Toni Erdmann

The problem with assigning films for yourself to review is that you have to write about them even if you aren't the biggest fan. That happened last week when I agreed to cover the highly acclaimed German film Toni Erdmann. As usually happens when you force yourself to write, my feelings on it clarified and now you can read about them, if you're so inclined.

"Toni Erdmann is about the lengths one might go to pursue someone and the ways we mask such a longing for connection under a facade of professional ambition. It’s about the clash that can occur when an eccentric personality plants himself in the company of a formal society. And it’s a nearly three hour German film with an oddly surrealist flavour."​

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Paterson

Last week I finally got the chance to see Jim Jarmusch's film Paterson. I loved watching it and it was the movie that I most enjoyed writing about so far this year. I'm pretty happy with the essay. 

This film is about the details of a routine and how the poet notices them and works them into his imagination. It's about the settled routine of a peaceful life and the significance of this routine's variations. It's also about the people in these routines - the strangers we serve through our jobs, the neighbours we bump into and interact with, and the quirks of those with whom we choose to live our lives. It's a gentle, warm hearted wonder of a film, carefully crafted to include incidents that work on multiple levels.

 Head over to Reel World Theology to read the review. Then take the time to seek out the film. It will be well worth your time. 

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Dialogue in the Woods

Earlier this week my friend Thomas Zak sent me his poem, "Dialogue in the Woods." Thomas is from the South: Louisiana. That location is foreign and mysterious in my imagination, conjuring voodoo and gospel music; dark racism and high culture; festering swamps and otherworldly giant trees. (I'm sure Baton Rouge is far different than this expectation and I would love to someday experience it myself.) Thomas  told me his poem was being published on the blog of a local literary journal and that they were looking for photos to accompany it. He loved "the fractured, mosaic form of [my] photographs and immediately thought [my] work would be a great fit. Would I be interested in submitting some images?" As you, my readers, know, I've long been exploring the possibilities of pairing the seeing eye and the written word, especially with poetry, so I lept at the chance for a new collaboration.

My friend's deceptively simple poem reminded my of the several acres of young poplar about a mile from my home. Over the years I've often wandered there when I've needed to call a friend, get out of my head, or take some pictures. The poem speaks of both the sadness and contentment found in the life cycle of a tree, so my sequence of images tried to follow this cycle from the forest floor to the parts of the tree nearest the sky.

Thomas and I worked closely as we refined the image selection and their order, and now the finished piece has gone live. Head over and take a look. I hope you're as pleased as we are with this collaboration. 

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Brett Lott's Letters & Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian

I've been slowly posting the assignments I wrote as part of last year's Creativity and the Christian course. I highly recommend Brett Lott's fine volume and am excited to announce that he has generously agreed to be interviewed later this month! I'm excited and nervous. Watch this space! And in the meantime, read his excellent book.

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Key Contributions

Bret Lott is a writer. He has achieved the commercial success that defines the dream a successful writing life, and he has the literary accolades to prove that he has not sold his artistic soul to achieve them. But Bret Lott is also a Christian who has thought deeply about the implications of his faith upon his writing life, and vice versa.

Bret refuses to separate his writing from his faith. There is a backbone of belief to his craft and the result is a joyful boldness. In the book's first essay, he reminds us of his belief in God's existence and intervention in our world, and the examples of it in Bret's life. This is in strong contrast to today's secular age, which "has become so primed to the self that there is no room to believe in anything else." But as Christians, the source of both reason and imagination has been met in Christ. The result of this truth in our lives is that there is nothing to stop us from being a witness through our art. We have been given a freedom to create art. In light of the supernatural intervention of the true God in our lives, what circumstances have we to fear?

This doctrine permeates all aspects of his craft. It clarifies and provides boundaries to his role as an artist and his relationship to both the church and the public square (chapter 2). It gives him courage to push hard in writing with precision, because "I have been made in the image of God, and not blurrily in his image, not almost in his image, not close enough in his image" (chapter 3). It gives context to his writings, rooted in the people around him (chapter 4) and it protects him from thinking too highly of himself (chapter 5).

