Fire

There’s something about fire that mesmerizes us, attracts us, draws us in. Its raw power and energy has amazing potential to be used for good—to heat our homes, to give us light, to cook our food, create spaces where we tell stories and connect with each other—and also to destroy as it consumes whatever we throw into it. It’s untamed, we can’t understand it, and it carries the potential to break out into something so totally beyond us. It’s a thing of awe, a thing of terror, a thing of beauty and a thing that has often inspired worship.

Tonight I followed a group of men as we made our way out past the east side of campus, to some trucks and dumpsters. At the time I was walking, I didn’t know where we were going or what we would find. As I got there, I saw guys pulling wood pallets out of the dumpsters, peeling off the plastic and bindings and tossing them to the ground where they were then loaded on trucks. Cardboard boxes soon followed, and clothes, and stuffed animals. “Will it burn?” We loaded the trucks, threw pallets on top, carried the trash by the armfuls to a fire that was already started.

Pallets were added to the fire, then cardboard boxes, then clothes, then more pallets, and the bonfire was banked higher and higher, the heat emanating from it tremendous as we stood twenty feet away, then thirty, then forty.

“We’re in Lincoln,” somebody said. “A little dot on the map. We want the planes to see this.” Raw power. Pure energy. Powerful, untamed, visible, with the potential to break out uncontrolled. But what I think this guy was saying was, “I want to leave a mark. I want to make a difference. I want to do something big, even if it’s in Lincoln, Illinois.”

As I looked into the flames, and saw dancing orange and yellow flames, felt the heat singe my face and hands, and then looked around the fire at the scared, excited, invincible faces, I tried to figure out what was going on. Here was energy and power in the fire. Here was energy and power and the spirit of invincibility and something reckless in the faces of the men around me. Part of me was afraid of the potential force for destruction. Part of me wanted to listen for something bigger.

In ancient cultures fire was used for cooking, for light, for religious ceremonies and sacrifices. People passed through the fire, whether it was walking on hot coals like some cultures still practice, or a metaphor for human sacrifice. There was something destructive, primal, and representative of worship and spiritual practice in the fire.

Maybe it’s no surprise that God first appeared to Moses as a fire that could not be consumed on the mountain. It grabbed his attention, drew him in. I don’t know how long it took him to realize that the bush wasn’t burning, but he was captivated. God had mesmerized him, lured him in to show him what He was up to.

At times God used fire to light the way for the Hebrews as they were wandering in the desert places or running from the Egyptians. God’s fire consumed Sodom and Gomorrah, Nadab and Abihu, and consumed Elijah’s offering as he was competing against the prophets of Baal. Fire is a powerful, dangerous, and awe-inspiring thing. The same words could be used to describe God.

In Matthew, John talks about Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In Acts, the Holy Spirit came on Jesus’ followers as tongues of fire, the writer of Hebrews says that God is a consuming fire, and Paul says not to quench the fire of the Spirit.

In us is potential for great fire. I saw it tonight, and wondered which way the fires would burn. Would we destroy, or is there something in us that wants to be part of something big, powerful, unpredictable, a fire that cannot be quenched, a following the ways of God in such a way that will leave a mark, that will burn into our hearts and minds and hands and feet, that will be permanent. Fire can be quenched, it can destroy, it can do terrible things, but my prayer is that this year will ignite a God fire in us, that will leave its mark on us, consume us, mesmerize us. And we will never be the same.

Spider-man and Venom

Spider-man. Venom. One is mild mannered, has a nerdy alter ego, is seen as the struggling, insecure teenager in all of us. He has family ties, though most of them are broken, but before they break they instill something deep within him, grounding who he is and who he will become: with great power comes great responsibility. Thanks, Uncle Ben. Why did you have to die?

The other is more powerful, dangerous, violently angry, out of control. Carrying Venom on his back is like carrying an addiction, you never know who’s got whom or when it’s going to take over. Sometimes he doesn’t want to fight to try to regain control. The rush, the power, the freedom from restraint and the ability to destroy is too great of a high. But the fear, the loss of control, the potential to hurt the very ones he cares most about (Aunt Mae, Mary Jane, himself), keeps bringing him back.

Last night I dreamed I was both.

