“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”  My sister Jan still reminds me of the phrase’s importance.  Emblazed on a poster that hung in our basement when we were kids, the words were accompanied by a rocking chair in the background.  Jan quotes it from time to time.  I have tended to smile, nod, and reminisce-until studying Psalm 77.  The psalmist uses six different words, in five different verses, eleven different times for think, consider, ponder, remember, and reflect.  Here the reader stops, sits, and thinks.  In the case of this ancient song, the writer moans, a word that crescendos through turbulent times.[1]  

“Would you like a little whine with that cheese?!” is sometimes the response of some unfeeling souls who have suffered little.  But for the afflicted, moaning turns to complaint and protest.  Preoccupied with the hard situation, Psalm 77:3, 6, and 12 all use the meditative word for one’s pained response: a sigh.[2]  But suffering is not one and done.  Memories are dredged up from the situational cesspool.  Better days are compared and found wanting.[3]  Even so, at least his cries lead to a search.[4]  And in the end, First Testament writers connect remembrance to reflection.[5]  So how should we reflect on bad times, bad people, and bad situations? 

Psychology, wrapped in Western pragmatism, desires to find an answer to our problems.  Most analyses of our person by both Christians and non-Christians are centered in a works righteousness perspective.  We have to do something for resolution.  Scripture, contrary to human-centered thought, finds us sitting, without any other recourse, but to wait.  We do nothing.  For a culture that “tends to value production over process,” reflection assumes the need for quiet time “without the constant pressure to produce.”[6]  

In The Wounded Leader Ackerman and Maslin-Ostrowski identify reflection as an alternative to action response.  Writing one’s story provides healing.[7]  We need to “get it out”.  The psalmist “got it out,” wrote it down, expressed his thought, communicating the passionate purpose of his agony.  “Sometimes I sits and thinks” is the importance of taking time, as the psalmist did, to write our narrative. 

Significance also rests in noticing the first person singular all the way through the first part of the Psalm.  “I cried,” “I groaned,” “I was too troubled to speak.”  Now notice the transition to the second person singular.  The Psalmist decides, “It’s not about me.  It’s about You.”[8]  Ultimately, we have no other recourse, no other answer, than to leave what we carry at “the court of appeals”.  It is the waiting that is most difficult.  

Patience is not my virtue.  But Rainer Maria Rilke has been slowly changing my mind. 

“…to await humbly and patiently the hour of the descent of a new clarity: that alone is to live one’s art, in the realm of understanding as in that of creativity.  In this there is no measuring with time.  A year doesn’t matter; ten years are nothing.  To be an artist means not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree, which does not force its sap, but stands unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow. It will come regardless. But it comes only to those who live as though eternity stretches before them, carefree, silent, and endless. I learn it daily, learn it with many pains, for which I am grateful: Patience is all!”[9] 

If the artist and poet see waiting as ripening, how much more should I?!  Christian theology is clear.  There is a God.  I am not Him.  God is responsible for the story’s conclusion.  I am simply one of the paragraphs in His work.[10]  

If “there is no measuring with time” as Rilke reminds us, then how do I read, much less, write about my life?  We must “live as though eternity stretches before us.”  Rilke must have read Psalm 77:10, “Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.’”  What strikes the reader is that The Creator has no “years.”  He is eternal.  Not only is 77:10 the center[11] of the Psalm but it is the only courtroom to which we can bring our case so that it is heard.  We cannot measure our circumstances apart from the eternality of God.  The downside of this is that we may not know any conclusions, have any answers, or even see any justice in our years.  And that is the point.  There is nothing left to think about.  There is no more reflection to be done.  There is nothing left to say.  Pull up a rocking chair and have a seat.  Look at the ways and works of God.[12]  

“Sometimes, I just sits.”  I cannot wait to tell my sister. 

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[1] Hamah in verse 3 is a strong word with strong feeling, based on unrest and turbulence, ending in a loud noise.  Carl Philip Weber. 1980. hamah. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 1:219.

[2] Gary G. Cohen. 1980. siyach. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 2:875-76.

[3] Verse 3 directly connects the author’s pain with God.  His spirit is faint, weak.  Verse 6 indicates a comparison with better times.

[4] The Hebrew word is chaphas meaning to check out or trace.  In Psalm 64:6 the word is used 3 times-the noun occurs with the pual participle indicating a diligent, deep search, an investigation of everything.  In Psalm 77 the piel suggests concrete situations are in order; there is something specific in our search though it may not be found.  Herbert Wolf. 1980. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 1:312.

[5] Thomas E. McComiskey. 1980. zakar. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. (Moody): 1:241-43.

