after getting out of a very scary and violent abusive relationship i spent many years in counseling crushed .. shy withdrawn form the world … to 12 years later .. a strong-headed woman .. confident once again and ready to date …. i was 30 he was 24 a younger man so soft n gentle . during the time we dated never a hand was raised at me .. it wasnt in his gentle nature to even consider it no matter how angry i got at him or him to me … he was perfection … nor did he ever and i men ever put me down .call me stupid .torment me ..not even tease me in fun .. again he was perfection and i felt very well-respected by him …. that was only the first year ….. he then began to tell small white lies about who he was talking to on the phone .. then it was where he was going at night… just little lies arent they can’t hurt anyone can they .. i would sit “>there each night stewing my pot of doubts over his fidelity to me . but no way would he .. he loved me he respected me highly … but it wasnt to be … i then found papers with phone numbers .. with women’s name and not just any women .. i mean prostitutes and brothels .. i confronted him and he made up wild excuses of it “>begin a guy from work …. 6 months later i find more numbers ..again his lies continue and i belive him and forgive him ..but my soul feels crushed .. i have no real proof there his do i or that he has done anything …. rumours are around he begs his own cousin for sex with cash …. i even phone her she tells me yes he has been … but now with my self esteem gone im questioning his cousin who is a whore anyway would tell lies ..but she isnt .. its now me telling myself lies so i dont have to the trauma of someone again abandoning me . i have his child now im feeling trapped stuck and confused … another year goes by and again more papers are found even his phone bill now is full of brothel numbers . my life is shattered my heart sinks .. i feel worthless again .. my self-esteem hits the floor with a big Bang … he crys he begs he still never admits he did a thing wrong he just rings them when hes upset … work is so stressful you know … and im not giving him the support he needs ..so we work things out and try again …. 3 months later his next phone bill comes … im now so paranoid . so skittish ..my heart pumps loud as i open the bill expecting to find nothing yet expecting to find something …. my soul sinks deep as i see more brothel numbers .. how can he be so cruel. he knows i found out from bills last time why is he not changing his plan and doing it differently .. he doesnt seem to be hiding it from me at all .. does he wont to be caught . does he want the drama does he like destroying my very essence of life . i feel no love for him now .. i hate him … i must be shit in bed . my body must be so ugly .. why does he wont them in bed and to love and not me … i am worthless . i am unlockable.. yet … not once has he his me or mentally abused me .. this is one clever man i can assure you … life was like this for 6 years out of the 7 we dated .. i gave him 2 wonderful children whom he saw born.. we never lived with each other .. he was to much of a mummy’s boy and his space and freedom were ever so important to him more than me more than his own children … i felt low i feel drained .. i had nothing left in me .. i forgave him time after time after time and each time i gave up a piece of me …. all the counselling did nothing … he never hit me he never called me names … im not sure what you can even call this kind of abuse but thats what it was … if any time you rip someone soul from there body’s its abuse … this one took me by surprise thou .. i saw it happening but it didnt have a label of abuse on it so i was confused …he is a great dad and we still get on ok ….. i just can’t love him anymore he destroys me …..i left him 2 years ago and wont ever go back in that hole

“Angesichts solcher freiheitsfeindlicher Aussagen wollen wir an dieser Stelle ausnahmsweise einmal unsere guten Manieren vergessen und voller Überzeugung konstatieren: Der Tag, an dem Cohn-Bendit das Zeitliche segnet, wird zweifellos ein guter sein, zumindest für die freien Völker Europas.”

via Der einarmige Bandit: Grüner Kinderfreund Cohn-Bendit hetzt gegen die Schweiz und fordert -http://gesamtrechts.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/

Nachvollziehbar und verständlich, aber eine richtige Reaktion ?

“Der neue Staat setzt in erster Linie, unentbehrlich , eine neue Art Mensch voraus. Ein neuer Staat  von Menschen mit alten Sünden ist unvorstellbar.”

( Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea, Handbuch für die Nester – Leitfaden für Legionäre -, Regin – Verlag, 2006, S. 67 )

Eine dieser alten Sünden ist, anderen Menschen Schlechtes zu wünschen.

“Wer non – violent sein will, darf dem nicht zürnen, der ihn beleidigt. Darf ihm nichts Böses wünschen. Muß ihm Gutes wünschen. Darf ihm nicht fluchen. Völlige Non – Violenz ist völlige Abwesenheit von Übelwollen gegen alles, was lebt. Sie umfaßt auch das untermenschliche Leben und schließt schädliche Insekten und wilde Tiere nicht aus. Sie sind nicht geschaffen worden, um unsere Zerstörungswut zu nähren. Wenn wir die Absichten unseres Schöpfers kennten, würden wir ihnen innerhalb seiner Schöpfung die richtige Stelle anweisen.”

( Mahatma Gandhi, Jung Indien, Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1919 bis 1922, Rotapfel, Erlenbach 1924, S. 39 )

Also: Begeben wir uns nicht auf die Ebene Cohn – Bendits. Wünschen wir Ihm nicht den Tod, sondern nur das Beste. Am Verhalten von Leuten wie Cohn – Bendit erkennt unser Volk die Lage, wächst die Liebe zum Eigenen, die Kraft zur Wende!

I try to understand other perspectives, but there are some issues that I absolutely do not understand.  Hunting is one of those issues.

I do not understand the pleasure of inflicting pain on an animal.  I do not understand the pleasure of killing an animal.  In fact, I strongly suspect that if you derive pleasure from killing an animal, there is something wrong with you.

I understand there is pride in developing a skill, in learning to load and care for a gun, in learning to aim with precision.  I understand that there is pride in naming an enemy and then destroying that enemy.  But if you want to learn a skill, why can’t you learn a constructive skill, like carving or cooking?  If you want to name an enemy and destroy it, why don’t you choose an enemy that actually causes harm, like ignorance and bigotry?

I think hunting infuriates me because it adheres to an antiquated image of masculinity (and simultaneously suggests a similarly antiquated image of femininity).  It supports the image that the appallingly narrow-minded John Eldredge espouses in his nakedly sexist Wild at Heart: “Real men love the outdoors and carry guns and kill things.”

Do real men love the outdoors and carry guns and kill things?  Sure.  Real men also love the quiet solitude of a soundproof reading room in their local library.  Real men also carry sketchpads and pencils so that they can jot down a quick impression of the tiny sparrow who catches their attention during lunch.  Real men also wear skinny jeans and eyeliner, or skirts and earrings.  Real men also fall in love with other real men.

A man is not less real, not less masculine, because he refuses to conform to an outdated concept of masculinity.  That concept of masculinity may have been a useful way to gauge a man’s usefulness when Oklahoma was still a fenceless prairie where bison roamed, but the prairie has been mowed down and the bison have been crammed into wildlife reserves.  Survival no longer requires strength of body and a will to kill, but strength of mind and a will to help others.

I am particularly irked when I hear guys complain that women are no longer attracted to “real men.”  They rail against androgyny, against men who have traits that were traditionally considered feminine.  Traits like listening, negotiating, compromising, seeking peaceful solutions, and preventing bloodshed.  They think that those traits are weak, passive, submissive.  And as established by virtually everything I’ve written here, I think those non-violent traits are beautiful and brave, bordering on the sublime.

Above all, though, I think that admirable/attractive traits are not the exclusive property of either sex.  Men and women alike should strive to be curious about the world around them and concerned for the people around them.  Men and women alike should have an open mind, considering new ideas and seeking new possibilities.  Men and women alike should have an open heart, caring for people because we are united by our common humanity, caring for animals because all living things deserve consideration and compassion by mere virtue of being alive, and caring for the world around us because it is our home.

“Real” men are not more masculine or more attractive or more worthy than men who do not conform to outdated images of masculinity.  Real men don’t need to call themselves real men, because they don’t need to affirm their masculinity.  Instead, they practice common humanity.

In the year 2000 I was 25 and single, finishing up a Ph.D., stressed out of my tree, working with a small NGO on peace and non-violence issues, trying figure out what it was that I wanted to be when I grew up.

Now as 2010 approaches, I’m a month away from being 35 and married, I haven’t published the Ph.D., but am less stressed, working as a writer and doing some other things, and trying to figure out what it is that I want to be when I grow up.  The consolations of life this past decade have been the same all along – the richness of friendships old and new, the life-force that is sparked when I look at natural beauty – of mountains or oceanscapes or my lover’s face, the enlightenment or delight that is present when I read a well-calibrated sentence or hear astonishing music, turning over to go to sleep, and the feeling of potential that I still hope for every time the lights go down when I’m at the movies.

This has been a tough decade for many of the people that I presume read this blog – we’ve been confronted by the unintended side-effects of globalization, and taught to see life as a way to be daily afraid; we’ve experienced an economic tightening that came as a shock; we’ve all been angered by this politician or that; some of us have even lost a great deal in the wars that are still being fought.  At the same time, of course, some of us have seen peace come to places no one ever believed were ripe for such change.

I may be naïve – in fact, I know I am – but, whether I’m experiencing life as what Ignatian spirituality calls desolation or consolation,  I still mark my time in movies.  I’m writing this from a café in Ponsonby, New Zealand, where I’m visiting friends who are making a movie from a script I read five years ago, and a novel I read when Bill Clinton was still in office.  Things come dropping slow, says Yeats; things come dropping slow.  Things like the first time I was wet-eyed at the climax of ‘Together/Tilsammans’, and had confirmed to me the possibility that we might eventually learn to get along with each other, even in what appears to be our species’ infancy; the first time I saw the little boy read his thoughts about how old he feels to his grandmother in her coffin at the end of ‘Yi-Yi’; the first time I saw Hugh Jackman decide that his girl was right to ask him to stop working and just love her instead of looking for the Fountain of youth; the first time I saw Bryce Dallas Howard choose the possibility of death outside the Village for the sake of keeping her love alive; the first time I watched the android David pray to the blue fairy to be reunited with his mother;  well, these times were a long time ago.  Much happened to me in the past ten years; some of it amazing, some of it difficult enough to wonder if I’d get through it.  But I did.  I imagine it’s the same for you.  And the movies marked my time.  And for these, I’m grateful.

