Travels 2015: In Which My Grandfather and I Traverse the Island

Travels 2015 is a series of updates I originally posted on Facebook while on vacation. What started as a quick update and a couple photos transformed into a series of mini-essays that I would have posted on this website had it been up and running at the time. This one was written on July 27th, 2015.

 

I've spent the last three days "adventuring" with my 92 year old grandfather and now have an arsenal of memories to share with my grandkids someday. Such as: 

  • Getting almost-scolded by the owner of Charcut for, a). standing on the rooftop balcony (my grandfather, to better catch the view) and b). bringing in outside coffee (me, because they didn't have decaf).
  • Together doing a $700 grocery shop for 7 people before desperately catching two island ferries lest we miss the last ferry ride.
  • Discovering that there is a Hyden string quartet concert beginning in 15 minutes and racing across the island to catch it.

And.... OYSTERS!!!!

I recently discovered these delicacies only to be told that my grandfather would catch them by hand in Cape Breton and eat them, alone, to the chagrin of his family. So I bought us 4 dozen and we ate half of them together, after learning how to shuck them (from the man at the COOP hardware store, where my grandfather bought lemons and heavy duty gloves). This was all done in view of the family, who watched us with chagrin through a glass window as they ate their boiled potatoes. (We offered them samples, many times, but each family member refused.)

So yes, vacation has been fun so far.

Meritt, Collected

Hornby Island, furtherest north of British Columbia’s gulf islands, is not only an almost annual visit of rest and vacation, but thanks to its outstanding beauty, it is also a place of almost annual artistic inspiration. In the dreary winter, as I was looking forward to the vacation, I read an essay in Image Journal on the artist Gala Bent. The writer mentioned that the illustrator regularly brings 

“natural objects—rocks, pinecones—into her studio, not to draw them directly, but to feed her creative process by using them as objects for study. She sometimes contemplates them for years: one pinecone with two heads she’s kept since her time in Indiana. They are present in her studio as she draws, and also somehow present in her inner landscape. “I have a nutritional need to be outside,” she says. “So then when I go back to the studio, I feel similar in a strange way to the Song dynasty painters, where I feel like I’ve internalized the natural world and I’m bringing it back in my body.”

Her story of the two-headed pinecone recalled a beautiful black rock that I collected on a beach at Hornby the first time I visited, eight years ago. I picked it up because its colour, its smooth texture, and because the form of it in my hand pleased me. That rock has been a proud feature of my dresser ever since. Reflecting on this an idea struck me: what would it look like to daily collect such an object on my vacation and photograph it against the natural wood and light of our rented vacation home? There were so many interesting natural objects to be found on the beaches and in the forests of Hornby, so I would be sure to have plenty of inspiration. And the fixed limitations of the form would offer some sort of consistency to my endeavours. 

Six months later, my ideas took form. My initial idea of shooting against the dark wood of the house proved challenging. The camera revealed flaws in the wood or glass that became distracting. A visit to the only art shop on the island yielded some expensive art paper, an extravagant purchase that worked well and resulted in what I consider to be the best of the series. 

A quick note about the last three photos. Taking apart an arbutus branch was a fun challenge, especially as I added a new element one at a time. While colourful, the photo with the leaves and branch looked too much like a hipster’s outfit photo. I ended up posting the photo of the bark elegantly laid out, but looking back, I prefer the raw, wild texture of the piece of curling bark. Which is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below. 

Fasting Through Black and White

For another year I have taken an unusual Lent fast: a fast from colour. In the weeks leading up to Easter I have applied a greyscale filter to my iPhone’s camera. Everyday, except for Sunday,  I chose one of these photos and pair it with a passage from the Scripture readings from that day. Photos are then edited in VSCO Cam.

Why Lent? As someone whose convictions are firmly evangelical and reformed, I formally scoffed at the practice. It wasn’t until I began to study works from outside the narrow slice of evangelism I was raised him,  that realized the rich history of the church calendar throughout church history, including the Reformed and Anglican streams. I recalled how my annual observance of Advent prepared my heart for the celebration of Christmas. In contrast, Easter tends to sneak up on me and leave far too quickly, without much observance of its impact on my heart and my world. 