[6] Robert J. Radcliffe and Julie Gorman. 2001. “Reflection.” Evangelical Dictionary of Christian Education. (Baker): 583-84.

[7] Restitution, chaos, and quest are the three major narrative types suggested in Richard H. Ackerman and Paul Maslin-Ostrowski. 2002. The Wounded Leader. (Jossey-Bass, 2002): 95-105.

[8] Note the decisive shift from a focus on “I” (verses 1-13)-16x, 22x with “me, my”-to “You” (verses 11-20)-20x.

[9] Rainer Maria Rilke. 2000. Letters to a Young Poet. (New World Library, revised): 26.

[10] I am not saying thought is unimportant.  I am not saying work is wrong.  I am not saying accomplishment is irrelevant.  I am not saying human effort is unnecessary.  I am not saying suffering is negligible.  I am saying read Job 40:4-5 and 42:1-6.

[11] Verse 10 is the chiasmic center of the Psalm meaning the pinnacle or focal point of Hebraic poetic form.

[12] Psalm 77:10-20.  J. I. Packer said it best: “Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God…It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God.” J.I. Packer. 1973.  Knowing God. (IVP): 18-19.

Ecklian Reviews: Swing Vote

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN

 Kevin Costner surprises audiences, playing strong men whose lives are almost spent (Bull Durham, Open Range), yet renewed by one final, redeeming act.  With one deciding vote, Costner now shows an equally expert performance of the under-whelmed, apathetic Bud in Swing Vote.  With a divided country and a photo finish election, his ballet decides who will be the next leader of our country.  Given more opportunities than most, he concedes, Bud has done little with them; a condition he now regrets.  The gravity of picking the next president eludes Bud, but not his daughter Molly (played movingly by Madeline Carroll).  Molly drags her father through the necessary guilt hoops, connecting him to what is important.

The first ninety minutes involves the viewer in an above average comedy, full of Bud’s inept, pathetic habits.  But the crowning achievement of Swing Vote is that is skewers politicians, political double-mindedness, and sound-bite happy journalists.  Even the newswoman who is most admired requires repentance (Paula Patton).  Laugh-out-loud scenes suggest Democrats and Republicans are both in need of “heart” surgery.  The satirical outrages of campaign commercials which are in opposition to party platforms to win one vote seem eerily accurate.  Outside of the CNN, MSNBC overplay, with some not so innocent placard placements, the true nature of comedy is maintained: everyone gets nailed.  So careful was Costner in husbanding this film financially and philosophically that America’s current military concerns are absent.  Or perhaps that was a statement all its own. 

After the winning first ninety minutes be prepared for twenty which are lost.  Why do directors insist on adding material that is looking for a movie?  Mare Winningham’s performance as the absent mother is wasted.  The seriousness of satire is unnecessarily interrupted by delving into a part of the characters’ lives that does not match the intention of the script.  Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane as seared conscience campaign managers do matter to the material, playing their parts with verve.  Kelsey Grammar and Dennis Hopper as president and hopeful, actually succeed in making us believe they are having second thoughts about first priorities.  

Molly’s disgusted looks given to both party’s candidates make the message of Swing Vote clear: we have real problems believing any politician.  But we live in a country where everyone should be involved yet just over half of the electorate votes.  So Molly’s classroom report sets the tone for the film.  Practice citizenship.  Participate in the social contract.  Invest oneself in a cause.  Find solutions.  Reach out.  No matter one’s political preference or response any of America’s 21^st century’s presidents, Swing Vote forces us back into the voting booth. 

Rated PG-13 for profanity and adult situations.

 

In addition: for those who enjoy DVD extras, make sure to watch Costner’s band perform “Hey Man, What About You?”

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January 31, 2009

Ecklian Reviews: The Lives of Others

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN

 People can change for the better even within the crucible of dictatorship.  Set in the bare, gray landscape of totalitarian East Germany in 1984[1], a state security agent named Wiesler plies his trade of eavesdropping on his own people.  Rock-like jaw, empty face, and barren soul greet the viewer as Wiesler teaches his craft to young people in the opening sequences.  Everything about Wiesler is committed to his Communist leaders including his terse conversation, searing gaze, and Spartan apartment-an apartment so bare, the Spartan’s would be seen as materialists in comparison.  

Prompted by a “higher-up’s” love interest in the actress Christa-Maria, Wiesler begins his campaign of covert espionage on Dreyman, the only successful playwright to come out of East Germany who is also heralded by The West.  In comparison to Wiesler, Dreyman has a flaccid conscience.  He wants desperately to speak out about the subjugation of his own people.  Yet, conflicted because of the physical largesse showered on him by the government, Dreyman is hobbled, not by the chains of tyranny but by the shackles of complicity.  