Spider-man and Venom. Venom and Spider-man. Two sides, one person, probably the sides of all of us. But wait, this goes beyond the double personality, the alter ego, but splits even further into multiple personalities. There’s the ego (Peter), the superego (Spidey, living for the people, larger than life, the responsible if sarcastic moral superhero), and the id (Venom, the growing, uncontrollable demon). Take Venom a step further and you have Carnage, total destructive force, total chaos, a killing machine without a conscience. It’s Venom taken to the extreme, Venom without the balancing impulses of Peter and Spidey, so dangerous that Spider-man and Venom put their differences aside long enough to take on a greater evil. Venom is bad, Carnage is horrific.

On the Lighter Side: Breakfast with Landon

About two months ago I moved in with some friends who have three kids: a six-year old, a three-year old, and and eight month old. The first month I spent mostly traveling around out in Oregon and Idaho, and they spent a week in Ohio. The last month though I've been settling into the new routine of a new job, and what it's like to go from living by myself (for the last five years, minus six months hanging out with my buddy Tom) to being part of an instant family of five (six counting me; nine if you count the cats. Oh yeah, and there's the lizard in the basement).

I've been pretty close to this family since I was in college. I stood as best man in the wedding, was roommates with the dad in college, was friends with the mom, was sleeping at their house the night their oldest son was born, and was able to stay a few extra months in Illinois as their second son was born before I headed off to Michigan. I've been getting to know the newest member of the family, a girl with really beautiful blue eyes and a melt-your-heart smile, and I'd count myself really blessed. I've been dubbed the unofficial "uncle," though the three-year-old, Landon, is still trying to figure that one out.

I get up early to try to have breakfast and be out of the house and on my way to work before the rest of the family gets up. Sometimes that works. Usually it doesn't. Landon's an early riser too, and often will come downstairs as early as 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning, shuffling across the floor to grab a package of cheese and crackers out of the pantry before shuffling back up to bed where he eats quietly and waits for his brother and the rest of the family to wake up.

A couple weeks ago I got up at 6:30, thinking I'd eat breakfast and do some reading while it was still quiet, but right as I turned the corner I heard small feet right behind me. I stumbled around looking for the coffee filter, still feeling fuzzy, which Landon saw as a moment to begin our early morning conversation. Here's how it went:

Landon: Do you have a house?
Me: No.
Landon: Do you have a woman?
Me: Um, no. Do you want some cereal?
Landon: Yeah.

I was laughing, but wanted to give him something else to do because I didn't know where the conversation was heading.

Even though he's three, his parents like to nickname him the "Old Man," because you never know what's going to come out next from Landon's mouth. Sometimes it's sage wisdom several times beyond his years, sometimes just really quirky, and sometimes so hilarious that he makes us hurt we're laughing so hard. One day he fell and hurt his leg and told his mom he had to go to church.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I need to ask God something."
"You can do it here," she said. "You don't have to go to church every time you want to talk to God."

This morning I was in the kitchen again by 6:30, had just started the coffee and was getting ready to pour myself a bowl of Healthy Hearty Crunchy cereal of some kind; basically, colon blow twigs and flakes. I heard the song of feet on wooden floor and Landon rounded the corner, wearing a diaper.
"Are you my uncle?" he asked.
"Yep. Do you want some cereal?"
"Yeah, I want that kind," he said, pointing to the Healthy Hearty cereal you only eat after you're thirty.
"I don't think you'll like it."
"Uh huh."
"Okay, you can try it." So I poured him enough cereal to cover the bottom of his Spider-man bowl, added a few cranberries so it would match what I was eating, and added milk. Then I waited for the taste test.
*Crunch crunch crunch* went Landon. "I like it, I like it!" Give it to Landon, he'll eat . . . very little except the stuff you least expect.

So we sat down together, Landon and I, at the breakfast table at 6:30 in the morning, me with my bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, he with his Spider-man bowl of old man cereal that matched the old man cereal being eaten by Uncle Cliff. And then the questions started.

"Is this church?"
"The house?"
"Yeah, is the house church?"
"Sometimes. I guess it could be. Does God live here?"
"No."
"Sure he does. He lives here."
"Jesus lives here."
"Okay. Yeah, Jesus lives here."
"But Ike's not Jesus."
"No, your brother's not Jesus."