Someone coming out of Roman Catholicism might benefit from abstaining from Lent, focusing solely on disciplines ordained by God in his Word. But I have benefited from time set aside to sombrely reflect on this world and its disappointments, my sins, and the hope we are preparing to celebrate at Easter. The dull and sometimes gloomy tones of the black and white filter emphasis this, but they also showcase a complexity of pattern and texture that suggests something deeper at work. And the brilliant contrast to the full colours on display following Easter remind us of the unending implications of the Resurrection here and now, amongst us. 

Now that this project is completed you can enjoy the gallery below. (Please click on an image to open it in full screen and hover on the photo to view the matching passage of Scripture; an essential part of the experience.) You can also enjoy my posts from 2014, which were posted here. 

Advent and Christmastide

The poetic potential of the advent and Christmas seasons is limitless. The painters, wordsmiths, musicians, and speakers of our faith have mined it for millennium and have yet to finish. The yearning of every heart is for the coming of our King. This season is about setting time aside to prepare for his coming and celebrating his arrival and the implications it brings.

For the month of Advent and the two weeks since Christmas I have been mediating upon these truths, marinating on them my prayers, listening to music that examines them, sitting under teaching on the subject in church, and celebrating the season with family and friends. So when it came to write about Christmas here, I felt inadequate. I wondered where to begin and upon what to limit the boundary of my discussion. 

I came back to the Scripture readings that I daily reflected upon during this season. These are what inspired the pictures I daily posted during both Advent (the days leading up to Christmas) and Christmastide (the “12 Days of Christmas” following the 25th). These portions of the Bible are what tell of the One Who created and sustains everything, Who stepped into our world to redeem it, and Who will come again.

Enjoy the gallery and mediate with me on the words. Christmas may be over but its implications never end.

Boyhood Again!

As critics and fans continue to add to what is now a flurry of top 10 2014 lists, well deserved buzz over Richard Linklater's Boyhood is only growing. This week it was released on iTunes, giving me the perfect opportunity to share a link to what is my first published review.

Boyhood Mondo

In partnership with Steelbook and Mondo's release of their stunning special edition of Boyhood, I was asked to write a review of the film for Hi-Def Ninja, who announced this special release. Here is an except of the review:

“If you spend three hours in a movie theatre, you are typically watching an epic concerned with a hero’s efforts to halt an impending catastrophic demise of our planet. Spending three hours instead learning the complexities of a fellow human’s growth to adulthood is a welcome change. And yet BOYHOOD never loses pace or becomes dull. Our time with Mason and family is rewarded in what is an unexpectedly funny film. Our laughter is not just a laughter over the situations and banter, but is instead a laughter of recognition. We have been in their shoes. We’ve had that fight with our sibling, that first day in new school, or that awkward conversation with our teenage son. But we have also shared the excitement of a first crush or the recognition that you can now talk with your son as an adult. BOYHOOD is alerting us to the joy of the ordinary; the mundane special that is all around us, so easy to miss.”

Head over to Hi-Def Ninja to read the entire piece and do take a look at the beautiful work Steelbook and Mondo put into this release. It was huge honour to be part of this project. Stay tuned for further work from me in partnership with these companies!

The Seeing Eye and the Written Word

This autumn I embarked on a photo project. I wanted to pair images that captured the sights and atmosphere of the season with words I was reading from my collection of Seamus Heaney's poetry. Heaney's words are grounded in nature but look beyond the natural, comprehending the transcendent. It is this balance that I hope my photography achieves. 

Looking back, the finished set of photographs have an overall consistency that is hampered by the occasional inconsistent cropping. I've selected my 15 favourites, and have included the original quote and a reference to its poem (click on the image and hover over it to view the quote). I hope you enjoy seeing them gathered together here.

I am just now beginning an Advent photo series. You are welcome to follow along on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

Bach and the Joy of Work

I am already out of town by the time I realize what music my sister is playing as she drives me. James Ehnes is performing the final movement of Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C for Solo Violin and the notes come fast.  They tumble and tangle, cascading into breathless arpeggios. Rolling and echoing, distinct and quick, they are like the details of a complex mosaic. I could stare at the details, marvel only at their perfection, and miss the greater masterpiece that they bear witness to. And what a masterpiece! Listening to the intricate arpeggios is like ridding a strong and sensitive stallion up a mountain, or directing a sailboat into crest after crest of wave, water, and wind. This music should peak, I think. There is no way it could reach a pinnacle higher than the one it just reached. But then it does and I am overcome with joy.