As for today, well, my indulgent week of attempting a comprehensive retrospective of the films of the decade is drawing to a close.  These posts have been so long that I feel the need to post edited highlights – that’s a task for the weekend.  For now, my final list: The Best Films of the Decade

A couple of caveats before we proceed.  I write as a working film critic (part-time), who receives little or no direct financial compensation due to the collapse of traditional models for resourcing film journalism.  I lived most of the decade in Belfast, northern Ireland, and have for the past 16 months been resident in the US American South.  My opportunities to see films have been circumscribed therefore by the ‘regional’ status of my home towns, and by whatever was on offer in the places I’ve been privileged to travel to, until, latterly Netflix has opened up a world previously inaccessible to those of us who did not live in NYC or LA or London, or get paid to go to film festivals.  You may therefore look at my list and wonder why this or that film didn’t make it; and while I hope that it’s because I had the chance to see and evaluate it for myself (in which case you may find it on one of my earlier lists of under- and over-rated films, and some that I think deserve a second look but which I didn’t feel should be on this list), but it’s also possible that I just haven’t had the opportunity.  So I’d be very happy to hear from anyone your recommendations of films you hold dear from the past decade that don’t appear on this list; I’ll be glad to watch those that I’m able.

Second, I want to make a point about the lens through which we consider films ‘great’, ‘favourite’, ‘important’ or ‘best’.  The latter is easy – it’s not a competition, and although it is of course possible to evaluate one piece of art relative to another, I’d much rather let each speak for itself; or at least be judged on the merits of what it’s trying to do.  In that regard, ‘La vie en Rose’ and ‘Dreamgirls’ or ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and ‘The Matrix Revolutions’ are perhaps more easily comparable than ‘2012′ and ‘Goodbye Solo’ or ‘Japon’ and ‘Lost in Translation’.  Each of these films does a more or less excellent job of what it’s attempting (yes, even 2012: listen to our podcast here and join the debate if you like); I happen to like one of them more than the others.  But the category of ‘best’ doesn’t seem to have any point to it when I’d like to encourage you to watch all of them.

Similarly, I’d like to comment on how it has become fashionable to equate critical maturity with downgrading the value of comedy and romance; and that the harder a film is to penetrate, the better it must be.  I’m grateful to people like Richard Brody (who has the courage to rate ‘Knocked Up’ alongside ‘Eloge de l’amour’ on his list); but still, an openness to films that are usually reduced to being called ‘heart-warming’ is too often apparently seen as something embarrassing, to be hidden if one wants to be taken seriously as a critic.  Now, of course, I want to be taken seriously, or at least I want to be read – otherwise why would I write this post? – but I don’t write and talk about films in order to prove myself a ‘better’ critic than anyone else.  That route may appeal to some, but I would suggest there’s a reason why the near-superhuman art critic character in Coppola’s ‘Tetro’ is called ‘Alone’.  I write about movies because they move me.  And I want to tell people about it, so that they might be moved too.  And this telling is a privilege; for who am I to tell anyone anything? Well, here’s a little of who I am:

I am rapt in admiration for ‘Andrei Rublev’ and ‘Solaris’ and ‘The Sacrifice’; and ‘Fanny and Alexander’; and ‘Novocento’; and ‘Ikiru’.  But those ones are easy – you’re supposed to think Tarkovsky and Bergman and Bertolucci and Kurosawa are Something.  What’s harder, in a critical culture which equates cynicism with maturity, is to admit to yourself that you also were thrilled by ‘Wall-E’ and that you think that ‘The Dark Knight’ is philosophically profound, and that there’s more going on in ‘Back to the Future’ than fun with DeLoreans and plutonium.  So, here’s what I want to invite you to: My list of the 81 films of the past decade that really made an impact on me, that I admired deeply, that, if I was forced to admit it, some part of me thinks really are ‘the best’.  I didn’t write it to make anyone else feel left out – so please don’t get angry if your choices aren’t here: write your own list, put it in the comments section, and let’s talk.  Not so that we can persuade each other where we’re wrong, but so that we might, together, shed a little more light.

So, to the list:

Adaptation: Makes the nightmarish process of writing anything (From initial inspiration to Who the hell am I to be writing this?  Why will anyone care?  I’m a complete failure.  Help me.  Aha, here’s a new idea…) seem a little less lonely.

All or Nothing: Mike Leigh’s film about a taxi driver trying to hold it together gives Timothy Spall the chance to have one of the most powerful breakdowns in cinema; thoughtful portrayals of masculinity got a good run at the movies in the past ten years, and his is one of the most memorable.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: The birth of American celebrity as the end of innocence; and Andrew Dominik as the next Terrence Malick.

The Barbarian Invasions: Denys Arcand follows up ‘The Decline of the American Empire’ 16 years later, looking at the same French-Canadian intellectuals we sneered at in the late 80s, and manages to create an utterly compelling film of otherwise boring people talking about, and experiencing death; leaving me wanting to take my own life more seriously.

Cache: Georges goes to sleep instead of facing his culpability in genocide; Haneke’s films confront the audience with what it means to be a citizen of an interdependent world.  There are no laughs, yet.

Children of Men: So many recent films sought to deal with how human beings would behave in the face of catastrophe; Clive Owen stands for the possibility

A Christmas Tale: As rich a stew as Fanny and Alexander, family as it’s meant to be seen: all over the place, falling apart, and the answer to everything.

Collateral: The post-modern jazz-loving serial assassin’s ‘Goodbye Solo’.

The Corporation: Smartest documentary of the decade: not merely a polemic, but a genuine intellectual exploration.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Spectacular vision; more powerful than ‘Atonement’ in its revelation of how a person can compensate for their own destructiveness.

The Dancer Upstairs: John Malkovich not only directed the best use of Nina Simone’s music in a film, but made an honest story about the moral complexity of political revolution.

Downfall: One of two portrayals of Hitler this decade with real substance (the other is Noah Taylor in ‘Max’): if he wasn’t a human being like the rest of us, how can he be understood?

The Dreamers: Gorgeous evocation of Paris 1968; Bertolucci has a habit of making one great movie a decade, and this was it.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:  Chases its tail without eating it.

Etre et Avoir: A documentary that felt like watching new life being born.

Far from Heaven: As if Todd Haynes had made a secret film on a Douglas Sirk set; hidden in a time capsule, and only now available for us mere mortals to watch.  One of several films that revealed the surprise of Dennis Quaid as a compelling screen presence.

The Fog of War: An utterly necessary film when it was released; now too.

Goodbye Solo: Bahrani frames real life and shoots it; a film whose characters are so realistic that their suffering compelled me to flee the cinema for some fresh air.   And that’s a compliment.

Gran Torino: Clint takes Dirty Harry to the fairest conclusion: a recognition that the only way violence works is when you absorb it on behalf of others.

Hero: See Gran Torino

I Heart Huckabees: You need a philosophy Ph.D. to understand it, but not to enjoy it.

Inglourious Basterds: A film buff’s love letter to cinema, a star is born in Christoph Waltz, and a magnificent subversion of the myth of redemptive violence.

In the Loop: The best political satire since ‘Dr Strangelove’ – a film so smart and on the money about the venality of the run-up to the war in Iraq that it stops being funny after the first ten minutes.

Into Great Silence: A feature length meditation.  But not in the same way that film critics usually mean when we say ‘meditation’.

It’s All Gone Pete Tong:  Brings beauty out of hell.

Jump Tomorrow: The most beguiling love story of the decade.

Letters From Iwo Jima: Clint Eastwood wouldn’t want to be known as a liberal, one presumes; but if ‘liberal’ means, as my former colleague David Tombs would say, ’someone who believes the possibilities of truth have not been exhausted’, then Clint’s a liberal: his courageous film allows Japanese soldiers to speak for themselves, and stands as an astonishing example of the promotion of re-humanisation in times of war.

The Life Aquatic: Bill Murray’s encounter with the shark that killed his friend may be the greatest love scene in Wes Anderson’s work.

The Man Who Wasn’t There: Magnificent exploration of the paranoid style in American culture; one of the best alien invasion dramas I’ve ever seen.

Mary and Max: A compelling, vastly entertaining stop motion animated film that treats Asperger’s syndrome with greater honesty than you’d expect.

The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions: I know saying this puts my reputation at stake (if I even have one by now): but these sequels were deeply misunderstood.  Evidence?  Can you name another big budget action film series that ends with the opposing parties being reconciled through a non-violent negotiation?  Doesn’t this make The Matrix trilogy one that at least has a compelling central idea, and vast imagination compared with its reputation?

The Messenger: Sparse and painful, the postscript to the Iraq war film arc: what happens when the guys don’t come home?

Miami Vice: See Jett’s post.  It helped me understand what I was thinking.

Monsoon Wedding: Exuberant and realistic, Mira Nair’s film envelopes the audience in the complications of family gatherings; a perfect marriage of Bollywood and New York sensibilities.

My Life without Me: Isabel Coixet makes delicately observed, powerfully emotional films about women facing awful truths; Sara Polley here takes a character arc that could have been cheesy, and makes it into a deeply moving representation of realistic trauma and gift.  She and Coixet did the same in The Secret Life of Words.

No Country for Old Men: The only film I can think of that climaxes with a serial killer giving up violence without being forced to do so by a gun or handcuffs.

