The Earth, The Sky and Everything In Between

OK, so that last idea was a bust. I admit it, and now I'm moving on.

I don't have much to say, so instead of trying to pull something out of my butt, I'm gonna do something I don't often do with something I do quite often.

Huh?

The 'something I do quite often' is write poetry. The 'something I don't often do' is share it with anyone else, so consider this a little peephole into Nathan's squirmy paranoia-infested inner thoughts. It's probably theraputic to me in some way.

Oh, and most of my poems are about love. Hope you don't mind.


Without Reason

I love thee without reason
like a candle to a flame
where others find division
to each other we're the same
My love is earned by nothing
No conditions to display
I love thee without reason
I love thee enough to say

I don't love you for your smile
though it illuminates my day
heavenlies ne'er knew such warmth
they resignedly fade away
You dance just like an angel
up upon your throne
I'll live to love you, lift you, darling
as you dance your way back home

I don't love you for your voice
that harp-led angels song
at yours the angels voices stilled
like them I am undone
Your eyes are like a waterfall
pouring endless supply
of strength that heals and peace that reveals
all things within your eyes

Your body a portrait of elegance
your spirit wild and free
Burning, turning fire's passion
Heaven's opus reality
Even for this I don't love you
On love tis not my claim
I loved you without reason
before I ever knew your name

Cause all these things about you
are magic to my eyes
my heart jumps straight to heaven
when I look into your eyes
but if they ever leave you
if they ever fly away
I always knew your name, 'My Love'
my love for you remains

and sees not what could be
or must be or should be
expects not, projects not
but says softly, 'I love thee'
Not 'because', not 'in this way'
No conditions to display
I love thee without reason
I love thee enough to say

We could be together
We could be the same
loving completely, drinking deeply
fanning on this flame
We could be together
we could be the same
living till we fly
till we fly away

home.

I want to step up how often I write, and since I typically need excuses and deadlines to accomplish anything, I'm gonna write two reviews a week, one music, one movie.

Since I recently did Lady in the Water, I'll count that as my movie. Forget that I wrote it two weeks ago. I'm lazy, and this is my blog, after all.

Song: Nothing to Say – Andrew Peterson

I really love this song. I started off wanting to write something really poetic – you know, really blow your socks off with something really great and moving. I guess thinking about it more, to do that would prove I'd taken absolutely nothing from what this song is trying to say. And what is that? I suppose it's saying God has given us a really, really big world; a world way bigger than our own concerns or even successes, and the more we're able to lose ourselves, and this need we carry to rationalize all existence – the more we love the what God has given us without reason, we find a joy in that wonderful surrender. There is a freedom in truly, truly letting go.

I'll add more later.

Call this a movie review if you like. A few evenings ago, I saw Lady in the Water for what will be the first of a small handful of viewings. Last I checked, Yahoo Movies had an average critic grade of C and a user grade of C+. What follows is my review...

(By the way, this could be considered a spoiler. I don't think it is, but if you're sensitive to those things, beware.)

Cleveland Heep, the protagonist played wonderfully by Paul Giamatti, is trying to piece together the strange events happening around him and soon discovers they mirror an ancient fairy tale told to him by one of the other residents. Naturally, he asks this character to tell him the entire tale, and thus provide him information critical to a happy ending. Before she tells him the fairy tale in all its detail, she makes him prove to her he will receive the story as a child, and results in one of the best scenes of the movie.

I believe now that Shyamalan was speaking to all of us through that moment: that his fairy tales are not meant for the calculating, expectant, or the realists of the world. In this film, he carries on the ancient practice of telling fairy tales, and does so the old fashioned way - by taking the ordinary and unassuming, and creating an outrageous tale that will not allow itself to be perfectly comprehended or understood. What he creates is a world waiting to welcome anyone who believes magic can still happen, and shows us that a secret world can and does exist just below our swimming pool, if we only allow ourselves eyes to see.

This isn't a new idea for Shyamalan. Think back to Signs - the great scene where Joaquin Phoenix and Mel Gibson discuss whether events in life are purely coincidence, or if they carry with them the miracle of intention. Though the film involves an alien attack, that seems more of a subplot, highlighting the real story of Gibson's struggle to believe God is still good. In Lady in the Water, Giamatti takes on a very similar role. Going into the film, he is a man quitting on life for reasons I won't mention here. His journey is a reminder of what Shyamalan does so well in his films (I don't mean scare you to death). He takes real hurts - the ones buried deeper in us than most are willing to dig - and shows there is still hope; there is still room to believe life can be a fantastic journey.

On another level, I loved Lady in the Water because Shyamalan created a fairy tale world from normal life and refused to explain himself or apologize for his actions. I think it's one of those movies (or stories) that will frustrate a person who tries to rationalize the events taking place. After all, this a fiary tale, and if a character is half bodybuilder/half scrawny, that can happen. The point is not why he is that way, but simply that he's that way. Shyamalan's tale doesn't attempt to explain that or the other numerous oddities, just like the Brothers Grimm didn't explain why in Hansel & Gretel the witch lived in a gingerbread house, or why she wanted to cook the children. In a time where we the 'enlightened' feel a need to rationalize all existence, an attempt to break this anti-creative pattern is so refreshing. It makes me this among the purposes and messages of this movie was not in the ending point, nor any other point along the way, but that the movie was it's own point.

