Writing to a group of early Christians in Corinth, the Apostle Paul famously said, “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). Christ crucified was “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (v. 23), a foolish thing and a sign of weakness. In the ancient world a cross was not something decorative to put atop buildings or wear, diamond-studded, around one’s neck. It was a barbaric method of slow death.
It’s been a while since I’ve been enthusiastic about voting for anyone in a presidential election. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever voted for a presidential candidate with enthusiasm. It’s usually a “lesser of two evils” sort of thing. But this year I had hoped to vote for Marco Rubio, a candidate I have been hoping for years would run for president.
Never have I seen a movie so full of beautiful imagery and sound, yet so simultaneously empty, unsatisfying, and downright sleazy, as Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. But this is precisely its point. The film’s 118-minute parade of bodies, beaches, and landscapes, accompanied by painfully brief snippets of Grieg, Debussy and Vaughan Williams, provides a glut of beauty that is also a deprivation.
Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to make sense of the rise of Donald Trump as a likely Republican nominee for U.S. president. How could this happen? What kind of America looks at a man as “openly debased and debauched” as Trump and sees a man they would like to have in the most powerful office in the world? I think it has something to do with the Oscars and O.J. Simpson.
The only real way to make sense of 2016 America, in particular the unfolding presidential election, is to see it in the way Donald Trump does: as a game. Donald Trump’s stump speeches mostly consist of talking about winning, calling others losers, and insisting that he will help America win again. This involves beating China, Japan and Mexico (and everyone else) at trade, as he said in his New Hampshire victory speech. It also involves building a wall along the Mexican border and forbidding the entry of Muslims, presumably to keep foreigners from undermining America’s winning.
“I Saw Christ Crying in Hermès.” That’s the name of the new single from little-known indie artist, Slow Dakota (real name: PJ Sauerteig), a Fort Wayne, Indiana-based singer/songwriter who often explores themes of religion in his lyrics. Listen to the song here. If you haven’t heard of Slow Dakota or if his style isn’t particularly palatable to you, that’s OK. It’s sort of the point actually.
Every group, every movement, every family, every coalition or club or team of any kind requires some level of agreement/consensus in order to be meaningfully distinct in identity and remotely efficacious in purpose. And every one of these groups knows how elusive but essential consensus can be. But consensus seems to be more elusive than ever, at every stratum of society.
When it comes to Quentin Tarantino, one of the things I've long pondered and have recently been writing about, is the way his films exemplify an "incarnational aesthetic." It's not that they are about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ explicitly; but that their bodily, sensory, cultural preoccupations reveal a reverence for incarnational, embodied existence in a manner that helps the viewer re-sensitize to the physical, fleshy world in which Christ lived, breathed, died and rose.
I started a tradition back in 2010 of keeping an annual running list of the most delicious bites of food I had throughout the year. It's a nerdy foodie habit, I know, but one that helps me remember (rather than consume and quickly forget) the delicious gift of food and the art with which it can be created. As the late Robert Farrar Capon said (in The Supper of the Lamb), "We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.”
In honor of the late Haskell Wexler (1922-2015), I thought I would post this essay I wrote in UCLA film school on Wexler’s iconic film “Medium Cool. Famous for its blending of fiction and reality against the backdrop of the 1968 Chicago riots, "Cool" was at once a forerunner of the “unscripted” reality TV genre and also a prophetic jeremiad in the vein of media critics Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan.
When I put together my annual top 10 movies of the year list, I consider a few things: the quality of a film upon first viewing, the extent to which it lingers (or doesn't), the beauty and truth it unveils and relevance it has in today's world. My top 10 list this year contains four films set in the past, four films set (more or less) in the present, and two set in the future, but they all have something to say about our world today.
I try to read new books at least as much (and hopefully more) as I watch new films and television or listen to new music, and this year there were quite a few books that I loved or greatly admired. Below are my favorite books released in 2015 and then my favorite books that I read (not necessarily released this year) in 2015.
It seems that every year there is more and more good music; perhaps even too much good music. I don’t know the reason for it, but I’m not complaining. Well, one complaint: Narrowing down favorites is harder than ever! The following is my somewhat arbitrary (likely to change) ranking of my favorite 25 albums and favorite 25 songs of 2015.
I’m sitting here looking at the Christmas tree in our room, a 7-foot Noble Fir, still aromatic and alive, glistening with lights and glittery ornaments. Part forest and part carnival, a natural and cultural creation, it stands as a shy but stately symbol of so much more than just holiday cheer. Its triangular, evergreen shape and prickly, shedding branches tell a much bigger story.
A year from now we will (very possibly) have a new president-elect in the U.S. As a registered voter in California, I will have zero influence in deciding the election. But that doesn't keep me from having opinions about what kind of candidate I'd like to see succeed in becoming America's 45th president. The following is a list of attributes that would define my "dream president."
In the midst of the often abstract debates and discourse surrounding refugees, we can lose sight of the real lives involved and also despair about what can be done to help. It's important that we keep ourselves informed about what is actually going on, and it's important that we support and celebrate the good, compassionate, humane work being done to ease the suffering.
I don’t know what it’s like to be a refugee. I’ve never had to flee my homeland out of fear for my life because bombs or beheadings were a very real threat. I’ve never had to resettle in a foreign land and struggle to assimilate to an alien or hostile culture. I also don’t know what it’s like to lose a loved one to an act of terrorism, blown up in a plane or riddled with bullets in a concert venue.
We need more journalistic reporting like "Spotlight," Tom McCarthy’s excellent film about the Boston Globe’s groundbreaking 2002 coverage of systemic clergy sex abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church. We need it because humans are very prone to doing bad things and really, really good at covering up those bad things. Someone needs to shine the spotlight on darkness, even if it means implicating ourselves too.
