Hungry for sanity

Certainly I'd heard of Hunger Games, the book by Suzanne Collins and the first of a trilogy that includes Catching Fire and Mockingjay. But my son, who turned 29 today, told me about it and said I'd enjoy it. "It's a fast read." Well, relatively. I'm a slow reader.
He was right; it does keep you reading. One of the skills a writer of narrative wants to use is pacing, and this book has that.
For any who aren't familiar with the Hunger Games phenomenon, the first book came out in 2008. Collins says she got the idea when channel surfing and flipped between a reality show and footage of the Iraq War. The book is narrated by Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem, where North America is now. The country is ruled from a metropolis called the Capitol. Every year a boy and a girl aged 12-18 is chosen by lottery from each of 12 districts to take part in the Hunger Games, a televised competition in which the lone survivor of the 24 contestants wins.
Katniss, who is skilled as a hunter, takes her younger sister's place in the competition. She represents the moral voice of the novel. But the situation is so insane it's hard to imagine remaining moral at all.
The book is written as an engaging story, but it implies other messages, including a critique of violent entertainment. The tricky thing about that is it's using violent entertainment to speak against violent entertainment. Don't get me wrong; this can be done. But it is difficult. Some works have pulled it off well, such the movie Unforgiven.
I think Collins largely succeeds. And I may be even more convinced when I get around to reading the second and third volumes in the trilogy. Marty Troyer, whose blog is  blog.chron.com/thepeacepastor/, has written a longer and thoughtful analysis of Collins' critique of violence. 
As he points out, Collins is good at helping readers feel the effects of violence. It never seems gratuitous. And you can't help wondering, What would I do in such an insane situation?
We in this country are largely protected from such lethal situations, though soldiers and many in poor, crime-ridden areas face such dangers every day. For them, it's not a fictional fantasy but all too real.
With a movie version of Hunger Games coming out March 23, the popularity of the story will only increase. I hope it helps us think about the violence we've come to accept and the violent entertainment we consume so readily. I hope it makes us hungrier for a saner world where peace is sought and desired.

Silence is golden

The Oscar nominations came out this week, and The Artist received 10 nominations, including best picture. In fact, after winning the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical, it is the front runner for best picture. It is the first silent film (more on that later) to be nominated since the first Academy Award for best picture went to Wings in 1929. See a trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8K9AZcSQJE.

You may have noted that it did not make my top 10 list (see my blog "My top 10 films of 2011"). But that's because it did not arrive at a cinema in Wichita, Kan. (I live in Newton, a half hour north) until this past week. Had I seen it earlier, it likely would have. (By the way, if you're interested in top 10 film lists, go to metacritic.com, which shows lists of critics from all the major outlets.)
The Artist begins in the silent film era and features Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, a silent film star, and his dog Jack, played by a Jack Russell terrier named Uggie who practically steals the show with his charming antics. Valentin helps a young actress, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), get her start, and eventually she becomes the next big thing, especially after talkies begin. The proud Valentin refuses to take part in this new technology but remains true to his art in the silent media. That conflict and interplay between art and pride become a major theme of the film, which delves into melodrama at times.
But I want to explore a different theme--silence. Most people haven't watched many silent films and so will find this one strange at first, a novelty or even a frustration. (I heard of a theater in England where patrons complained that there was no dialogue in the film.) But soon you'll get accustomed to the genre. And you'll discover it's not completely silent, since it includes music, which in this case is often lively. (And this film also includes other sounds at certain places.) Silent films also often include intertitles, shots of written words spliced between the action shots.
I hope this film will encourage more viewers to look at silent films. There are some great ones, many available through Netflix or elsewhere. One of my favorites is a French film with the English title The Passion of Joan of Arc. It would make my top 10 list of the greatest films of all time. What that film shows, as does The Artist and many other silent films, is the emotion actors can reveal through their facial expressions and gestures. Dujardin, who is nominated for best actor, is especially good at this, and in one scene he exaggerates this element of silent films, as this film spoofs the making of another film.
Another aspect of silent films is that they impel the viewer to pay greater attention to the actors' expressions and to the action. We become like those who lose their hearing and gain a greater sense of sight. Since we can't depend on hearing actors' words, we have to attend to what we see and gain understanding from that.
This can apply to our spiritual life as we live that out in our daily lives.Silence is an ancient practice in the Christian tradition as well as in other religions. Some monks and others take a vow of silence and communicate with others through sign language.
We need not go to that extent to experience the benefits of silence. Instead we can take smaller steps, practice listening to others carefully instead of only thinking of how we will respond verbally. We can even (horrors!) turn off our TVs, ipods or radios and dwell in silence. Try it even for five or 10 minutes. Like watching a silent film, it will take a while to adjust. We are so accustomed to having noise of some kind around us that silence can feel threatening. It may drive us inward to face the voices inside us. And that may scare us. But be patient and listen.