The video starts with photographs but after that you can see Milstein´s performance. Nathan Milstein plays, at age 82, Bach´s Sonata for Violin Solo No.3 in C, Allegro assai. This was his last concert.

I’m simply listening and yet I’m experiencing such pleasure. I am not playing this music, mastering it, coaxing it off the written page and into reality. Nor am I Bach writing this music, taking simple chords, scales, and turning them into something new.

And yet a trace of joy that is chipped from the same vein is witnessed when I am doing my work well. When I am using my skills, my knowledge, my personality, and my abilities to help someone, it is like every string in my instrument is tuned to the perfect pitch, making music. What satisfaction and what pleasure! I experience it too in hobbies; the rare occasions that my film review clicks into place and explains a truth, or when the composition and lighting of my photograph have gathered together to convey a visual idea.

When I do this I worship; I glorify God to the best of my abilities, using his gifts to their fullness in order to accomplish what he has set before me. As Dorothy Sayers wrote, “Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties… the medium in which he offers himself to God.” Or in the more blunt terms of Eric Liddle: “'God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

But how rare are these moments! So often I come close to that satisfaction, yet miss it, brushing past its greatness instead of meeting it head on. Something gets in the way. Often it is my own inadequacies and my self-centredness. Sometimes it is someone else’s failures. Maybe I get bored, tired or lazy. Oh the frustration of corruptly bearing God’s image amongst his tainted world!

Now think; if work is worship, what than should we expect from our worship in Heaven?  What would be possible without the limits of our own finitude, our own and others sinfulness, and the fallenness of our earth? With God Himself before us and in our midst, think of the masterpieces I will photograph, the endless beauty and complexity of the films we will create (and review), the redeemed people we will call our colleagues, and the music that Bach and his friends will compose and perform. All for the pleasure of our King!

For this King is making all things new. And I am called to join him. Until that day when my sinfulness and this world’s fallenness is eradicated, may the hope and reality of his redemption have me return to this fallen ground, spade in hand, tilling for my Master.

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Overcoming Thanksgiving Cynicism

I noticed that I’ve been subtly avoiding the posture of thanksgiving this weekend. Odd, don’t you think? Especially coming from someone found of the phrase “thankful hearts offered here.” I suppose I’ve been burned by the marketing techniques of the retail culture I’ve worked in these last three years. Thanksgiving seems a suitable excuse for every high-priced clothing boutique in the mall to offer yet another sale. I’m also miffed at the way our secular age has replaced almost all of the sacred feasts with municipal holidays. According to the ‘Canadian Holidays’ calendar I and the rest of my country subscribe to, this second weekend of October is when we are to have thankfulness forced down our thoughts through yet another pumpkin and cranberry adorned turkey. (Next year it will be a different, random weekend. And your American cousins? They have to wait until November to “raise their song of harvest home.”)

Truth be told, it is easier to be thankful when my heart is full to bursting, surrounded by many joys and successes. And lately it hasn’t been. Contentment and satisfaction have avoided me this month like circling blackbirds avoiding their roost. As I realize this I ask the question: when do I offer thanks? When my circumstances alone dictate it? “Count your blessings, name them one by one” my sister sings to herself as she cooks. But if I rely on that attitude, what happens when every blessing is removed? A friend sits alone in a foreign city this Thanksgiving, recently abandoned by his until-now fiancée. Another dreads the weekend because the wounds of his divorce are still too fresh and the lack of family on a such a holiday bring the pain surging back. Yet another fights both the discouragement and the effects that a debilitating Lupus diagnostics brings. A 100 Days of Happy campaign might teach you to enjoy simple pleasures, but it will not bring the hope that devastation has removed. “Count your blessings, every doubt will fly. And you will be singing when the days go by?” Try saying that when your friend is like Job on the ash heap and wait for broken pottery to be thrown in your face.  

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So where is the root of my thanksgiving? A passing comment in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans provides a clue. “I thank my God through Christ Jesus for all of you, that your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” John Calvin, in his commentary on that verse, offered some words that made me think. “All our blessings are gifts of God. We should accustom ourselves to such forms of expression as may ever rouse us more keenly to acknowledge God as the bestower of all good things. And if it is right to do this in little blessings, how much more out we to do so in regard to faith, which is neither a commonplace nor a indiscriminate gift of God?”

