TV religion

For a long time, the church and pop culture have been at odds with one another. Actually, that might be understating the situation. They have been at war. Over the last few decades, the church has accused pop culture of being rooted in evil, ignoring the value system our nation had supposedly been founded on. It has suggested that pop culture has moved decidedly away from Christian morality so as to promote a more carnal and self-promoting lifestyle. On the other hand, pop culture has accused the church of being stuck in a value system that is out of touch with reality and suggests that it seeks control rather than transformation. It says that the church is obsolete as an institution of spiritual guidance and offers to take its place.

However, are the two truly at odds? Are the church and pop culture so far divided from one another? Though I might have said so a few years ago, a number of recent movies and TV shows have changed my opinion. Take The DaVinci Code as an example. Though the movie portrayed an image of Jesus that some consider incorrect, and maybe even heretical, the movie dove into an exploration of the fuller life of Jesus. It speculated as to the other parts of Jesus' life where Scripture remained silent. While the suggestion is far from academic, it initiated a debate in both the Christian and secular communities. Many who had never been to church were invited into its doors via a pop cultural suggestion. Still more movies wrestle with the nature of and our relation to God (Stigmata, What Dreams May Come?, Constantine, Boondock Siants, etc.). In any number of TV shows, at least one character struggles with issues of faith. On House, Dr. House, though a professed atheist, is often left wondering about the existence of God. On Bones, the main characters constantly jab at each other over the idea of religion/God. Faith is a significant part of the lives of several characters on the crime shows I watch, and often they struggle with how their lives it into that faith.

A couple of TV shows come to mind as I consider pop culture's relation to spirituality. The first is Life. Life tells the story of Detective Charlie Crews who had been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. After 13 years, Crews was finally exonerated and set free. Though he received a large settlement for his time lost (50 million), he returns to the force. One would guess that he'd be vindictive after such an experience. However, Crews had turned to Zen Buddhism as a source of strength and stability. When released, Crews held no grudges and expressed no resentment. Rather, he understood life as a gift and sought to pursue the rest of his days with hope and expectation. Through a spiritual search, Charlie Crews had the ability to overcome a difficulty no one else could. This show exemplifies an unnatural sense of forgiveness for debts owed. From a Christian perspective, the connection is easy. When Jesus spoke of retaliation, he commanded that one should turn the other cheek. But this didn't stop as a command. Jesus exemplified this with his life. When humanity struck his cheek in sinful rebellion, he did not strike back in judgment. Rather, he turned the other cheek, and in doing so brought forth redemption.

The second show is Bones. A specific episode is of interest (The He in the She). While fishing at the shore in the morning, two pot heads inadvertently discover half of a corpse. Bones, a brilliant anthropologist, and Booth, a daring FBI agent, seek out the whole truth concerning the half crime. Identifying the upper half of the body as a woman pastor of a local community church, Booth and Bones seek out her followers for information. The story gets tricky when the lower half of the pastor's body is found. Upon examining the skeleton, a fellow anthropologist discovers that the pelvic bone is that of a man. This leads them to the disappearance of a male televangelist 6 years earlier. They surmise that the man had not been killed on a preaching tour of Southeast Asia as originally thought but had planned his disappearance form the world. Feeling regret for his corrupt ministry, the pastor endured a gender reassignment surgery and started his life anew. Rather than preaching to the wealthy, the man, now woman, pastor took ex convivts and druggies as her new sheep. Making a long story short...the search for a killer led Booth and Bones to the woman's son. They discovered that after taking over his father's ministry, he too repented and moved on. The son now worked at a drug rehab center as a counselor. When confronted with the news of his father's new life and death, the son regretted having lost his father and having never known who his father became. At the end, the killer is caught and the son takes over his father's church, Inclusion.

While this is a poor description of the episode (I recommend watching it at www.sidereel.com/Bones), you can see the story of redemption throughout. A man and his son both repent of their former selves to be made anew. The father became a woman. The son changed from a dogmatic moralist to an inclusive relationalist. The son demonstrates forgiveness and acceptance for his father's new person. And the son is restored to ministry.

Though pop culture is flawed, it does offer up powerful glimpses of spiritual content that connect with humanity in their contexts and emotional struggles. It begs that we ask certain questions of ourselves and our beliefs. And it offers up perspectives from which we can make choices. While pop culture and spirituality/religion may not be aligned, I don't think they walk entirely separate paths. It seems that both are searching for the same things...just in different ways.

At a loss

The thing about being broken is, no matter how hard you try, you can never return something to its original state. Even if you are equipped with the best of adhesives and are quite skilled in the restoration of broken things, the broken past of an object will forever be a scar upon its exterior. Take a cup for example. Let's say you weren't quite awake when you reached for your favorite cup to swallow down that caffeinated fix in the morning. And when you grabbed at it with your not so steady hands and your semi blurry eyes that still carry the haze of a fresh awakening, you missed and knocked it to the floor, shattering your treasured vessel into a thousand pieces. Though you might spend relentless hours piecing together your precious fix-mobile back into a usable form, forever will there remain the reminder of your tragic mistake. You might restore the cup back into the correct shape and even redeem its purpose to you, but the scars will be written upon its surface for as long as you possess the cup.

Now don't get me wrong. Scars are cool. They remind us of difficult trials we once faced long after the immediate pain has ceased. They tell again the story of what you endured and remind you of how you overcame the adversity that temporarily altered the semi-perfect flow with which your life operated. But scars never heal. Inside of them is a pain that is always present. In them is a reminder of the sting you endured when you attempted something perhaps you shouldn't have. They tell you that at one point in your life you were desperately broken and that you endured a terrible pain in connection with that brokenness. Like with your cup, you will forever see the cracks that you healed together from the broken pieces of your self. Though you may be put back in the right way and you may be completely usable, you will always be cracked and broken. You will never be whole again.

Tonight I feel like I'm at this place in life. I feel like life has dropped me off the counter after absentmindedly reaching for me to fulfill some purpose. And while it has been methodically working to put the pieces back together, I still feel and see the scars left behind.

Saint Francis and the sow

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again form within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and
shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them"
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

--Galway Kinnell

Beginnings

So I've been toying with the idea of a writing career for some time. I guess I've never really pursued such because I've had a hard time believing in my capabilities. But a friend in the past few months has pushed me to ignore those insecure thoughts that have held me back. She's taught me that life is obtained in the pursuit. Very rarely are we given what we want. It comes at a price. And though that price may be high at times, it is worth the cost.

She's now on her way to Japan choosing to follow that very same advice. She'll spend the next year and seven months teaching little kids to speak English through an immersion program. She's nervous and saddened at the loss of those she's left behind but her heart is also challenged and excited at the opportunities that lie ahead. And I'm left wondering who will dare push me as hard as she had.

So I've decided to start a blog. This doesn't seem like much. As a matter of fact, it seems like very little. However, it's what I have time for. Books and articles take more attention and effort than I can give. My hope is that I can share my thoughts for anyone or no one so that I might have a venue in which to hopefully hone skills and express thoughts that might be hiding within. If you happen upon this blog, I hope I can offer you something worth reading and maybe a different perspective and something insightful. Thanks for reading.