O Brother Where Art Thou: A work of satiric and heartfelt genius; which recognises in its treatment of racism that the best defence against horror is to mock it.

Old Joy: A bittersweet exploration of the ebb and flow of friendship.

Rabbit-Proof Fence: It’s a polemic, but totally compelling, and beautifully put together.

Shine a Light: The reason I say at the start of every episode of The Film Talk that ‘Fanny and Alexander’ and ‘Shine a Light’ are the same film is simple: they’re both about the way men fail to understand women.  Scorsese makes better use of his cameras here than in ‘The Aviator’ or ‘The Departed’, Keith and Ronnie look like they’re teenage boys sneaking a smoke behind the bike sheds, Mick looks like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Albert Maysles keeps on working.

Solaris: Steven Soderbergh called this a new version of the Stanislaw Lem book rather than a remake of Tarkovsky’s film; but he ended up making something unique in recent cinema (at least as I remember it): a Westernised version of an Eastern story that helps interpret the original so well that I can’t think about either of them without thinking of both.

Superbad: The nuances of adolescent male friendship never were so delicately handled.  Nor gross.  Nor funny.  Nor tender.

Synecdoche New York: I have a feeling this film will only become more like a friend as I watch and re-watch; nothing less than an attempt at conveying in cinema the experience of one person building a whole life.

Tarnation: Jonathan Caouette’s magnificent, searing documentary is his own synecdoche.

Ten Canoes: Stunning light shines in this perfectly realized tale of our common mythic origins; shot as if the crew had traveled back in time and hidden their cameras.

Ten Minutes Older: The Cello/One Moment: Along with Sean Penn/Ernest Borgnine’s piece in ‘11.09.01′, the best short film of the decade: footage of Rudof Hrusinsky, an actor unknown to audiences outside the Czech Republic culled together from his 57 year long career; we see him looking more beautiful than the young Brad Pitt, and older than the Skeksis in ‘The Dark Crystal’; a whole life unfolds in ten minutes.

Tetro: Coppola’s light-bearing family drama; a film which he told us marked the early stages of the ’second half’ of his career; he makes Klaus Maria Brandauer look like Brando, gets Vincent Gallo to calm down for the camera, and creates something utterly compelling.

There Will Be Blood: A story about oil and greed that isn’t a metaphor for anything.  It’s just a story about oil and greed.

U2 3-D: A concert film that becomes an experience of immersive religion: the Bono-ego may be easy to criticize, but when he sings to his Buenos Aires audience of his hope that we might all ‘wake up in the dream’ of Dr King, he’s standing in a tradition of prophetic utterance that reaches very far back, and is ore vitally necessary today perhaps than ever, simply because it is so undervalued.

The Visitor: The troubles of immigration and grief meet over a djembe in a vision of New York that looks far more inviting than it has since the days when Woody Allen made it seem like heaven on earth.

And finally….Films that edged their way into my top ten.  As I am both a) a film critic with a big heart, and b) undisciplined, there are 28 films on this list.

28: The Dark Knight: George W Bush’s retirement tribute video; the best-looking critique of the ancient scapegoat myth that ever made a billion dollars.

27: The Triplets of Belleville: Extraordinary animation mingles Josephine Baker, the French mafia, and pro-cycling to create a delirious story of familial love.

26: A Serious Man: The Coen Brothers retell the story of Job as a middle-class tragedy in late 60s Minnesota; a wise evocation of the strengths and failings of good and bad religion.

25: Junebug: A most delicately observed story of culture clash; the nice surprise is that the conservative family folks end up being the most attractive of all.

24: Wall-E: The first forty minutes have a sense of place comparable to Blade Runner and Lawrence of Arabia; the second half is a coruscating satire of consumerism; the whole thing is a masterpiece.

23: The Road: The end of the world is so plausible they don’t have to explain it; the fact that virtue outlasts hopelessness even moreso.

22: Once: Like a home-movie musical; utterly convincing story of a love that had to be requited through friendship alone.

21: Man on Wire: A film about a man living totally free; which makes walking on a tightrope two feet off the ground in his garden look spectacular.

20: Gaia: One possible future for cinema: $28000 to shoot a treatment (no script), using natural light, live locations,  non-professional actors, and an unpaid crew letting the spirit guide them to put their love on screen.

19: Sexy Beast: Existential gangsterism for anyone who ever wanted to retire to Spain; Jonathan Glazer’s visual style makes a perfect marriage with a script that doesn’t care about what the audience expects.

18: The Hours: An unfilmable novel became an undefinable film – a central character abandons her family and we’re not sure whether or not we’re supposed to like her; Meryl Streep gets the only decent role she’s had in years (with the exception of her having enormous fun in ‘Mamma Mia’ – a film that is only not enjoyable if you don’t know how to laugh at silly exuberance); and Philip Glass writes his best score since ‘Koyaanisqatsi’.  Two characters take their own lives, and one is at least indirectly responsible for the death of another, but you emerge from watching ‘The Hours’ full of gratitude for being alive.

17: Talk to Her: Almodovar wants us to see majesty in small things, and possibility in what look like dead ends (a long term coma produces new life; a near-paralysis leads to the birth of love; a prison suicide sets its victim free).

16: The New World: When Colin Farrell’s Captain John Smith first sees America, it’s framed through the cinema-screen shaped wooden window of his boat prison; Malick is showing us our first vision of the new world as if America always has been a movie.  In his three previous features love was ungraspable – always either out of reach or confused with passion.  In ‘The New World’, Pocahontas narrates her realization – and Malick’s contention – that love is nothing less than the meaning of everything.

15: Lawless Heart: A little-seen masterpiece of British drama, ‘Rashomon’-style; several different takes on the same story reveal the layers of complexity in every human relationship, the consequences of grief, and the way we are driven to seek the numinous in the everyday.

14: Amores Perros: I’m beginning to realise that all the films I like the most are about the same thing: the redemption of otherwise broken men.  Except when they’re about robots.

13: Lantana: Brilliant little Australian drama, evocative of Altman’s ‘Short Cuts’ – there’s a murder mystery and a love story and a lot of regret, but mostly a desire for truth and love.

12: Stranger than Fiction: Will Ferrell can act; Dustin Hoffman can teach literature; Emma Thompson can write books; Queen Latifah (apologies to Mo’nique for the earlier confusion) can edit them; Marc Forster is the most versatile director working in Hollywood today; and this film is the best revelation of the power of art to change a person’s perspective, and the risk of death that every publicly creative act is.

11: La Question Humaine/Heartbeat Detector: An elegant, overwhelming psychological drama about the legacy of when commerce leverages humanity.

10: The Royal Tenenbaums: The Magnificent Ambersons, finished.  (Calm down, Jett, it’s only a list )

9: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: The best depiction of friendship, and loyalty between men, not to mention immigration, racism, and the yearning for meaning that characterises this generation.

8: Japon: The aftermath of Carlos Reygadas’ film has the distinction of being one of the very few that I have felt compelled (as a non-smoker, most of the time) to have a cigarette.  Reygadas may be the natural heir to Tarkovsky, for his lush images of humans in nature always collide with their yearning for God.  The last scene of ‘Japon’ may be the most pessimistic thing you’ll see on screen this side of the 2004 Bush-Kerry election results.

7: Into the Wild: The tragedy of a man who realized that happiness is made most real when it’s shared once it was too late for him to save himself; the adventure of a man who decided to actually do something with his life.

6: The Consequences of Love: Sorrentino’s and Toni Servillo’s other incredible collaboration of the decade: a mafia revenge drama that ends up being about regret for lost opportunity, and the joy of childhood friendship.

5: The Village: Perhaps the most misunderstood film on this list; a deeply thoughtful, serious questioning of how to respond when everything is terrifying; featuring one of the most heroic acts in cinema, leading to one of the most realistic happy-but-ambivalent endings I’ve ever seen.  Trust me.

4: Together: Presents the notion that human community, the sharing of resources, the bearing of each other’s burdens, and real forgiveness might actually be possible.  (And does it far more realistically than ‘Chocolat’.)

3: The Fountain: The most divisive film on the show, as you know.  I probably can’t persuade the naysayers; and those of you that love it know why.  But if you haven’t seen it yet, just give it a chance, will ya?

2: Yi-Yi: Edward Yang made this masterpiece about family life and its collision with commerce his last film.  It made me want to be a better person.

1: AI Artificial Intelligence: A film which ends with the protagonist having his dream come true, and then dying is not a film with a happy ending.  But if it’s Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s vision of Brian Aldiss’ short story ‘Super Toys Last All Summer Long’, it’s a visually astonishing, profoundly spiritual movie about (along with the de-humanisiang effects of technology, the emptiness of lives unthinkingly circumscribed by privatised capitalism, and the difference between dependent and interdependent families) how the meaning of life is found at least partly in how we deal with its inevitable end.  It may not be stretching a point to say that ‘AI’ made me think of what Bertrand Russell might have been talking about when he said: ‘United with his fellow men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love.’

Non-violence is a philosophy that refuses to engage in physical violence to cause change.  Sometimes this takes the form of civil disobedience, as when ancient Christians refused to fight for the Roman Army because they believed that their religion taught absolute pacifism (oh, how I wish modern Christians shared that ancient sentiment), or when Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his taxes in opposition to war and slavery, or when Americans organized sit-ins to protest segregation.  Sometimes it takes the form of economic violence, as when Gandhi urges Indians to become self-sufficient so that they would not have to rely on British goods, or when Martin Luther King, Jr. helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott to force the transit system to abandon segregation.

First and foremost, though, non-violence is an optimistic philosophy that teaches that we can cause change without resorting to violence, without using psychological fear or physical force.  Instead, we can use the strength of our arguments and the strength of our character to achieve change.