In the end, writing can never be divorced from life. Bret explores this relationship in the second half of the book, an extended essay on his writing and the ordinary days surrounding the death of his father. Here is writing and here is life, together bearing fruit for all eternity.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Lott's thinking is saturated in the Bible yet also so obviously born out of his life as world class writer. This permeates the entire book, but the second essay stood out to me. It examines the relationship between the believing artist and surrounding society. Lott defines both a believer and an artist as being "blessed to be a blessing." He also recognizes that "we do not commit art in a vacuum but are a part of society," so we had best understand the moral order imposed on that society by God. In this order, the role of the artist is "a creator in a worship relationship to God." Satan usurps this order, convincing us "to divorce art from God." Lott quotes filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, who believed "that art lost its creative urge the moment it was separated from worship." The result is the desperate need to find meaning in yourself and your art, "an unmoored harmonic line, consumed with believing itself the melody."

This lie of Satan's has been broken by Christ's work on the cross. When our salvation is found in Him, our place in the moral order is restored and we can create "portraits of humanity that extend to all who have ears to hear and eyes to see the value of humanity for our having been created by God in his image." We now know we are, created to live lives "in service - in creation - to our creator God."

For Lott, these lives - people and their particulars - are the reasons we write. For him, his writing is all about the people involved in his stories. "People, in the dire straights we all of us have known and will know, carried with them their own ragged and sorrowful and mysterious worth." Lott expresses a real humility in the face of these people and their circumstances. They force him to get out of his writing's way and let their stories speak.

The book is a collection of essays, not a thesis. This is both a strength and a weakness.

Personal Application

Letters & Life taught me to have courage and to have humility. "For writing that will last, and that will mean something, and that will have pierced the heart and soul and mind not only of our readers but, more importantly, of ourself... precision is the most important element." This kind of writing takes courage - courage to trust what you are trying to feel enough to push past dead expressions and find new words, "precise words we don't yet know [that] will serve the purpose of showing us what we can't yet see." The life I am witnessing is a precise life. So don't let me trade it for vague stories that lack the courage of the particulars. I serve a precise God who has made precise people. May I listen and stare and have the courage to tell exactly what I see.

We also need humility. We need to get ourselves out of the way and minimize our own importance. It is "the dethroning of the writer, the constant and all-consuming bloody coup every story or poem or essay - every genuine work of art - must accomplish over its author in order truly to live and to breathe and to have something to say to us that will matter." Artists tackle the eternal. Much is at stake and as a result we tend to think highly of ourselves. But the eternal has "to be approached on one's knees... humbly, carefully, cautiously."

It is true that our words matter. Our writing, if it is done with precision, "is a manifestation of the eternal... a foray into the Holy of Holies." But Lott is quick to acknowledge that words have limitations. In the face of the complexities, frustrations, and tragedies of life "words can not capture what I want to capture." There is even a weariness: "I have lived too much with words." Words alone are not enough. We write because of the people around us. We write to process and to explain the events of our lives, to bear witness to the "people who went before us and the people who are still among us." They are what matter. We write in the context of life.

Questions for the Author

"If we look either to Christian publishing or to New York for our venue, for our outlet, for our income, as it were, from writing... then we have missed the point of creating in God's name entirely." This is encouraging, but then how do we plan with wisdom for the practical details of a career in writing?

"How many of us who claim to be artists or at least want to be called such - and be honest now, as God is our witness - have done so in one form or another, to excuse our being lazy, or forgetful, or just plain irresponsible?" How does Brett overcome this?

He talks about the "artistry by which [others have] lived their lives in service to... God." Schaeffer says that "no work of art is more important than the Christian's own life." What does this look like? How does this apply to his life?

How does he balance the value of art ("a manifestation of the eternal and far more important than than the artist can ever be") and the value of people?

How does he keep himself humble as an artist?

"I have lived too much with words." "I am so tired of words." I too have this frustration. How does he respond, especially when his career is in words? "So why, when words are so deceitful, so scheming as to speak truth and untruth in the very same instant, why is the work of putting them in the correct order my work?" How does he answer this dilemma?

"Words matter, yes. But they are deceitful. Acts. Acts are what matter." Is our faith a faith of words, acts, or both?

What role does his church play in the creation of his art? How does it disciple him? Does it help him insure that his stories align with the true story?

2016: A Year Amongst Grace

Another year. Another twelve months of frustrations and sorrows, time wasted and lessons learned, progress and regress. Another year of extraordinary circumstances, all the more remarkable for their ordinariness.

I messaged one of my best friends in the early hours of New Years Day. He replied back with the following benediction: "May the Lord's graces in this last year give us hope for the next."

So many of the Lord's graces are the small ordinary details that we take for granted and easily overlook. But today, I would like to do what I try to do every year: recount the Lord's goodness by listing some of my favourite experiences of the past year. 