I never know what's going to come out of that boy's mouth, or where our conversations are going to go over breakfast at 6:30 in the morning, but I've begun to really value the time we have together, talking, over a bowl of cereal while the rest of the house, and the world for that matter, is still sleeping in silence. It seems to be our time, with no distractions, no need to share time and attention with a brother and sister or things that have to be done. It's nice.

And I'm learning some things from my time with him, and laughing a whole lot. Someday we won't have conversations quite like this, but I hope we still talk, and I'm trying to start early at building that relationship so when he's older and Uncle Cliff is no longer cool and there are girls in his life and sports, and friends who are grabbing for his attention, that he'll still want to come sometimes to talk over a bowl of cereal, or maybe someday a cup of coffee (not now. "Coffee is for grown ups, not little boys").

His mom came downstairs this morning and said, "You've heard of the book Tuesdays with Morrie. Well, I guess this is Breakfast with Landon." Yeah, I thought, I like that.

The Religion of Movies

Theater had its origins in religious ceremonies. Even before the Greek Dionysian wine and sex parties to celebrate fertility, older cultures combined music and theatricality with religion. It may have involved music or chanting, choreographed dancing, even masks and costumes to personify the gods or the symbolism of something bigger.

In early Greek drama, the chorus started out being the main players and mouthpieces of worship, morality lessons, and the audience watched (and sometimes participated in) the liturgy. Over time individuals began to step forward, with the masks and costumes, monologues and dialogues, and the chorus retreated, at first still advancing the story, and then taking the role of a single narrator.

However, in Greek culture theater continued to keep its religious roots. Whether it was Sophocles reinforcing the theme that humans should not overreach themselves and tempt the gods to anger through their hubris (pride), or Aristophanes protesting the war between Athens and Sparta (the 60s and Vietnam had nothing on Aristophanes. He was perhaps one of the first war protesters who followed the theme “make love not war,” especially through the comedy Lysistrata), theater continued to be the forum for discussing theology, morality, the problems of good and evil and human behavior.

Ironically, then, some of the biggest protestors of theater in Shakespeare’s day came from the religious sector, the Puritans (yes, the hard working folks who helped found and establish some of the American colonies). Perhaps as a response, Shakespeare sometimes poked fun at them for their strict adherence to discipline and contempt for the theater (Malvolio in Twelfth Night, who is played to look like a hypocritical fool, may be one of Shakespeare’s straw men to criticize the puritans). Due to protests stating the theater created tendencies for laziness and vice, the Globe Theatre was shut down and moved across the River Thames in London. Yet Shakespeare’s plays are still studied and mined for their wealth of understanding about human nature, comedy, tragedy, and morality.

Though early film seems to have been a combination of moving photography and vaudeville comedy, the 1920s began to take the fledgling film industry and combine elements of the theatrical (costumes, plot, theme). Many of our conversations about religion, the spiritual, or faith and movies, however, center around the role of clergy (Catholic priests, the absence of Protestant ministers) or the negative press Christians and faith seem to receive in movies.

Yet movies have also become a modern day parable. Seeing the Matrix was like seeing a sermon, or a postmodern messiah that combined elements of Eastern and Western thought together into a philosophical action film. The Matrix II took this analogy even further, creating further extremes of action, interrupted with sermonizing philosophy. Superman Returns also mixes strong elements of a Judeo-Christian messiah with the folklore of superheroes and godlike supermen. I haven’t even mentioned The Truman Show, Lost in Translation, Magnolia, Kinsey, or hundreds of other thoughtful, aesthetically well done movies.

The similarities between religion and the movies don’t end in just its origins or the issues many of our best films address. Culturally, the movies have become our 21st century cathedrals, the centerpoints where we reaffirm and challenge our values, come to understand the world, our fears, what makes us human and express our search for spiritual meaning and significance. With film, we are swept into something outside the normal experience, where we see life as larger than it is in our own realities, and where we can dream we are something more or somewhere else.

The movies have become our communal gathering places. The lights come down, the audience around us becomes a collective of indistinguishably shadowy silhouettes, a human but unrecognizable presence that we participate alongside, but don’t interact with. Sounds surrounds us, envelopes us, and our focus is directed to a bright light and moving images. When film was still a new phenomenon, people would even pick fights with the characters on camera, fooled by the illusion that the person was there when they actually weren’t. And now, even though we can rent movies and take them home to watch them in the privacy of our homes, we still choose to go to the movies sometimes for the larger experience.