STRENGTH OF ARGUMENTS:
I tend to agree with Socrates – if people really know what is right, they will do it.  Unfortunately, we don’t really know what is right.  We don’t really know that vegetables are much better for us than chocolates, because chocolates taste better and give us a little caffeine boost.  We don’t really know that exercise is good for us, because we remember the next morning’s sore muscles more vividly than the post-work-out boost of energy.  Experiential knowledge of short-term gains trumps intellectual knowledge of long-term benefits.

Of course, it becomes much harder to work out what is right and wrong when you leave the realm of physiological facts and enter the decidedly murkier realm of ethics.  I think most people inherit their parents’ ethics, do a bit of tweaking during adolescence, and then stick with those slightly modified beliefs until they encounter a life-challenging crisis.  Why?  Because constantly reassessing your worldview, constantly challenging the foundations of your beliefs, takes too much energy when you are frantically trying to make a living.

But at some point in my life something must have gone wrong inside my brain, because I am happiest when constantly reassessing my beliefs.  The prospect that I may be wrong, that I may have to create an entirely new belief system, gives me a shot of adrenaline and keeps me frantically, manically busy for days.  I love it.  Consequently, I spend a lot more time thinking about my beliefs and challenging my beliefs than most people.  Such is the luxury of a part-time music teacher with a fair amount of spare time.

Because I know that I will change my beliefs if I encounter a strong argument, I tend to believe that everyone is capable of changing their beliefs simply because they discover an argument that is stronger than the argument that supports their current beliefs.  If your argument does not sway someone, you need to strengthen your argument.  You need to re-examine your first principles, articulate your propositions more clearly, and address opposing arguments in more detail.  If you find a way to articulate your argument properly, you will persuade everyone.

STRENGTH OF CHARACTER:
I know many people roll their eyes at the idea that words can inspire change.  I know that my love of language causes me to be more susceptible than most people, so I may simply be projecting my own tendencies onto others.

But a few nights ago I discovered a youtube clip in which Mister Rogers defends PBS before a Senate committee.  He doesn’t use oratorical flourishes; he doesn’t use rhetorical devices; he just uses the sincerity of his convictions, the rightness of his beliefs, and the strength of his own character to demonstrate that his work is desperately important to developing the hearts and minds of children across the nation:

Although I was deeply impressed that this thoroughly unimposing man was able to defend $20 million in just six minutes of speaking, I was also impressed with the lyrics of the song that he shares in the last minute or so of the clip: “What Do You Do with the Mad You Feel?”  He suggests that there are many constructive ways to express your anger: punching a bag, pounding clay, playing tag, running as fast as possible.  In other words, there are non-violent ways to express anger, to transform that energy into something constructive.

That is the essence of non-violent philosophy:  instead of transforming the outrage of injustice into violence that destroys, transform it into something that creates.  In Zen and the Art of Writing Ray Bradbury suggests letting your anger slam on the page like lightning.  Art can transform your impotent feelings into a powerful call for action.

But I don’t think it was the song that convinced the committee to provide funding for Mister Rogers’ show; I think it was his gentle character – his sincere concern for children and his gentle approach to teaching them.

America is not impressed with gentle people.  Gentle people do not pull themselves up by their bootstraps.  Gentle people do not work hard to make money and pursue the American Dream of a house with a white picket fence.  Gentle people do not exciting things that make great “do it yourself” stories to tell your children.

And yet those few people who are genuinely gentle, who genuinely want nothing more than to listen to people and quietly encourage them, completely undo all our vain strivings and selfish ambitions.  When he was a student, Stephen Fry was constantly mouthy with his teachers.  But when he was confronted with a genuinely gentle teacher who looked at him with disappointment instead of anger, who never stopped believing in him (although he was called to the headmaster’s office to be caned on an almost daily basis), his quick tongue abandoned him.  Even the fierce pride of adolescence could not bear to harm such a gentle soul.

We don’t encourage people to be gentle.  We encourage them to stand up for themselves, to be brave, to face danger, to fight back, to be active participants.  I think we do this to protect them, but I also think that being gentle can be its own defense.  There is something utterly undoing about someone who is genuinely gentle.  The gaze of a truly gentle person can undo all your defenses, all your posturings, all your pretenses, all your strivings and wantings and tryings.  The gaze of a truly gentle person is the most destructive thing of all, but it deconstructs the persona you’ve created and allows you to build a new and more genuine self on more solid ground.

In order to remove others’ defenses, you must dismantle your own.  For that reason I believe that becoming gentle takes an awful lot of courage: you must first remove all the layers of defense that you accumulate as you go through life - all the strengths that you use to intimidate others, all the weaknesses that you use to manipulate others, all the posturings that you use to fit in with others, all the eccentricities you use to stand out from others.  You must deconstruct your own self before you can deconstruct someone else’s self.

A shy person may initially be mistaken for a gentle person, but I think the differences are quite clear.  Being gentle is being genuine and open, while being shy is being bashful, reticent, reserved.  A gentle person does not seek your approval; a shy person longs for it but is too fearful to ask for it.  A gentle person does not fear; a shy person is nothing but fear.

Being gentle is one character trait that those who wish to practice nonviolence should strive to become.  If you are not gentle, it is too easy to disrespect those who disagree with you, to hate those who hate you.  That sort of attitude is absolutely antithetical to nonviolence.  In fact, if there is one sentence that summarizes nonviolent philosophy, it is a sentence uttered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr:

“I would rather die than hate you.”

I came across that quotation while reading an article from Sarah Vowell (fellow Oklahoman and author of the thoroughly entertaining Assassination Vacation), but I did a quick yahoo search to see if I could find the entire text to provide the proper context for his statement.  I did, but the entire sermon is absolutely incredible.  A stunningly clear exposition of the demands that nonviolence places on the aspiring practictioner.  Far more lucid than I could manage, so go read it.  Right now.

You are reading it, right?

Good.  I’ll continue.

It’s absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful and clear, isn’t it?  Harold Bloom said:

We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are.

Reading is a constant reassurance that I am not alone.  When my mind travels down dark paths of unclear thought, I can light my path with the clear words and lucid thoughts of others who have gone before me.  Dr. King’s sermon is one such example.  When I try to explain why I believe nonviolence is far braver than violence, why I believe nonviolence is the only way we can preserve civilization for the future, my tongue feels heavy in my mouth and the words seem to get stuck somewhere between my brain and fingers.  But when I read his words, I see my own uncertain thoughts expressed with a clarity that I can only strive to achieve.

(Of course, one of the primary purposes of this blog is for me to untangle my thoughts by expressing them, but the process of expressing them forces me to delve deeper and do more research.  As I do, I discover new jewels like this sermon, and I add these gems to my little hope chest of ideas.)

During his sermon Dr. King untangles the meaning of the word love in the famous saying “Love your enemies.”  For the past few years I have agreed with Kurt Vonnegut and believed that Jesus would have demonstrated greater spiritual insight if he had skipped the sloppy sentimentality of love and stuck with something more practical: Respect your enemies.

But Dr. King provides a clear definition of the word love, and it is almost exactly how I would define respect:

Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. Y ou refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul.  And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does.  This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.” This is the way to do it.  When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.

I disagree with his fundamental premise – we should love all people because god loves them – because I don’t believe that humanity derives its inherent worth from god’s love.  I think I understand where he’s coming from, insofar as it becomes easier to see the value of something when we see that something cherished by someone else.  While that may provide a practical starting point for loving someone who is difficult to love, I don’t think it’s sufficient.  We shouldn’t love because someone else loves; we should love simply because they are there and they need it.  When you get down to it, everyone needs a bit more love.  Everyone needs a bit more respect.

So although I reject his basic premise, I agree with his formulation of what constitutes love/respect:  refusing to do something that will defeat someone.  We have all had days when everything goes wrong, when all our plans go astray, when all our hopes are crushed.  If we encounter an enemy, that enemy has the chance to destroy us by taunting us for our failures or to redeem us by offering us encouragement.  Jesus and Dr. King call it love; I call it respect.  I still think respect is a better word, but I’m less inclined to roll my eyes now that I’ve read this particular explanation of the word love.

Obviously, the sermon contains a lot more that is worth exploring.  I am particularly struck by the fact that asked the congregation to consider the weaknesses of communism AND democracy, to admit that there are flaws within our own system.

I wish we had done that in the wake of 9/11.  I know it is considered unpatriotic to consider criticizing our nation in conjunction with those terrible attacks, because it seems like siding with the enemy.  But if we respect our enemy enough to listen to them, we may be surprised.

They complain that we treat women with disrespect when we allow them to flaunt their naked bodies and become objects of sexual desire rather than human beings with minds and hearts of their own.

They complain that we disrespect holy marriage by granting divorces and even considering same sex marriage.  How many conservatives make the same complaint?

I am NOT trying to suggest that conservatives are the next Taliban.  I am merely pointing out that they share similar beliefs, beliefs that could have been used as a starting point for diplomatic talks, for understanding, for respect, for peace.  Instead we confirmed their view of us as violent monsters by responding to violence with violence.

Again, I know it is considered unpatriotic to seek peace when attacked, but I genuinely believe that repaying violence with violence will only solidify the Taliban’s (and unfortunately, a growing number of Middle Easterners’) view of us and risk escalation.

I was flirting with pacifism fairly seriously before 9/11, seriously enough that I was deeply disappointed when we went to war.  At the time I didn’t have any better ideas, because I had kept myself aloof from politics and had no idea how the world really functioned.  I have a slightly better idea now, and I found myself really thinking about alternative responses after reading an article from OSU philosophy professor Eric Reitan: Prophetic Terrorism: Avoiding the Insanity of Repeated Failure.