Separately, the two men begin their metamorphosis.  Wiesler steals a book by Brecht from Dreyman’s study.  Mind pried open by reading and the entrancing music heard during his surveillance, Wiesler, without words, begins to question the squashing of aesthetics and life itself.  The once proud interrogator is softened by the wedge of human goodness, latent in him all these years.  Given opportunity to imprison a young man’s father who deigned to call the stasi (East Germany’s secret police) the brutes they were, he suddenly refrains.  Transformed by an internal prompting, Weisler continues covering Dreyman’s new found conviction. 

For his part, Dreyman is moved to action by his recluse director friend Jerka who gives Dreyman a musical piece entitled, “Sonata for a Good Man” before committing suicide.  Knowing that he must speak out about the atrocities in his country, Dreyman writes an article for The West which points out the suicide rate in East Germany.  Dreyman’s new found courage is tested and tried in ways the movie bridges over time. 

The Lives of Others is a film for the ages; a brilliant directorial debut by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.  Looking for an idea for a class he was taking at the time, Donnersmarck uses a statement by Lenin and his inability to produce the Russian Revolution while also trying to enjoy Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata.’  Music is the catalyst of change in Wiesler, the means of nerve for Dreyman.  The Lives of Others compels the viewer from beginning to perfect ending to consider what prompts any goodness in man. 

(Subtitled) Rated R for violence, nudity, and sexuality.

 

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[1] The reviews of this film show either historical naiveté or passive acceptance of the East German police state under Communism.  One would get the general impression sans the 20^th century record that the stasi were more of a general nuisance rather than the tyrannical arbiters of life and death they were.  One wonders if the phrase “abuse of power by the reactionary and deeply ensconced East German leadership” (Kent Turner, salon.com) is a true depiction of peoples’ freedoms trounced under the hobnailed boot.

Ecklian Reviews: Juno

Mark Eckel, Director, Mahseh Center, Lake Bruce, IN

Authentic sensitivity meets ambiguous seriousness: life has meaning.  Juno’s confession of premarital sex and pregnancy is anything but a concession.  With fortitude and honesty little seen on screen, Juno makes a declaration of independence from current cultural pressure.  Displaying the wit of a comedienne, the wisdom of a sage, and the longsuffering of a protester, Juno communicates that no one will dissuade her from the quest to do what is right. 

Add the following ingredients and mix thoroughly: Juno’s director’s (Jason Reitman) first film was the sarcastic Thank You For Smoking; Juno’s star’s (Ellen Page) first film was the revenge-against-cyber-stalkers Hard Candy; Mateo Messina, in his first composer role, utilized Kimya Dawson’s tunes to capture the sweet spirit of the picture; Juno’s screenwriter (Diablo Cody) was once a stripper and phone-sex operator.  Such collaboration would seem a “goof” to most in Hollywood.  But like The Office, put together a group who cares for their craft and the results can be astounding. 

Each person in their freshman or sophomore credits fused with the experience of John Malkovich as producer or character actors such as J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney (Juno’s pitch-perfect parents) create a film without parallel.  Michael Cera’s performance as Paulie Bleeker captures the clueless, caring spirit of a boyfriend caught in a situation he cannot fathom with a love he cannot relinquish.  Jason Bateman, as the potential adoptive father, portrays more adolescent behavior than Juno forcing the story toward a surprising yet fitting conclusion.  

Planned Parenthood was surely outraged by the portrayal of a less than caring and still clueless response to a teenager “making a choice.”  The lone protester outside the clinic knows Juno from high school and can muster little retort to a possible abortion save “it has fingernails.”  This is all Juno need know.  Taking the baby to term, damn the response of all naysayers, is exactly what she believes to be right setting her on a course to seek adoptive parents.  Motivation for Juno’s ethical stance seems only to be inherent: something she knows to be right without preachment. 

In Roman mythology “Juno” was queen of the gods.  Thought to be the guardian spirit of females, she would appear in statuary armed, dressed as a Roman legionnaire.  When the combativeness of Juno’s character is considered, the intentionality of the name may well speak to the plotline of the story.  Uninterested in publicly blaming her boyfriend-father, Juno stands publicly alone, though buttressed by kindhearted, honest parents. 

Paulie’s training with the everpresent track team wins him the race where the finish line is the hospital.  The seasons of life, as does a nine month pregnancy, continue unabated.  Yet the final scene brings Juno to her beau broken free of monotony.  People may struggle with how to live; but life takes on new meaning as life is given meaning.       

Rated PG-13 for sexual situations, mature subject matter, and language.