And that’s the key. My thanks should not be based solely on my blessings which are plenty - Americanos on brisk autumn days, golden light falling on my richly shelved bookcase, Wes Anderson films and corduroy pants paired with woollen sweaters - but in the character of their Giver. Then, when the gifts themselves are gone, or removed, or forsaken, or taken, or shown to be false, the Giver himself will prove sure. For He does not change like the circumstances. His character is constant and our only hope. 

So I will keep my eyes rooted to him and his character and marvel at how the Gospel reveals it in its fullness. This will be my primary thanksgiving, but I will praise him also for all blessings that flow from him, “good gifts from above…coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation of shadow due to change” (James 1:17). With such a focus I will enjoy what he gives, thus making everyday, the hard ones included, a Thanksgiving Day.

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Seamus Heaney - "Making Strange"

I stood between them,
the one with his traveled intelligence
and tawny containment,
his speech like the twang of a bowstring,

and another, unshorn and bewildered
in the tubs of his wellingtons,
smiling at me for help,
faced with this stranger I’d brought him.

Then a cunning middle voice
came out of the field across the road
saying, ‘Be adept and be dialect,
tell of this wind coming past the zinc hut,

call me sweetbriar after the rain
or snowberries cooled in the fog.
But love the cut of this travelled one
and call me also the cornfield of Boaz.

Go beyond what’s reliable
in all that keeps pleading and pleading,
these eyes and puddles and stones,
and recollect how bold you were

when I visited you first
with departures you cannot go back on.’
A chaffinch flicked from an ash and next thing
I found myself driving the stranger

through my own country, adept
at dialect, reciting my pride
in all that I knew, that began to make strange
at the same recitation.

–Seamus Heaney 'Making Strange'

"Call me also the cornfields of Boaz"

"Call me also the cornfields of Boaz"

This poem struck me with force the first time I read it. It captured my imagination as I reread it again and again and shared it with my often bewildered but sometimes appreciative friends. Those friends who were bewildered asked for an explanation, so let me try my hand at explaining it. 

The narrator stands between two men, one traveled, intelligent, and blunt in his strength, the other plain, bewildered, and pleading for assistance. The narrator has a responsiblity (it is implied that he brought the first stranger upon the second) and is at a loss for what to do. 

Direction arrives from a third voice, distant and distinct. This Someone confronts: "Be adept and dialect! Tell of something great coming, a wind that will sweep this ragged land. Love these people of flesh. For I was there when Boaz showed mercy to another stranger, in another field, many centuries ago. Go beyond what you see in the obvious - sticks and hair, boots and bones. And remember: I visited you too when you were also a stranger. I took you away and now you cannot return."

A bird on a branch brings the narrator back to present. When we leave him, he is driving the stranger through his own land, introducing the stranger to a landscape familiar and now freshly foreign.

In this poem, I see the call for us to love the bewildered strangers in our midst with a gospel love. We too may be at a loss for how to respond to them, and we too need to hear the voice of the One who called and redeemed us, recalling how His guidance then is the same guidance now. Moving forward, adepting our dialect, He will move through our actions too. 

 

 

Late Summer: A Gallery of Images

I took many photos this summer, but I posted few images. Although they seldom appeared, they were edited and selected with craft and care. The text and images are loaded with personal meaning and continue to resonate emotionally. 

Looking back, the colours are faded and golden and the crops I favour are long and elongated. Although I sometimes wish I posted more, I'm proud of these images. I hope they point to the sustenance of the one who redeems all of the times.

Enjoy. And let me know what you think in the comments below. 

U2's Songs of Innocence: Initial Impressions

I've listened to this  album 2 or 3 times, so expect longer and deeper reflections as I dive into it more. Here are just some quick thoughts. 

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U2's new album Songs of Innocence has been given by Apple to every iTunes account holder. I had to get  over the loud and edgy rock stadium overtones, something I wish they would move beyond, like they've had to with their youth. But the hooks and harmonies withstand the fading glamour. Underneath it all I'm finding an album filled with songwriting wisdom that persists, provokes thought, and points to a sustaining grace greater than any free album. 

So, since it is free and already in your iTunes library, I recommend giving it a couple spins. You might find yourself returning to its music repeatedly. 