5 best books of 2011

Why only five? I certainly read more than that last year, closer to 50. But I'm limiting my choices to books published in 2011. And while I probably saw most of the better films of 2011, my list of top 10 is a little more reasonable than picking my top books. There are many more books published than films--and on a wider range of subjects. So this list is even more subjective than my list of films.
I reviewed all five of these, three in the Wichita Eagle and two in The Mennonite. I'll excerpt from those reviews to give some flavor of why I liked them. Most of the books I review for the Eagle are fiction, while the ones I review for The Mennonite are usually from Christian publishers. The five are in no particular order, though I've listed the two novels first.


The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (Random House, 2011, $25)
This is a remarkable debut. Obreht, named in 2010 to The New Yorker’s list of the 20 best writers under 40, was actually the youngest of that group at age 25. Her novel combines a deftness of storytelling and a skill for language with an uncanny wisdom about the ways people deal with suffering and death. In this absorbing novel, Obreht has drawn an array of colorful yet believable characters and explored the ways, as she told an interviewer, “people create and embellish stories to cope with moments of great strife.” She does not name the Balkan country in the novel, but her fiction says more about the effects of war on her homeland than most histories or newspaper accounts.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, $18)
Johnson is one of our finest writers. His characters are usually not the high and mighty but the down-and-out, sometimes marginalized individuals who struggle to communicate their deeper longings or their encounters with the transcendent. A poet, he infuses his narratives with images that sparkle and even jolt but never overwhelm the reader. His newest work is a novella that covers a large swath of American history in a succinct narrative of set scenes. The book follows the life of one Robert Grainier, who is born in 1886, as near as he can figure, and dies in 1963, spending all his life in the American Northwest.

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011, $19.95)
Rohr calls for the need for “(1) a strong tolerance for ambiguity, (2) an ability to allow, forgive and contain a certain degree of anxiety and (3) a willingness to not know and not even need to know.” These characteristics fit what Rohr labels “the second half of life.” This does not have to do with chronological age but spiritual maturity. In the first half, “we are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them—both immature responses.” Our churches, he writes, often keep people in the first half and don’t call for real transformation. What he calls “falling” is a letting go, a surrender to the mercy of God. This is difficult because “the human ego prefers anything … to falling or changing or dying.” But those who fall experience God’s “great outpouring.”

Justice in Love by Nicholas Wolterstorff (Eerdmans, 2011, $35)
This book addresses an important topic for Christians. While many oppose justice and love, Wolterstorff, an eminent Christian philosopher, shows that these two concepts, when understood properly, are perfectly compatible. “Doing justice is an example of love,” he writes. Wolterstorff is thorough in his argument yet uses easy-to-follow examples to illustrate his points. This is not an easy read, but it is worth the effort.

Higher Gossip: Essays and Criticism by John Updike (Knopf, 2011, $40, 501 pages)
John Updike, who died in January 2009, is one of the 20th century’s greatest American writers. He was prolific and multitalented, authoring more than 60 books, including novels, short stories, poems and criticism. He is also, I confess, one of my favorite writers. This posthumous book of essays and criticism was put together and edited by Christopher Carduff at the request of Martha Updike, the author’s wife and literary executor. Yet, writes Carduff in his Foreword, “the notion of such a volume … was on Updike’s mind during the weeks before his death.” Higher Gossip is not for everyone. But for those who enjoy the writing of John Updike or who enjoy good writing period, this is a treasure that can be dipped into at leisure. But be warned, once you enter its pages, it may be difficult to tear yourself away.