My brother has had a few classes with Professor Reitan and was very impressed with him, so he bought his book (Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers) and then brought it back home during Christmas or Spring Break.  I only had a chance to read the introduction, but I was deeply impressed with the book’s tone.  It was free from the vitriol that characterizes Christopher Hitchens’ rants; it was free from the self-righteous smugness that creeps into Richard Dawkins’ rants, and it was blessedly free from the false dichotemies and defensive refusal to engage with the issues that characterizes so many apologetics (C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel, I am looking at you).

Instead, it reminded me of Thich Nhat Hanh’s writings.  Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist priest.  His writings are so gentle, so loving, so respectful that you can almost feel the peace emanating from every word – even in translation.  Reitan’s book has a similar tone.  You can tell that he genuinely respects atheists and their questions, and he genuinely wants to answer them.  He doesn’t want to repeat the same cheap answers that left doubters unsatisfied for centuries; he wants to delve deeper and find real answers that address the heart of their questions.

Anyway.  I was so impressed with the introduction of his book that I found his blog and visit it whenever I want to remind myself that there are reasonable Christians in the world.  His views on non-violence and gay rights and universalism echo my own, so it is another chance for me to discover my own thoughts being expressed in far clearer ways than I can manage.

As I was saying a few paragraphs ago, I read his article and was relieved to discover that someone else wondered if there was another, more reasonable response to 9/11.  Again, I know how controversial that suggestion is.  I know we didn’t want to appear weak by not responding.  I know we wanted revenge.

But I also know that using violence to squash the conflict between Western values and Muslim values will just reenforce the Muslim image of us as war-mongering savages.  If we want them to see the value of free speech, we have to use free speech.  If we want them to see the value of a society in which church and state are separate, we have to let them see the perils of theocracy.  If we want them to see the value of our values, we have to practice those values – not resort to the same violent nonsense that has governed man for millenia.  If we don’t use civil methods, we will have no civilization left to defend.

Here’s what’s going on in the world of Buddhism:

Jonney Shih, Chairman of Asustek, which introduced the first netbook three years ago, “ushered in a revolution in the stagnant PC industry.” He partially credits Buddhism for allowing him to “think clearly” enough to create the netbook. But really, is the netbook that revolutionary? While laptops have gradually gotten larger over the years, now they are just getting smaller and more compact. It’s interesting that Apple refuses to produce a netbook…until next year, when they will inevitably own the market… If this lil’ diddy aint Zen, I don’t know what is.
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People are still trying to find Shangri-La. Although the art found in the Nepal cliff is beautiful, it doesn’t prove Shangri-La, or the antiquity of Buddhism. Since Shangri-La was a literary invention of James Hilton, who wrote Lost Horizon, there’s a very good chance it does not actually exist. And here’s another link to people relentlessly searching.
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Did you know that some Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka have their own political party? Venerable Battaramulle Seelaratana Thera will run for the presidency in January. The Venerable monk is the Secretary for the Perekum Housing Project. So I guess he likes helping poor people. At least the Janasetha Peramuna party got two votes (.01%) in an election in September. They got 67 (.01%) in the UVA Provincial Council Elections. As long as there’s a chronological difference between the two elections, there’s at least a slight voting increase. Here’s a thoughtful piece on the campaign for self-determination for the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.
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Tantra now used in dating in Europe. I don’t know what this means, really, but it sounds fun. Sounds like something Osho could have supported… According to the article, “Tantra teachers are also giving out tips on how to be more attractive.” Sign me up.

From Oshoviha.org

A few days ago I was following links and exploring unchartered territory in the exciting land of IntarWeb when I stumbled on a conservative community.  Curious to see what the “other side” talked about when bleeding heart liberals like myself weren’t around, I read several of their posts.

I stopped reading their posts when I reached an entry about the DC Sniper’s execution.  The entry itself was exultant, waxing poetic about how the sniper deserved to burn in a hundred hells.  Most of the people who responded agreed.  One person even noted that the execution made him glad to live in the only Western country that still practices capital punishment.

I had to stop reading when I reached that comment, because I was absolutely horrified.  My horror is so deep that it’s hard for me to find words to explain it, because it seems like such an intuitive reaction that I have trouble imagining that other people don’t immediately share it.  Fortunately, Stephen Fry always has words to express what I feel too deeply to say:

I mean, how too embarrassing it would be to belong to a country that went round putting its subjects to death. How could a fellow hold up his head with any pride as an Englishman if at the back of the mind was the thought that part of his taxes were going towards the cost of rope that was designed to snap people’s necks? Simply too unthinkably shame-making. One just wouldn’t know where to look when in the company of persons from civilised countries.

I don’t think capital punishment is a punishment.  A punishment should not be tit for tat, an eye for an eye.  A punishment should be instructive, teaching the wrong-doer why those actions are wrong and what alternative actions could have been taken.  Since capital punishment ends in death, it cannot be instructive.  Capital punishment is nothing more or less than revenge.

(There may be exceptions when one considers sociopaths, who appear to be immune to instruction.  There is a psychologist in Russia who claims that he has rehabilitated a sociopathic serial killer, but since he worked with a serial killer who was still on the loose and not a serial killer who was in prison, most people doubt his claims.

I think most people would agree that sociopaths are an obvious exception to the rule, as most of us did not spend our childhoods setting fire to woodland creatures and daydreaming about creative ways to kill people.  Most of us are much more open to new ideas, because most of us have brains that work properly.  Sociopaths do not appear to have that advantage, so you could argue that the death penalty is a necessary evil to prevent them from torturing and murdering those who are imprisoned with them.

Incidentally, if you think everyone in prison deserves to be tortured and murdered by sociopaths, then you need to do some research on the number of people who are falsely imprisoned and falsely indicted.  Then do some research on the number of people who were executed for crimes they did not commit.  Then reconsider your position on capital punishment.  Do you really want to support a system that kills innocent people?  Do you really want to support a system that kills any people?)

Yesterday I saw another news item that reminded me of how often we mistake revenge for justice.  A former Nazi is being tried for war crimes.  He is in his eighties, and his health is so poor that he can only stand trial for a few hours at a time.

I understand that Nazism is a horrifying ideology.  I understand that Nazis committed incomprehensible crimes against humanity.  But can we really punish someone for the beliefs they held sixty-five years ago, the actions they took sixty-five years ago?  I was a very different person five years ago; how different will I be in sixty-five years?  I might as well be an entirely different person.  How can we punish someone for being the person they were sixty-five years ago?

Someone argued that there is no statute of limitations on justice, which sounds like a fancy way of saying that justice has no expiration date.  But I think justice does have an expiration date, and after it expires, it curdles into revenge.  I think trying an old man who crimes he committed in his youth, crimes that were committed because of allegiance to an ideology that most of his contemporaries ascribed to but recanted as the consequences of that ideology became clear, is a clear example of revenge.

Of course, I am a bleeding heart liberal.  I am inclined to believe that if you show someone hard-hearted “justice,” they will respond with bitterness, anger, hatred, and violence.  If you show someone soft-hearted mercy, they will respond with bewilderment, gratitude, and perhaps even a thoughtful reconsideration of their own actions and beliefs.

I know some people may think that sounds like the sort of sentimental goop that a wide-eyed idealist would proclaim from the safe seclusion of an Ivy Tower.  But Les Miserables was the book that defined my starry-eyed adolescence , and Les Miserables depends on the premise that Jean Valjean transforms from a frightened, embittered thief into a selfless, altruistic philanthropist because one person demonstrated forgiveness and kindness.  It may sound far-fetched when condensed into a summary, but read the opening chapters here and see if it doesn’t melt your heart.  (Take special note of the Bishop’s budget in chapter two.  I am the last person to venerate religious authorities, but if every member of the clergy were like the Bishop of Digne, we would already have heaven on earth.)

Jean Valjean spends the rest of his life demonstrating mercy to everyone who crosses his path.  The entire book is an ode to the power of mercy, the transformative power of forgiveness, the beauty of being gentle.  But it is not a gentle book.  It is an angry book that rails against injustice, shows you the horrors of so-called civilization and challenges you to use the power of mercy to abolish those horrors and correct those injustices.  If you doubt me, read the preface and see if it doesn’t set your heart on fire:

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century – the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light – are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world; – in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.

I know that Victor Hugo is often mocked for his excessively grandiloquent prose, but how can you not want to go out and save the world after reading that preface?  Similarly, you can’t help but want to be a better person after reading the entire novel (or even just an abridged version of the novel).

I sometimes say that Oscar Wilde is right, that art is useless.  I sometimes say that Stephen Fry is right, that useless things are what make life worth living, because they have no purpose but pleasure.  But deep down I am too idealistic to believe that art is genuinely useless.  I believe that art has the power to strip away the trivialities that define so many hours in our days, to expose the pulse that hums just beneath the chatter of day-to-day life.  What is that pulse?  It is our desire to make sense of life by making a difference in the lives of others.

Art does that.  Stories of people who try and fail, stories of people who try and succeed.  Music that makes us feel what it is like to try and fail, music that makes us feel what it is like to try and succeed.  Art removes our individuality and reveals our commonality.  It strips away the pretentions that divide us, like sex and age and color and nation and creed, and it reveals the underlying similarities that unite us.

Experiencing  a great work of art is experiencing what it is to be human.  Introducing people to great works of art introduces them to humanity, teaches them to see themselves in others and others in themselves.  Art is the ultimate education, and education is the best way to eliminate the roadblocks on the path to peace.