Evan Koons and For the Life of the World

A capstone experience in my young life was the summer I was invited by my church to write and teach the Bible curriculum for our summer Vacation Bible School (VBS) program. We were unhappy with the quality of the provided materials and my task was to create a teaching that walked the kids through the story of Joseph. The outcome included transforming one classroom into a filthy prison (complete with a costume that I aged by leaving in the mud for one week) and another into an elaborate throne room, enlisting my youth pastor and a church grandfather as fellow actors, and writing a script that both captivated the kids and taught them about God and our response to Him. God’s blessing was on the efforts and the result was unlike anything I have ever done.

A quick snapshot of me in costume as Joseph.

A quick snapshot of me in costume as Joseph.

So I’ve always been excited by the possibilities of combining creativity, performance, and impactful teaching. A tour of the workshops of GoodSeed International was one example, my recent introduction to the online video series The Bible Project is another. And this summer I have come across a third: For the Life of the World: Letters to Exiles.

This video series is created and narrated by Evan Koons, an charmingly awkward young man who sits in a large house in the middle of a forest and ponders big questions like “What is our salvation for?” Seven short episodes explore the implications of these questions. Topics include the place of Christians in the world, the reason of our work, the meaning of love and family, and the place for creativity and order in the world.

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The series is outstanding for its cohesive use of creativity and imagination. Every episode features at least one visual illustration that later becomes an analogy for the teaching. A Rube Goldberg machine that attempts to cook Evan’s breakfast backfires and become an example of the banality of utilitarian work. A ruined paper lantern that lands in Evan’s front yard later is later used as a moving visual illustration of how our lives in the world are offered up to God as a prayer. A punk motorcyclist arrives on Evan’s front porch and uses puppets to tell a illustrating the importance of a believers call to hospitality. While on paper these come across as trite and cheesy, they are subtly woven into the fabric of the video’s narration, beautifully shot, and scored by new music from Jars of Clay.

And yet Evan is not a sage on a stage preaching to his viewers. He is himself perplexed by these issues and so he brings his questions to a recurring cast of teachers, including Stephen Grabill from the Acton Institute and artist Makoto Fujimura. Their advice, illustrations, and wisdom clearly cause Evan and his audience to respond to truths through the way that they live. Evan is one of our peer on this journey, inviting us to join him in a greater understanding of the implications of God’s redemptive work for the world.

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And these implications are life changing. In the church we often focus on the gospel’s private spirituality, but seldom on how it influence on our day-to-day life. What are the repercussions of the gospel on the mundanity of work, the meaning and purpose of knowledge and creativity, or the day-to-day actions of service and sacrifice in the life of a family and the life of a church? This theology is necessary to integrate the truths of Christianity into the life of the world. Anyone who watches the series will be introduced or reminded of these doctrines, but Evan is not content to let such truths sit dormant on the view’s mental shelf. He brings them home by closing every episode with a “letter to exiles”, a hand written monologue. In these letters encourages us with the reminder that we carry these truths into our lives as the redeemed children of God, not through our own power but through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So I recommend For the Life of the World: Letters to Exiles to you and commend Evan Koons and his team for producing such a work. May we be stirred by it and, out of that stirring, create similar works of beauty and truth. It is available as a DVD/ BlueRay set, a digital download, and an online rental. 

Boyhood (2014)

I expected to be impressed by director Richard Linklater latest film Boyhood. Who else but the director of the Before Trilogy, a twenty year experiment in long-term character development, would have the audacious patience to assemble a cast and film for 12 years the story of a boy and his family growing up? But I did not expect such joy. A growing smile enlarged into a full-on grin which remained on my face for film’s duration. As the film tracks the life of young Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his family, we laugh, not just because the situations and banter are funny but because we recognize similar situations. The film is alerting us to the joy of the ordinary, the mundane special that is all around us, so easy to miss. 

One would assume such a landmark film to portray an ideal American family, but instead Mason and his sister Sam, (Lorelei Linklater) live with their single mom (Patricia Arquette). Their father (perfectly cast Ethan Hawke) is out of the picture and the pain this separation has on the kids is sensitively handled from their perspective. As weekend trips with Dad are balanced with school, video games, and bike rides with friends, their mom’s progressing career and education, adopted parents, and domestic abuse enter their story. Such difficult and complicated themes are not tucked away, but neither do they become the film’s focus. 