My top 10 films of 2011

For more than a decade now I've listed my favorite films from the previous year in The Mennonite (www.themennonite.org), which I serve as associate editor and in which I write a column called Mediaculture. I also write for Media Matters, an online review that's hosted by MennoMedia.
Here's my list of top 10 films of 2011, with the caveat that it's based on what I've seen (some films that likely would have made the list either have not come to theaters in my area or are not yet available on DVD):
1. The Tree of Life
2. Of Gods and Men
3. Margin Call
4. The Descendants
5. Hugo
6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
7. Poetry
8. Le Quattro Volte
9. Higher Ground
10. Buck
For my summary review of each of these, go to http://www.thirdway.com/mm/?Page=6943|Top+10+Films+of+2011
Here's what I wrote about my No. 1: "This mesmerizing film is unlike any other at the cineplex. Terrence Mallick uses impressionistic images and a nonlinear narrative to explore the life of grace and the life of nature, represented respectively by Mrs. O’Brien and Mr. O’Brien, a couple in a 1950s Texas small town. The film is less something to watch than something to experience."
For a trailer of The Tree of Life, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0&noredirect=1
Film is a powerful medium,and they often take us into other worlds. It's often helpful to explore those with others and talk about how they affected us.
Let me know what your favorite films of the year were and why.

Lessons from Dickens on my ipod

I like to walk, and when I do I often listen to my ipod. For the last year or so, I've been listening either to lectures or to recorded books I've downloaded. The other day I was listening to a lecture on Bleak House, a long (900-some-page) novel by Dickens--one of his best, if you choose to tackle it. The lecture was by Arnold Weinstein of the Teaching Company (see www.thegreatcourses.com) and part of a series of lectures called Classic Novels.
Weinstein was making the point that one of Dickens' themes is how the world around us affects us--actually pollutes us--whether or not we are aware of it. One character in the novel is Jo, a poor crossing-sweeper who is nearly invisible to most of the people around him. Yet he has the power to affect other characters. Weinstein points to a story by the radical British journalist Richard Carlile (1790-1843) about a woman who goes to Edinburgh, Scottland, and pleads to passersby, "Help me. I'm your sister." Everyone says, "You're not my sister." But in the end, she dies and infects everyone with typhus. So they were connected to her and affected (infected) by her without being aware of it.
As I said in my first blog, we are all affected by the culture around us, the media we swim in, whether or not we are aware of it. The Bible says this: "Don't be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God's will is--what is good and pleasing and mature." (Romans 12:2 in the new Common English Bible)
This verse has been used by some to bludgeon people with the message, Don't be conformed to the world, as if that's a simple thing to understand. The problem is that those "patterns" are difficult to see. But maybe a good starting point is to acknowledge that we are being conformed by forces we can't even see. Then we can try to be transformed--not an easy task.
I'm thinking that transformation is a lifelong task that involves lots of grace. And I imagine certain spiritual practices might help us in that, such as prayer, service, being in community with others seeking to be transformed.
What do you think?

Present in the Presence

Welcome to my blog.
We swim in an ocean of media, often unaware of its influences on our life. Meanwhile, God's Spirit permeates our world and beckons us to live that loving Presence. How do we navigate the waters around us while being aware of the presence of God within and around us?
Help me explore that question as I look at books, films, TV and other cultural media and reflect on the tension of how to live in the present and in the Presence.
That's the subject of my book Present Tense: A Mennonite Spirituality, and here's a quote from it final page:
"Spirituality … is living in (and by) the Spirit. It is not a strategy or tactic, not a rule or lesson but a life. And living, as we all know, is usually mundane, messy and unpredictable."
Again, welcome.