying the legitimacy of our incredulity, our anger at God for allowing these things to happen, I do have the strong sense that we humans are awfully short-sighted in our assessment of what God is or is not doing in the world. What truths can we derive from our suffering when it is but a blip of an event in the continuum of history? What do we, with our short lives, know about how these things fit in the great scheme of things?
And what of all the beauty and goodness we see in the world? Should God get any credit for those things? Should the bad things outweigh the good?
Perhaps it is easy for me to say this sitting comfortably in my Poäng chair at home, surrounded by books, family, love, health and…a roof and walls, but there runs inside me a deep vein of hope. There is good in the world and it will prevail. I believe this deeply.
Hope does not do away with the pain and suffering, and neither does it justify or excuse it. Hope does not mean we cannot or do not weep, grieve, shout at God in anger. What hope does is see, if faintly and uncertainly, beyond pain and suffering to the time when, in Julian of Norwich’s wonderful words, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”.
Tonight I had Bruce Cockburn’s album You’ve Never Seen Everything playing in the background as I worked. The title track is quite a powerful song. On first listen it comes across as a heavily political song, which is not unusual for Cockburn. It is a dark song, sparse instrumentation, with lyrics spoken in a low, tired, almost pained voice.
The listener is presented with a series of vignettes showing the dark underbelly of the world: viruses, suicide, murder, drug trade, sexual harassment, consumerism, poisoning of women and children, rage, greed, and so on. After a couple of these vignettes, the words, “You’ve never seen everything”. For example:
And a car crashes and burns on an offramp from the Gardiner
Two dogs in the back seat die, and in the front
a man and his mother
Forensics reveals the lady has pitchfork wounds in her chest -
Pitchfork!
And that the same or a similar instrument has been screwed to the dash
to make sure the driver goes too
You’ve never seen everything
The listener is shaken out of his or her stupor: there is so much darkness beyond that comfortable little world you’ve created for yourself, he seems to be saying. You think you get it? You think you understand the world–like watching the nightly news gives you any sense of what’s going on?
For the longest time I would simply skip over the song. It was too dark, too discomforting. And the only reason I did choose to listen to it was to get to the chorus, which is a rich, beautiful melody dropped in the middle of those dark vignettes:
Bad pressure coming down
Tears - what we really traffic in
ride the ribbon of shadow
Never feel the light falling all around
Until tonight I wasn’t sure what to do with that chorus, other than enjoy it as a brief reprieve from the dark images being spoken around it. The song is the shadow, it seemed to me, and the chorus but a thin ribbon of half-light running through it. But suddenly, tonight, perhaps in confirmation of the things I’ve been thinking about hope, I realized what the song is actually saying. It ends with the chorus and repeated mantra:
Bad pressure coming down
Tears - what we really traffic in
ride the ribbon of shadow
Never feel the light falling all around
Never feel the light falling all around
You’ve never seen everything
It’s not the darkness we haven’t seen around us, it’s the light! We think we’ve seen it all when we see the pain and sorrow of the world, but we haven’t seen everything: we haven’t seen the light falling all around, filling all the infinite space in which the ribbon of shadow moves. We choose to ride the ribbon of darkness when we could just as well ride the light if we are willing to see it.
In fact, the album ends quite abruptly a few songs later on the word “hope”.
The experiential reality of perceiving God is unfamiliar territory today. The pace and preoccupation of urbanized, mechanized, collectivized, secularized modern life are such that any sort of inner life…is very hard to maintain…And if you attempt it, you will certain seem eccentric to your peers, for nowadays involvement in a stream of activities is decidedly in, and the older idea of a quiet, contemplative life is just as decidedly out…The concept of a Christian life as sanctified rush and bustle still dominates, and as a result, the experiential side of Christian holiness remains very much a closed book. (J.I. Packer, quoted in Bruce Demarest’s Satisfy Your Soul)