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Part of Boyhood’s appeal is watching this family grow up before us, each character making decisions and changing, not just in hair styles and facial structures, but as people. Mason and his dad grow closer then we might have originally guessed, friends come and go with surprising transience, skills and interests foster, fumble, and achieve success, and daily choices turn into personal characteristics. Like the darkroom negative that Mason develops in high school, this boy is turning into a man before our very eyes.

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But this film is not just about Mason. Each family member could be closely study, and I was especially fascinated by his Mom. At the beginning, she is not much too look at and, being an educated single parent, would likely never amount to much. And yet she pulls herself up out of poverty “for her kids sake,” earning several degrees, a noble pursuit that we applaud. By the time Mason is a teenager she is teaching college physiology and hosting dinner parties for students, the picture of modern success. Towards the end of the film, Mason is packing up for college and his Mom breaks into tears. Her sorrow is not in her son’s departure, as we’d come to expect from so many similar scenes in movies. Instead she grieves over her departing glory days, the fading of her youth, and the mortality of her success and achievements.  “I’m getting old” she cries, “and all I have to show for it are mortgages, reminders of divorce, and a house full of clutter.” Her life’s focus has been exposed as a self-centred striving after the wind. 

We see, in less then three hours, a beautiful time-lapse image of what it meant to grow up in my era. So many scenes rang true, yet I was struck by how different my boyhood was. I’m not referring to the video games I didn’t play or the alcohol and locker room dramas I didn’t experience. I’m thinking of my parents; my mum sacrificing her career for the unglamorous work of raising her offspring at home, my dad making the care of his son’s soul his priority.

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But to come away from theatre boasting in my own privileged upbringing would be to completely miss the point, blind to the wonders of this film. Boyhood’s gift is its empathy, and this empathy includes an understanding of my peer’s experiences and a realization of what we have in common. This modern life and all of its complexities are here on display in a grand miniature. We are invited to leave wiser in the ways of the modern man and filled with thanksgiving for the good gifts we all share.

A Found Poem from the Book of Second Chronicles

I've been reading through Second Chronicles this month and was struck by the banality of evil in the face of the righteousness of the few. Listed are the so many evil kings who forsook the Lord, but they are spoken of and forgotten, the writer focusing instead on the deeds of those who sought the Lord. And amongst the many names and years, the drudgery and repeatedness of our lives, comes the constant nature of our Lord. 

Recently I came across a found poem that used lines extracted from a Focus on the Family movie review. I thought it would be an interesting challenge to create a found poem using only phrases found in 2 Chronicles. I hope it captures a bit of what I described above. 

And he did evil and abandoned the law of the Lord,
Crushed
             Burned
                        Detestable whoredom
                                                  Complete destruction 
                                                                           He made them an object of horror 
For a long time.
He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. 

He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. 
The Lord struck him down
So he died and they buried him. 
He reigned and they buried him. 
The Lord stuck him down and he died.

 

He did what was good and right in the Lord
The spirit of God came upon him.
And they set their hearts to seek the Lord
That the Lord had chosen.

The noise of the people praising the king, for they listened to the word of the Lord.
He sought the Lord
They humbled themselves
The word of the Lord came.

 

The word of the Lord came. 
The word of the Lord came.
The Lord is righteous 
The Lord had chosen
And the land had rest for ten years.

For the Lord.

                                       For the Lord.

                                                                                    For the Lord. 

New York Morning

A friend recently introduced me to the English band Elbow, who took the name after hearing a character on a BBC show describe it as the loveliest word in the English language. Imagine if Coldplay didn’t care about radio play, spent their evenings with Irish whiskey and watching black and white films, and dealt with breakups by drinking that whiskey alone in basements and writing poetry. Elbow’s music is dark, profane, poetic, and full of humanity. 

One song off their recent album, The Takeoff and Landing of Everything has me particularly thrilled. Not only is it some of the finest songwriting you will hear this year but it also perfectly illustrates the role of the city in the Christian worldview. Click play on the video and I’ll walk you through what I mean.

The song opens with quiet chords, sneaking in like the first light of morning. The lead singer, Guy Garvey, begins by describing the power of ideas and “how there is a big one round the corner.” Right on cue the drums enter like a beam of sunrise. The city of New York is waking up. It’s towers are described in a rapidly rising crescendo, “each pillar post, and painted line, every batter ladder building in this town” singing “a life of proud endeavour and the best that man can be.” Garvey has just described the ambition that is the heart of New York and every urban Rome.