You see?  Even reading a single paragraph from Victor Hugo gets me writing ridiculously long sentences that are stuffed with hopelessly idealistic visions of a peaceful utopia in which everyone reads Plato and listens to Mahler.  Instead of thinking about people who rejoice when fellow human beings die, instead of thinking about people who demand justice from old men who are too ill to leave the house, I think about how far humanity has come and how we all want the same thing and how we can work together to make that vision reality.  That’s the power of art – it transforms us in its image.  That is also the power of mercy – it transforms not just those who demonstrate it, but those who receive it.  And that’s why I think it is more powerful than justice.

These days, We read a lot about radical islam, extremist islam and modern islam. I am aware that anything as old as Islam would definitely have been diversified into different belief systems, around the basic teachings. The original teachings of every faith system is based on the contemporary trends. Similarly, the founders of Islam would have developed the original teachings based on then prevalent economical, social and political situations. The Prophet must have wished best for the mankind and come up with a new belief system named as “Islam”. A moral code of conduct was documented in the form of a document called “Sharia” and the teachings of the religion in the form of holy “Quran”. This was important to bring order into otherwise chaotic tribe and would have helped to resolve conficts in daily life. People who endorsed this new religion and started following its teachings were termed as “believers” and rest of the folks as “non-believers”. It is important to note that the majority of the civilized society would have accepted the religion. But, the non-believers were not barbarians either.

All the thinkers who had founded new religions, have basically exploited two key concepts; ability to perform miracles and human fear psychosis.

We humans have always asked for miracles; a helpless animal like human was too small before the powers of nature. His existence on this planet in itself was a miracle. So, its not unnatural for us to desire miracles. Somebody, who can promise a miracle and deliver it too, becomes “God”.

The fear for death and the life that follows afterwards has been another important concept. Infact, all the ancient religions talk about life after death; some of them talk about reincarnation, while others talk about the day of judgement. Despite of the near-death experiences shared by many, after death life (if it exists at all!!) remains a mystery for us humans. In absence of certainity a normal human being is only left to believe the godly person. Remember, the godly person is also capable of miracles, which we normal people are not capable of.

Promise to grant entry into paradise (land of good things) and spare from hell, has been incorporated in different ways into all religions. Every religion including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Judaism and Budhism has a concept of hell and paradise. It is for the prophet, son of god or god himself to judge a virtuous man based on his deeds in his mortal life. On the basis of one’s good deeds, one gets to enter paradise on the day of judgement. Every religion has described “hell” as a horrific place and “paradise” as a well deserved one.

After lot of brain storming, I realised that religion based on negative emotions like fear and illusion, was a vehicle for good thoughts or the basic teachings. This fear psychosis would have been used as a tool to make people follow certain principles; which they would not have followed otherwise. Infact, all these godly figures were great psychologists of their times.

Coming back to Islam, it flourished through middle asia soon after its foundation. Again, it was a testimony of the beauty of the religion that so many people endorsed it. Islam started travelling into distant lands with the traders from middle east and was embraced by then prevalent tribes in those areas. These traders used to explore various economical opportunities and would have seen emerging markets for their trade. These traders started to settle down in these new areas, right from middle asia, India, Thailand, Indonesia and north Africa.

Soon, the warriors from islamic regimes started to conquer these new markets for the traders. In those days, the people in a kingdom used to follow the religion of their ruler. Religion and politics have strong affinity for each other. Both of them can be used as a tool to manipulate the civil society. This was the kind of influence Mughals had on the Indian subcontinent. It is worth mentioning that Islam was a side-effect of these invasions but not a contributor towards them. Islam never taught to wage war against other faiths.

The original inhabitants of these provinces had their ancient belief systems and Islam proposed a new way of thinking. Islam was not only a religion or a belief system but a completely different way of life. Everything was so well structured that it didnt leave space for confusion. The original belief systems of these people were felxible enough to incorporate new thoughts and ideas. They embraced Islam without leaving their original belief systems and created a new hybrid, a variant of Islam. This Islam was their own version of Islam; an Islam relevant for them and different from the saudi version. They created a belief system which was mix of both traditional beliefs and new ideas from Islam. Therefore, Islam didnt wipe out their ancient beliefs, but, helped them to evolve into new dimensions.

Therefore, Islam diversified into various forms on these foreign shores. Islam did have a great influence on socio-political and economical scenarios of these regions and vice a versa. Diversification is good for peaceful and successful existence; No form of life would have survived in this universe without it. And, Islam did it a very successful manner. When we closely observe the muslims of Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Mangolia, Algeria and Saudi Arabia; One can easily understand the process of diversification that has taken place over centuries. This diversified Islam was radical as it had space for other belief systems also. it believed in the principle of peaceful co-existence. This was the reason that muslims in Indonesia were still able to chant Mahabharta, an ancient epic from Hinduism. Similarly, Sufi saints were equally respected by muslims and “non-believers” like Hindus and Sikhs. The effect of this religion called Islam, was so magnanimous that it influenced everything which crossed its way; And this magnanimity could be attributed to its ability to adapt and diversify.

Everything was good and people were living peacefully, both muslims and non-muslims. The problem started when some people started questioning the diversification of Islam from within the faith itself. These people mistook diversification as pollution and argued for restoring the original purity of the religion. The diversification that helped Islam to thrive in these foreign shores was attacked by certain vested interests, in order to pursue their own agendas. It is sad to observe that today Islam is more identified with terrorism and extremism. These people have high jacked the entire idea of islam and using it as a tool for achieving vexatious motives. They are trying to rollback the entire evolution that Islam has gone through, in the name of restoring its original glory. They ignore that that Islam achieved this glory throw this transformation; You take away this diversification/transformation and there is no glory left.

Today, the need is to preserve this diversification within the religion and promote it further. Anyways, Islam will adapt itself to counteract these attacks and once again bask in its actual glory.

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the schoolboy revolutionaries in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.  They were erudite, eloquent, clever, witty, charming, and passionate.  They were also fictional, which is always an attractive trait to young girls who aren’t ready for relationships with real boys.

Secretly, though, I had a few reservations about their cause.  I was all for forcing the king to abdicate and allow the people to rule in his stead, but I wasn’t so sure about their tactics.  Why were they so set on tearing up stones and building a barricade?  What would a barricade achieve?  Was it a nineteenth-century version of a sit-in?  Was it supposed to place economic pressure on the government, because people could not go shopping if cafes were boarded off by a bunch of college kids?  What in the world was a barricade supposed to achieve?

I’ve read a bit more about revolutions, especially French revolutions, and I’m still not sure what barricades are supposed to accomplish.  But it’s not just the barricade itself that bewilders me; it’s the violence.  How could peace-loving college kids go out and kill other peace-loving kids who had the misfortunate to enlist in the National Guard?

Victor Hugo actually does an excellent job of pointing that out.  In one chapter Enjolras, the student leader, takes aim at a young man who is loading a cannon.  The young man is blond, attractive, looks very much like Enjolras.  Combeferre, Enjolras’ right hand man, implores Enjolras not to shoot him, reasoning that the young man’s only crime was to join the National Guard.

“He could be your brother!” Combeferre pleads.

“He is.”  And Enjolras shoots him.

We know that the young man isn’t actually Enjolras’ brother, because Hugo describes him as an only son.  Enjolras is simply stating one of his beliefs – all Frenchmen are brothers.  If I remember correctly, he even sheds a tear on behalf of the young man.  But Enjolras never allows mercy to sway his heart and stay his hand; he is dead-set on achieving his revolution at all costs.

Hugo based Enjolras on Louis St-Just, a beautiful but cold-hearted young man who was mocked for his foppish fashion but feared for his merciless devotion to the original French Revolution.  When the Revolution turned against him and arrested him (along with his leader, Robespierre, who tried to escape and was shot in the jaw), he accepted the judgment of the people.  He spoke not a word in his defense, remaining silent until he was guillotined.  (In a grotesque footnote, Robespierre’s jaw was bandaged to keep it attached to his head.  They removed the bandage before guillotining him, and his jaw fell.  Eek!)

Hugo portrays Enjolras as unhuman, even godlike.  His beauty resembles Apollo; his knowledge of the Revolution appears omniscient even though he was born long after its conclusion, and his stone-hearted devotion to liberty and justice is like a god of judgment and wrath.

As a teenager who was very unsure of herself (what teenager is sure of herself?), I was drawn to the certainty that defines Enjolras.  Now that I am older, I find myself sympathizing and admiring Combeferre, his right hand man.  Here is what Hugo says about Combeferre (broken into paragraphs, because Hugo is even more loquacious than I am, and with added emphasis to demonstrate exactly why I admire Combeferre):

By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of the Revolution, Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the Revolution and its philosophy there exists this difference–that its logic may end in war, whereas its philosophy can end only in peace.

Combeferre complemented and rectified Enjolras. He was less lofty, but broader. He desired to pour into all minds the extensive principles of general ideas: he said: “Revolution, but civilization“; and around the mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky.

The Revolution was more adapted for breathing with Combeferre than with Enjolras. Enjolras expressed its divine right, and Combeferre its natural right … If it had been granted to these two young men to attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise man.

Enjolras was the more virile, Combeferre the more humane. Homo and vir, that was the exact effect of their different shades. Combeferre was as gentle as Enjolras was severe, through natural whiteness. He loved the word citizen, but he preferred the word man. He would gladly have said: Hombre, like the Spanish . . .

He declared that the future lies in the hand of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with educational questions. He desired that society should labor without relaxation at the elevation of the moral and intellectual level, at coining science, at putting ideas into circulation, at increasing the mind in youthful persons, and he feared lest the present poverty of method, the paltriness from a literary point of view confined to two or three centuries called classic, the tyrannical dogmatism of official pedants, scholastic prejudices and routines should end by converting our colleges into artificial oyster beds . . .

