Pilgrim's Chorus, from Richard Wagner's Tannhauser

Once more with joy O my home I may meet

Once more ye fair, flowr'y meadows I greet

My Pilgrim's staff henceforth may rest

Since Heaven's sweet peace is within my breast.

The sinner's `plaint on high was heard

On high was heard and answered by the Lord

The tears I laid before His shrine

Are turned to hope and joy divine.

O Lord eternal praise be Thine!

The blessed source of Thy mercy overflowing

On souls repetant seek Ye, all-knowing

Of hell and death, I have no fear

O my Lord is ever near

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Forevermore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299iYHF4x1s

Dear September

1. Twenty one years
2. Goodbye, sister
3. GRE: <1 month
4. Aluminum foil
5. Greeting card fetish
6. What it means to love my dad
7. Paul Ricoeur
8. Gordon in Lynn and HOMES
9. Sugar Magnolia's

I said, 'we were not stocks and stones' — 'tis very well. I should have added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, — but men cloathed with bodies, and governed by our imaginations.

(Laurence Sterne, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy")

why M. Night Shyamalan keeps getting better

"The Last Airbender" aside, I want to offer a defense of Shyamalan. He's earned it. In the years since "The Sixth Sense," Shyamalan has directed an impressive body of work, a fact made even more impressive when we consider that many of those films were written by Shyamalan himself. But I want to go back to the film that first made audiences bow in awe before the fabled storyteller. As a master storyteller, Shyamalan has mastered the very surreal element of surprise. With regard to "The Sixth Sense," for example, we didn't sit in our theater seats wondering just how this film was going to wrap up from Bruce Willis's perspective. In fact, we didn't know what to wonder in the first place. We bore witness to a heartbreaking meld of family dynamics, mourning, friendship and love--all very carnal and perpetual elements of the lives of even the youngest of us. And that is the point. As Cole and his earnest psychologist wrestled with stained, untied and even absolutely rent threads, we weren't asked to rely on the supernatural to solve the mystery or even lend some meaning to the stories. Who hasn't experienced the loss of a loved one and wished for one last conversation, one last attempt to gain parental approval, or to make peace with a friend? What was most tear-inducing about the film, at least for me, was the scene between Cole and his mother in the car in which Cole revealed that his grandmother was so proud of her daughter, which ultimately brought peace and gratefulness to Cole's mom--and a little bit of resolution for us. The strength of the story lies not in the revelation that Bruce Willis is struggling to come to terms with the mess that he will leave behind after his death, but that we all will.

A smart filmmaker, a financially savvy one (which Shyamalan has to be, as anyone in The Industry would admit) cannot afford to become cliché. When Shyamalan followed "The Sixth Sense" with (skipping a good Mel Gibson flick) "The Village" (my personal favorite of his canon), he was criticized for the lackluster and arguably predictable ending. Admittedly, the "alternate reality" of 19th-century-Covington-Woods-within-modern-day-America was not the most complex scenario Shyamalan's imagination could have wrought; however, it withdrew a creative space in which the deeply and intrinsically human could operate--and even flourish. The farce of "Those We Don't Speak of" and the moaning sounds from the woods aren't THE EVENT in and of themselves; rather, they create the tense environment in which every action could have far-reaching consequences, and in which bravery always means to venture into the forbidden.

What Shyamalan has done is construct a supernatural aspect that has to be in proportion to the contents of the story. Cole is struggling with interactions with the dead, so the context of Malcolm Crowe's limbo is, while impossible, fitting. As are the circumstances of "The Village." To have fit a similar supernatural element to the characters of Covington Woods would have been laughable--even ridiculous. And that is the absolute beauty of Shyamalan's vision. Even in light of the farce of the red cloaks and alternate reality-esque conditions, it was Ivy and Lucius who necessitated the story's unfolding, who propelled it forward. Shyamalan seems to have a superbly crafted motif in mind behind each of his films. He moves from mourning to faith/family to love to Deep Ecology to purpose to connectedness, and yet we deny him the freedom to care about how we participate in our lives and the lives of those we touch. Shyamalan wants to ensure that we become whole and real, even if he needs to bring in fantasy and the monsters of our imaginations to pound us over the heads with our self-absorption and stuck situations. It is not Shyamalan who has lost his zeal; it is his audience that doesn't like to be challenged and grown by stories that are collectively our own. We are not more discriminating in our tastes; we are in severe denial.

the ACLU is NOT evil.

Recently I've come to understand that despite my deep affiliation with the Christian Church, I am at heart a supporter of civil liberties, and seem to have an easier time than most Christians separating my religious tendencies from what I see as the true role of government--especially a democratic one. I always plan on enduring morally by my understanding of biblical truth, but will hopefully always be able to understand the limits of a national morality--and not despair too dramatically the differences.

I am ALL for separation of Church and State.

So is THIS guy.

Lord, save us from a Christian government. 


"We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws." 
— G.K. Chesterton