And his crescendo is not over. He continues, without pausing, describing the “million voices” of people that are “planning, drilling, welding, carrying their fingers to the nub.” “Why?” he asks as the musical line meets its ernest and earned peak. “Because they can, they did and do…” Such is the reason for our endeavouring, our modern babel of enterprise, our kingdom building.

But the line doesn’t end here, for if there was just ambition, we humans would be smothered under our own terror. The city holds something greater than achievement and the climax of this line ends by describing it. “Why? Because they can, they did and do so you and I could live together.” The heart and purpose of the city are right here, in home, in family, in love.

The lyrics in the song break as the bass and the piano wind themselves into a melody represent ing the towers “reaching down into the ground” and “stretching up into the sky.” The song than twists the three ideas it has introduced together as the voices and melodies overlap. “Everybody owns the great ideas”, “the desire of the patchwork symphony”, and the striving that is “for love, having come for me”.

The song opened with the morning light and pinnacled in afternoon ambition. It than winds to a restful end, revealing its foundation. “The way [the day] ends depends on if your home. For every soul a pillow and a window please.” In just over five minutes it has perfectly captures what we love and hate about the city but also why we must cherish our urban centres. Here is humanity. Here is the potential for home. And here is grace, family, and people, where the gospel takes root and proves its worth.

I can think of several examples. My first solo trip to London, were the city large, foreign, and exhausting. Yet I stayed with a group of Christian urban monks and because of their fellowship never felt alone. Or just last night, visiting a young couple who recently moved downtown. A car accident on Sunday left them shaken and debilitated so I went to keep them company and was joined by the her younger siblings. These kids live on an acreage and were visibly awed by the dark hot streets towering with cranes, the apartment, ancient and decrepit, and the stories of crime and homelessness surrounding the building. And yet in that home was warmth and sacrifice, family and protection. The heartbeat of life itself. 

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Snowpiercer (2013)

The year is 2031. Seventeen years prior a worldwide attempt at cooling the earth to prevent global warning failed, plunging the planet into freezing ice. All infrastructure, culture, and civilization is now lost in an icy expanse, with the exception of a train that continuously circles the globe. In this train are the remains humanity, structured into strict classes where the rich dwell in the train’s front, living off the poor and ratty unfortunates who dwell in the train’s tail. 

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Clearly such a story is shot through with allegorical implications. The director, an ever innovative Korean named Joon-ho Bong, acknowledges this by fully embracing the representational world, sweeping us away with the completely realized costumes and detailed grit and grime, all captured by claustrophobic camera work. The people living at the back of the train daily suffer from injustice. As they become more desperate they begin a revolution, breaking out of their guarded tailend, led by a stern faced Chris Evans, a lively and witty Jamie Bell, and a couple of other motley ordinaries on a last-ditch effort to claim the engine and confront the owner of the train. As they proceed up the train and its compartment’s are opened one by one, they are met by the bureaucrats and their armies of axe welding soldiers, commanded by bizarrely costumed but perfectly convincing Tilda Swinton.  The resulting conflicts are brutally violent, blade on flesh and metal on blood, like so much of our civilization’s history. 

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The story, like the train, plunges ahead full throttle. It delights in surprising us as compartment after compartment are opened by the rebels revealing deadly twists and surprising turns. Main characters are killed off and minor characters become unexpectedly important. And as the movie hurtles towards its conclusion, we are left on the edge of our seat. How will it end and what vision of the world will it leave us with?

The train itself, containing all this is left of this world, becomes a compelling microcosm of the film’s view of reality. The train, and with it, all life, resides on a fixed track, hurtling along at a breakneck speed making an outside existence impossible. Its inhabitance focus on their misery or the distractions of their life but the few who glimpse the outside of the train see only hopelessness, a canvas bleak, chilling, and inescapable, who's inhabitants are “dead, all dead.” Ever and always the noise of the locomotive can be discerned, a daily reminder of its inhabitants vulnerability, sometimes grinding in the background, sometimes clanging and shaking.

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It is a bleak and despairing worldview, but it does take keen interest in its inhabitants, their existence, and their reasons for life. We could argue that the story paints a picture of a cruel God, grinding away at an eternal engine, pushing his cold doctrine through a brainwashed power structure.