Moreover, he was not much alarmed by the citadels erected against the human mind in every direction, by superstition, despotism, and prejudice. He was one of those who think that science will eventually turn the position.

Enjolras was a chief, Combeferre was a guide. One would have liked to fight under the one and to march behind the other. It is not that Combeferre was not capable of fighting, he did not refuse a hand-to-hand combat with the obstacle, and to attack it by main force and explosively; but it suited him better to bring the human race into accord with its destiny gradually, by means of education, the inculcation of axioms, the promulgation of positive laws; and, between two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than for conflagration. A conflagration can create an aurora, no doubt, but why not await the dawn? A volcano illuminates, but daybreak furnishes a still better illumination.

How can you not be utterly in love with him after a description like that?  To be fair, Hugo accords each of the students with similarly effusive descriptions, but I think he reserves his highest praise and admiration for Combeferre.

Now that I think about it, Combeferre reminds me of Stephen Fry.  The passage about Combeferre not fearing citadels of superstition, despotism, and prejudice reminds me of some very beautiful words written by Stephen Fry:

“I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish.”

I know that I’ve been relying on the words of others in my posts, but I can’t help it.  When I discover that other people have said what I would like to say, but they have said it with a beauty and eloquence that makes me shiver, I can’t help but want to share those words.  It’s a bit like a child who discovers a shiny stone at recess and wants to show all his friends, although I suppose that children don’t really discover shiny stones at recess anymore – they probably spend recess huddled on the blacktop, sending text messages to each other and playing guitar hero on their cell phones.  That’s probably for the best, since my obsession with shiny stones has led me to pilfer shiny plastic stones from many a Dollar Store.  (My career as Carmen Sandiego may have humble origins, but you won’t laugh when I graduate from plastic stones to the Rosetta Stone!)

Anyway.  As a high schooler I always had some secret reservations about Enjolras, because I couldn’t understand his devotion to the Revolution as a violent upheaval.  Combeferre’s patience and insistence on education made a lot more sense to me, but I figured I was just young and ignorant and would eventually figure out why Enjolras was right.  Now that I am the same age as the student revolutionaries, I still find myself siding with Combeferre.  And now that I have corrected my ignorance and done some reading on non-violence, I find myself wishing I could give him a quick history of non-violence and introduce him to some non-violent methods.  If anyone could persuade Enjolras to consider other methods, it is Combeferre.  Combeferre has a very impressive way with just a few words.  Check out one of  his Crowning Moments of Awesome, in which he uses three words (two en francais) to dismantle Marius’ entire worldview (which hinges on absolute adulation of Napoleon, a fairly common worldview for young Frenchmen at the time):

“Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign, to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to make you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the sword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne; to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory, to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and what greater thing is there?”

“To be free,” said Combeferre.

That, my friends, is yet another reason why I love Combeferre.  Check back tomorrow for how my admiration for Combeferre feeds into my commitment to non-violence.  Or how my veneration for the sexy schoolboy revolutionaries taught me to venerate friendship and disdain romance.  Not sure which, but either one should be exciting!

For Long Island info (ie: taking a train or bus, meeting others) see: here.

Bernard Lafayette to lead the World March for Peace and Nonviolence across Brooklyn Bridge

What: The World March for Peace and Nonviolence starts a three-day tour of the USA with a March over the Brooklyn Bridge led by Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Civil Rights activist and adviser to Martin Luther King.

When: Mon. Nov 30, starts 1 pm, finish 3pm

Where: Starting at Brooklyn Boro Hall to City Hall, via the Brooklyn Bridge.

Who: The international base team of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence with their international Spokesperson, Rafael de la Rubia, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, hundreds of nonviolence activists from around the State, all the students and teachers at Brooklyn International High School and others, religious leaders, Consuls and New York City Council Members.

Why: The World March for Peace and Nonviolence is travelling through 100 countries on 6 continents calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and the withdrawal of troops from foreign territories among others.  Starting on 2^nd October in Wellington, New Zealand, the March is due to arrive in Punta de Vacas, Argentina on the 2^nd of January at the end of a 93 day tour.

Endorsements: Presidents of 11 countries; Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Cate Blanchett, Martin Sheen, Yoko Ono, Art Garfunkel, Philip Glass, Ed Asner and hundreds more.  For a complete list, go to www.theworldmarch.org

Proverbs 3  Verse 31,

31 : Do not envy or copy a violent man or choose any of his ways

32: for the Lord detests a perverse man, but takes the upright into his confidence (New International Version of Old Testament)

Story from a Roman soldier

My name is Lucius.  I am a Roman soldier.  I came to Britain many years ago, two hundred years after the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was my job to provision the battalion.  I had to make sure that there would be enough to eat for every man, woman and child in our care, for indeed many of our men had wives and children with them.  We would deal with the local people.  We would barter for goods or pay for them with our own money if they would accept it.

We kept animals to feed ourselves.  We grew winter crops which we saved to feed our stock.  We introduced many new crops to Britannia.  Our goats and sheep would graze the pastures.  We wanted to live peaceably with the local populations if possible.  It was too exhausting to be at war.  We wanted to gain territory rather by doing business with the people than by subduing them with weapons.  We wanted them to feel they could welcome us into their towns and cities.  We could show them many ways of building roads and houses that were new to them.  This would make it more likely that they would want to become like us as they could see the advantages of our ways.

I remember on one occasion a young man from a village near our fort came to see me.  He said he wanted to join the battalion.  He was tired of life on the land and wanted to weald a sword instead of a ploughshare.  I asked him what he thought he would be doing with his sword.

“I will be killing people, of course,” said he.

“And why would you want to do that?” I enquired, surprised at his reply.

“That is what all Roman soldiers do,” said he.  “That is why Rome has come and taken our land, our towns and our villages.  That is why you can eat whenever you want to eat.  It is why you can wear fine clothes and live in grand fortresses.”

“Young man,” said I, “It is not by violence that we conquer this land; it is by power.  We are more powerful than you people.  There are many of us and we are well organised and well disciplined.  It is true that our swords are sharp and our lances long and lethal, but the truth is we rarely use them.  We do not wish to waste human blood.  Every man is of value.  Every person, Roman or Briton is precious to us.  Do not think that if you join our army you will be killing people every day.  Indeed it is to be hoped that you would never need to kill anyone.  It is the threat of violence that controls people, rather than violence itself.  An army needs strong discipline so that unnecessary killing is strictly avoided.

An undisciplined man who kills another without a thought for the value of life will find that others may take revenge upon him.  He himself will have a short life, and the life that he has will be constantly under threat.  Fear will rule his life.  In choosing a way of violence he is choosing a path of fear.

Questions:

1. Why do you think the young man envied the Roman soldiers?

1. How did he think they were able to control the local population?

1. How did Lucius explain the truth?

1. What is the danger of being a violent person?

1. Does the story remind you of anything in your life, or in the lives of people you know about?

1. What do you think verse 32 means?  In another translation of the Bible (New English) it says ‘For one who is not straight is detestable to the Lord, but upright men are in God’s confidence.’  There are lots of issues to consider here too!

I like posting this prayer every year around this time. ..I hope you like!

Thanksgiving Day ~ Every Day Prayer~

Thank you for my head, my heart,

my hands, my feet.

Thank you for my shelter and food to eat.

Thank you for my eyes, my nose, my ears,  my voice…

Thank you for my freedom…my freedom of choice!

by Bethann Shannon

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Thanksgiving Day Prayer

“100 Strangers Praying” ~ Photoboth/ Performance Art by Bethann Shannon

“Thanksgiving Everyday Prayer”

Copyright Bethann Shannon

www.flickr.com/theartangel/

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign aims to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls in all parts of the world. UNiTE brings together a host of UN agencies and offices to galvanize action across the UN system to prevent and punish violence against women. Through UNiTE, the UN is joining forces with individuals, civil society and governments to put an end to violence against women in all its forms.

About UNiTE: launched in 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign is a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls in all parts of the world. UNiTE calls on governments, civil society, women’s organizations, young people, the private sector, the media and the entire UN system to join forces in addressing the global pandemic of violence against women and girls.

By 2015, UNiTE aims to achieve the following five goals in all countries:

*Adopt and enforce national laws to address and punish all forms of violence against women and girls

*Adopt and implement multi-sectoral national action plans

*Strengthen data collection on the prevalence of violence against women and girls

*Increase public awareness and social mobilization *Address sexual violence in conflict

source: un.org

L’article de la voix du nord

Si vous pouvez aller aux journées de la petite enfance… foncez, ça vaut le coup !

Tibetan Resistance fighters pose with weapons following CIA arms drop.

In December 1989 the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Having been awarded to terrorists and war makers before, the Nobel Peace Prize is no stranger to controversy – even Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin are among previous nominees for the prize! In his presentation speech to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Egil Aarvik said:

‘This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded … first and foremost for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty. …

This is by no means the first community of exiles in the world, but it is assuredly the first and only one that has not set up any militant liberation movement.’

Was he unaware that the Dalai Lama had spoken since 1961 of the Tibetan guerrillas that were waging war on the People’s Liberation Army? Had he not read any of the accounts of the Tibetan guerilla war that were in wide circulation, such as Jamyang Norbu’s Warriors of Tibet – a book commissioned by the Tibetan government in exile itself?

Given that Tibetan ‘non-violence’ is merely a facade, why was the Dalai Lama awarded the prize? Tom Grunfeld says:

‘Everything having to do with Tibet is subject to mythologizing. That the Dalai Lama was awared the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of Tibetan independence is one of these myths.’