Is it a perfect film? Not nearly. There are issues with pacing - much of the movie feels scattered and requires some patience. But like I mentioned earlier, Cleveland Heep wasn't allowed to receive the fairy tale until he presented himself as a child. The movie has a wealth and depth that you can tap into, but you have to believe in the film's worth before it's worth is proven. You have to love it before it becomes lovable. We grow up and grow old, and we become so demanding. All Shyamalan did here was make a bedtime story for his children into a movie designed so that only children could unlock its mysteries.


After thought: Many think Heaven is a place where all our questions will find their answers, and we'll finally understand God. I'm sorry, but I think there's more to our eternity than the fulfilled desire of Adam and his apple. So no, I don't think we'll get our answers, and I don't think we'll ask our questions. I believe Heaven is a place where our wonder and awe are fully restored; where life is magical, and we are swept away by our prince in a fairy tale bigger than our understandings. I think that's what Christ meant when he said we have to become like children to enter his kingdom. **

One of the big no-no's that gets tied to post-modernism is moral relativism - the idea that its all about 'what works for you' - which, by the way, is one massively powerful idea in our current culture. The frequency and subtlety by which relativism is communicated is really very concerning.

One great example is the current commercials for Wendy's Hamburgers. They spent no time attempting to post-modernize their message after Dave Thomas' death. After a few failed advertising efforts (remember the strange man that appeared outside of people's houses in the middle of the night to tell them about Wendy's?), they've settled on a catchy, artistic campaign that ends with the message 'Eat what tastes right'.

Firstly, I'm glad I don't live by that message, or I'd probably look like an upright cow. The message is a convenient one for a fast food chain, since the 'eat what tastes right' mode of thinking is the only reason anyone eats fast food, and for its foolishness is the last argument one would (or should) use to justify such a habit. The funny part is, this is the exact argument we see used among our beloved fast food junkies! And why? Because the worst conceivable defence of a fast food obsession is also its only defence. Our burger-happy hedonists shape their diets around their taste buds at the neglect of every important part of their digestive system (and no, taste buds in fact don't make that cut). They satisfy the surface level at the cost of everything beneath.

Big question: Do we know people who are actually like this with their food choices? Maybe. There are people like this who do exist.

Bigger question: Do we know people who are like this with their spiritual choices? The answer is almost assuredly yes.

I wrote last night on my blog about our tendency to replace the God of the Bible, who is beyond our feelings and desires, with an 'improved' version of God - a deity far more tolerant of what we want and when we want. While this goes a long way to justify our pleasures and desires of the moment, and perhaps reduce or whitewash any sense of guilt we might otherwise have for pursuing first our own happiness, we starve our souls, which can only feed on the real, active, and unmoving Father.

If I may digress back to the food illustration once more, I remember hearing an amazing fact, I believe in the movie 'Supersize Me', which stated one of the facets of many fast foods is their tendency to act as a drug, causing the body to release a certain level of endomorphines, creating a relaxed and slightly euphoric sense about the individual. Once the meal is finished, the chemical release subsides, along with the happy feeling, causing the individual to 'crash'. The easy solution fast food provides to this crash is the further consumption of additional fast food, re-establishing the good feeling created by the chemicals stimulated. This is as close to the characteristics of a drug as I can describe.

This drug creates a false sense of sustenance, and in time, creates quite a dependency to maintain an energy level that was never really there. All the while this drug stands in place of what the body really needs and actually requires to survive, and such is our self-customized God which stands in place of the Living Heavenly Father in our faith practice... And you know, salads don't get a lot of commercial time either, except those you can get from Sonic, which is just as bullshit as their incredibly tasty burgers.

So what does all this have to do with post-modernism? Honestly, I suggest not that much at all. What many people assert as problems with post-modernism, I assert as the same overriding human problem that happens to have the current cultural skin of post-modernism on top of it. From the time Adam munched his Sonic salad thinking what looked cooler than the original could only be a good thing, we have all carried this wonderful knack of substituting God and all His goodness with a Deity that, like the God of Old, has but 1 commandment.

God of the Bible: "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

New God: "Eat what tastes right.”

So here's my plug for the week.

Pandora.com has to be the coolest thing I've straight up ever seen. Based on a very few artist selections, Pandora created a custom radio station that plays songs based on the initial styles and elements I select, and then refines the play selection based on my feedback of each song. The result is a constant stream of songs I've never heard, and all of which I love.
Don't even get me started on the tone quality, which is crystal clear. This is simply the neatest thing I've seen come across in a long, long time.

Finally, a radio station I don't have to hate. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.