But the film’s ending succeeds in surprising us, with both a twist and a heart. Listen closely as the population’s only hope tells a story of his people’s early days. Recognize the sacrifice and personal cost in that story and see how this heart of compassion for the least of these becomes a key to the climax of the film. Compassion, in a world as depraved is what is depicted here, holds a gleam of potential light and with it, hope. 

 

These Losses Spark Longing

This week a dear friend left town, returning to school in the States. Last week, another close friend left Calgary to enter ministry in Vancouver. When these beloved gems of my life leave, it is like I am experiencing their death in miniature, for although their departures are not permanent, their loss is still felt. A funeral dirge, however dim, is still heard.

These partings can spark longing. Both friends left to pursue things that I also yearn for, school and West Coast culture. But my season for such things has not yet arrived, so I press on, shaking off any burdens of attachment, relieved to be allowed to focus on the pilgrimage. My hand is to my staff and, like Frodo, I move forward on my quest.

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But almost as these words leave my mind, I pause to reconsider the analogy. “Hand to the staff” is not the phrase from scripture. “Hand to the plough” is. “I will follow you, Lord” said the man in Luke 9, “but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” It was then that Jesus said “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I see that my imagery need realigning. A plough is different than a staff.
A plough does not ignore the barren ground, but revitalizes it, digging deep into the earth. The ploughman’s hands bare their tool with blisters, skin always broken and always healing. He is not content to pass by hardship, but turns and circles back, digging up the rocks and boulders, grappling, wrestling with the land given him.

And so there is work before me. Sweat will be required and weariness will be worn like a honoured weapon. But the ground needs breaking before it can be sown. The land is not mine, yet here I will dwell, readying it for the farmer’s seed and praying for harvest rain.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)


Summer blockbusters seam intent to satisfy crowds looking for low mental output and high octane thrills, but rarely do they leave the viewer with anything more enduring than a headache and more thought provoking than a love triangle. And so summers find contemplative viewers in small theatres seeking independent jewels. But when these viewers wants to talk intelligently about movies to anyone outside of the five audience members present at the indie theatre, Transformers 4 and Sex Tape don’t offer much fodder. But just when such hopelessness confronts us, along comes a smart blockbuster like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a film popular, exciting, and thought-provoking.

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This movie is not called Dawn of the Planet of the Humans and Apes, so from its very title we know that things do not look well for the humans who have survived the devastating simian flue. The evolved ape community will rule and our race will be exterminated. We just don’t know how, so we watch the nervous interaction between the new ape civilization in the Redwood Forest and the struggling humans in ruined San Francisco with incredibly high stakes. Minor decisions are being made and any one of them could be the spark that sets the inevitable bonfire of war alight.

This simmering tension is sustained by a musical score that, like the film, is both interesting and heartfelt. The cinematography is not content to to let us just sit back and partake in the action, instead it throws us in headfirst with angles that surprise and engage the viewer. And it's a major accomplishment that we grow to care for and understand the apes as equally as the film’s humans. Part of this is due to to the completely believable worlds that are built, both the rising ape culture and the ruined San Francisco.  And a large portion of credit goes to the astonishing work of Andy Serkis and his fellow ape actors. The audience develops a deep emotional resonance with their civilization but the remaining humans are not ignored. Instead, the uniqueness and preciousness of human life is acknowledged, especially in light of the oncoming disaster.  One might argue that there is less depth to the human characters, but I would say that since we are unfamiliar with the apes, the extra time spent with them is well proportioned. 

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Watching this movie will inevitably spark deep discussions. I would suggest that there are two conclusions we can walk away with. The first is the importance of a rooted understanding of what makes someone human. If humans are not made in the image of God, ethical decisions between apes and animals and lower life life or higher life loose their footing. But as sketchy as this ground is, I think Dawn of the Planet of the Apes deserves more praise than criticism for its ontological understanding, if we suspend our belief and acknowledge that the apes are humans. And that is the second conclusion. Fo even in an ideal community like that of the apes, war is inevitable. Someone is going pick the forbidden fruit, disobey the given rules, and fire the shot that will begin the collapse. The minor moral choices we make have great weight because their consequences are brutal.

Finding a movie that strikes us with these truths in such a fresh and thought provoking way is rare. Coupled with a story that is thrilling, special effects so effortlessly believable, and a world rendered with both explosive terror and and quite sadness, we have a summer blockbuster to be proud of.