According to the New York Times, the prize was awarded to the Dalai Lama ‘largely because of the brutal suppression of the democracy movement in China and the international outrage that followed.’ A source close to the Norwegian Nobel Committee revealed:

‘the choice of the Dalai Lama, was an attempt both to influence events in China and to recognize the efforts of student leaders of the [Chinese] democracy movement, which was crushed by Chinese troops in June.’

In addition to criticizing the Chinese by implication, awarding the prize to the Dalai Lama was an explicit attempt by the committee to atone for what is widely considered to be its greatest embarrassment: failing to award Mahatma Gandhi the Nobel Peace Prize, despite his having been nominated five times! As Egil Aarvik said in the presentation speech:

‘The Dalai Lama likes to consider himself one of Gandhi’s successors. People have occasionally wondered why Gandhi himself was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the present Nobel Committee can with impunity share this surprise, while regarding this year’s award of the prize as in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi.’

The Nobel Peace Prize is considered by some to be the easiest Nobel Prize to win because no actual achievement needs to be demonstrated. What the Dalai Lama has clearly achieved, though, is to deceive the world utterly as to his real nature and intentions. By awarding him the Peace Prize the Nobel Committee has helped him to continue to dupe the world.

The Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations and the Islamic Council of Norway have published a joint statement that condemns violence in close relationships and within the family. The joint Muslim-Christian declaration brings into focus the question of family and relationship violence, which has long been a significant social problem in Norway.

According to Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations, one in every four women has been exposed to violence in relationships or family. In the statement Mr. Shoaib Mohammed Sultan, the General Secretary of the Islamic Council of Norway, stated that: “In our capacity as religious communities, we want to contribute positively to the struggle against violence in the family and in close relationships, both by our attitudes and our actions. “Violence in families and in close relationships is a criminal act which goes against our religious teachings and the human rights. This applies both in Norway and globally,” Mr. Sultan added. “As members of a society it is everyone’s responsibility to prevent and resist all shapes and shades of violence in the family and in close relationships. As religious leaders it is our special responsibility to strongly condemn any misuse of the teachings of our religions in order to legitimise such violence,” said Fykse Tveit.

The statement comes from dialogue between the two groups—which dates back to 1993. Regular meetings are held where the two religions can openly discuss a range of issues that relate to society and religion. The coalition aims to provide greater understanding between the Muslim and Christian communities and also seeks to promote further contribution from the two religions to the greater community.

source: icenews.is

peace

Over at The Film Talk we’ve just posted our next podcast episode in which we discuss three films that I think are hugely important – ‘Antichrist’, ‘Gaia’, and ‘2012′.  If you’re interested in the end of the world and how to stop it; the politics of nation-building; the difference between provocation and mental illness; and in hearing about a film so good it’s close to miraculous, check it out here.

Adam J. Copeland

FPC Hallock

Nov 22, 2009

Christ the King

John 18:33-37

Today I begin with a confession: I love the HBO television series The Wire. It is extremely violent, offensive, glorifies drug culture; it has more than its fair share of drunken shenanigans, dead bodies, and police brutality. I missed the show while it was on television, so I’ve been slowly watching it over several months on Netflix and iTunes. I’m not quite addicted, but I’m pretty close.

The Wire is a show about many things, but its main plot centers upon the inner city drug culture in Baltimore, Maryland, and those who police it. Two drug lords in close partnership, Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell, rule a hefty portion of Baltimore drug corners. They carry a powerful reputation and even more powerful guns and strongmen to support them. What makes The Wire stand out among shows of its kind, is the complexity it affords such characters supposedly as lowly as drug lords and hit men. The viewer gets glimpses of ethical struggles — not quite the kind the we have in Hallock — but about how to give back to the community while you’re supplying its drug fiends with cocaine. In this culture, honesty, efficiency, allegiance, and honor are all upheld in peculiar but convincing ways.

I’m nearing the end of the third season now, and at this point the main drug dealers, Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell, have their reputation on the line. A young up-and-coming dealer has challenged their territory and imputed their honor. In inner city Baltimore, Avon and Stringer are king. Nobody disputes their power. If you do, you find yourself or your family killed. But this young upstart refuses to respect their muscle. I don’t know what will happen, but something must give in the next few episodes. Avon and Stringer above all must keep their rule in tact. With their guns and their money someone — many, probably — will be killed. And some dealer will remain on top; on The Wire in inner city Baltimore, the drug dealer is king.

Today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, a day on which we declare that Christ is King and no other, that Christ rules every corner, that the reign of Christ is supreme. The problem with Christ the King Sunday, though, is we Americans aren’t used to the metaphor. Since we don’t have a royal family in this country we might think this Sunday doesn’t apply to us. But Christ the King Sunday is about much more than literal kings, it’s about who or what, ultimately, rules our lives.

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Today’s reading from John 18 finds us in the headquarters of Pontius Pilate overhearing a very strange conversation between Jesus and Pilate. The crowds are outside calling for Jesus’ crucifixion, but Pilate can’t seem to do anything but participate in the farce of justice. “Who’s in charge here?” we wonder. Pilate? The screaming crowds? Jesus? God? John leaves things a bit ambiguous.

Pilate asks Jesus, “So, are you the King of the Jews?” It’s hard to say if this is an honest question, or an obnoxious one. Maybe Jesus can’t tell either.

“Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Jesus responds.

Pilate dodges, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.” What have you done?

Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world. For if it was, his followers would be fighting to keep him safe. But as it is, Jesus’ kingdom is not here.

Pilate thinks he’s got him: “So you are a king?” he exclaims.

“You say that I am a king.” Jesus retorts, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asks. What indeed.

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Christ the King is a fairly new celebration for the church. While we’ve been celebrating Christmas for hundreds of years; Christ the King Sunday — or what it turned into — began in 1925. The Pope at that time, Pope Pius XI put out a fancy paper and instituted the new celebration. It made perfect sense, though, because at that time Mussolini was gaining popularity and fascism was gaining ground in Europe.

The Feast of Christ the King was supposed to affirm, once and for all, that Christ rules all, not Mussolini or Hitler. Christ is King over all creation.

As far as I can tell, most mainline protestant churches began celebrating the sunday in the 1980s when the Revised Common Lectionary became popular.

So the origins of Christ the King are simple enough — Christ is King not Mussolini, but the challenge doesn’t stop there. Christ is King, not consumerism or the free market. Christ is King, not death and violence. Christ is King and we ourselves are members of that kingdom, subject to Christ alone.

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What would our lives look like if we were truly subject to Christ alone? If we only pledged our allegiance to Christ our King how might our everyday actions be different?

Responding to Pilate, Jesus says “My kingdom is not from this world, for it were, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.”

Violence is not of Christ’s kingdom. Earlier in the garden when he was arrested, Simon Peter drew a sword and started fighting to keep Jesus safe. But Jesus immediately told him to put his sword back in its sheath. Violence would not solve anything. His kingship isn’t about that.

We celebrate this Christ the King Sunday while our nation has been at war in Afghanistan for eight years and the president is contemplating the war’s future. It’s hard to say what Christ’s policy in Afghanistan would be. It’s hard to know when non-violence allows for self-defense, but it’s safe to say that Christ’s ultimate will is for peace. His ultimate hopes for his followers is that they be peacemakers. In our sinful world, there must be those who uphold the peace through the ability to wage war, but we must never forget that the vision of Christ’s kingdom is one where peace reigns forever. And so I wonder, what would our lives look like if we were truly subject Christ alone?

As most of you know, I’m 3/4 time at the church and also work a part-time job at Eddie Bauer in the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks. Well, the last few weeks have marked the beginning of the holiday flurry. Lights and decorations are up, fake snow abounds, and holiday sales are in full swing.

Did you know most retail stores operate at a loss until the last quarter of the year? Only between Thanksgiving and Christmas do they begin to make a profit.

The holiday season is also the most profitable for credit card companies. 1/3 of all Americans don’t payoff their Christmas credit card debt until the following summer, if even then. There’s nothing in today’s gospel passage about credit cards; they didn’t even exist when Christ the King Sunday was first instituted, but claiming Christ as King also means that consumerism is not king.

A remarkable thing has been happening in our congregation over the past few weeks. At the last Christian Education meeting, a member brought in a magazine from Heifer International, wondering if our Sunday School might want to learn about the The Heifer Project and support it with some small Sunday School funds.

The Heifer Project started when a midwestern farmer was handing out rations of milk to hungry children in the Spanish Civil War. Then it struck him, “These children don’t need a cup, they need a cow.” A while later, he organized a shipment of heifers to Puerto Rico. The children who received them had never even tasted milk before. And in a few months, the young cows gave birth and the families agreed to pass the calves on to another family, to continue the gift of life.

For a few weeks, the older Sunday School class has been collecting money to support Heifer International, now active in more than 125 countries. The Sunday School gift to Heifer will be sent off by December 4th so that our donation — of rabbits or goats or bees or ducks or a number of other sustainable animals — will be delivered by Christmas. Several families will receive the life-giving gift of animals this year. And when those animals give birth, the gifts will be passed on to other families. Heifer International is one of many organizations supporting alternative gift giving this holiday season, organizations which testify to Christ’s Kingdom reigning supreme.

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I mentioned earlier that The Wire is a complex television show where the gangsters have consciences and conform to an ethical code. In a recent episode I viewed, inner city Baltimore was up in arms because Avon’s hit men attempted to murder a rival on a sunday morning. Apparently this is beyond the pale because, get this — for as long as anyone can remember there’s been a truce on sunday morning. No violence during the church hour, even for drug dealers.

By no means are Barksdale and Bell bowing to Christ’s kingship at all times, but something in their sense of decency makes them give up their reign on Sunday morning to let peace prevail.

Christ is King, but not the king we expect. The King with a crown of thorns. The King with non-violent followers. The King of gifts of love. What would our lives look like if we were truly subject to Christ alone?