My Portland Experience

This summer I returned to Portland and dug even deeper roots amongst that special city. I rented a bike for the week and cycled all over its curving bike paths, across bridges and train tracks. I purchased bags of coffee and stacks of books. I saw Japanese gardens and drank beer in wood panelled corner booths. I attend early morning worship practices and read aloud an essay of mine in a light-strewn backyard concert. I stayed up until 1am eating chicken wings with Liz Vice and Micah Bournes. I interviewed almost every member of The Bible Project team during one whirlwind afternoon. I made friends with Wesley Randolph Eader and his roommate, a talented filmmaker. I interview four different musicians. When it was all over, I returned to Canada via a train that hugged the Pacific coast. It was a dream of a trip. I can't wait to do it again.

Canvas Conference and the Creativity Course

While in Portland, I attended the Canvas Conference and took a graduate-level summer course tackling the subject of Creativity and the Christian. I spent most of the summer registering for the course, reading the fine textbooks, and writing essays. It was a rigorous challenge with many painful moments during which I wondered if, after years of writing for fun, I could actually do it for credit. But I came out the other end with good grades and with my understanding of this, my favourite topic, clarified. It was also an undeniable privilege to sit in the front row of a small classroom asking questions of some of my favourite Christian thinkers and creators.

Calvary Grace Children's Christmas Program

Those who know me know how much I love working with kids. I also love music. And I love creating new things. So when I got to write, direct, and lead my church's Christmas program, I loved every second of it. I did my best to write a sensitive, simple, and powerful script, spent every Sunday on an upright piano surrounded by 25 children practicing the songs, and then had a joy filled evening performing the program with the kids for our church. It was an evening that glowed with grace, one I'll look back with fondness for the rest of my life. I've just learned that making music with these kids will continue into 2017 and I'm thrilled.

Falling in Love with Pencils and Paper

I guess every year I take on a new expensive hobby. Last year it was brewing quality coffee. This year it was exploring the world of Field Notes notebooks and Blackwing pencils. It's a contagious obsession apparently, as I passed the interest on to one of my best friends. "I don't feel too guilty about it" he said. "As a writer, we don't have very many expenses." (But seriously, these notebooks and pencils are such a pleasure to use.)

Successfully Housesitting

I've housesat in past years, but it usually ended in me getting really sick. This year I housesat for over a month and nailed it. I hosted company. I cooked amazing meals. I kept the place (mostly) clean and orderly. I read books, watched movies, went for walks, wrote, and counselled friends. I came away realizing I was ready to live on my own. (Not achieving that goal this year has been an ongoing frustration.)

Joining Christ and Pop Culture Members-Only Forum

There's a website out there called Christ and Pop Culture. I visit it, occasionally. A couple of my online friends told me about how you can pay a couple bucks a month to support it and then they add you to this private forum on Facebook. They told me it was the best forum ever and that it could even change my life. So I payed my money and joined the group and now my friends list has doubled and I'm way, way more savvy about pop-culture. Oh, and it's an astonishing corner of the internet where you can turn to for writing advice, prayer requests, anger venting, and for questions on - really, anything. And it taught me that the people holding differing theological views from me are often people who still love Jesus and are trying to obey the Bible. I wouldn't give it up

Paul Simon Vacation

I went out to the West Coast back in May. It wasn't an epic Hornby vacation, but I did bike all over Victoria, visit tiny wine shops and pubs, purchase (another) stack of books, and enjoy the sea air. And then I went to Vancouver and saw Paul Simon live. Right after the concert Paul told The New York Times that he is taking an extended break from music making. That concert was a dream come true. I'm so glad I made the journey to see it.

Putting into Action Podcast Plans

That's all I can say at the moment. That, and it is going to be epic.

 

Also.... reading more about metal health and realizing I am not stupid or crazy but really  messed-up and rather beautifully different, using my Apple Music membership to listen to all kinds of different music and discovering R&B is actually wonderful, searching for and (maybe) finding a school for 2017 (stay tuned, no promises!), talking to my pastor and realizing that I can actually enjoy a drink without guilt and then exploring that new world that opened up, and actually really enjoying my work for several months of the year (I really hope this continues into 2017).

So much joy. So many gifts. But this year wasn't all adventure and excitement. There were plenty of days of boredom, confusion, agony, and frustration. And there were many more days of ordinary plodding, of step by step steadiness. The small graces that sustained those days that were the true marvels of 2016. And I know that whatever comes in 2017, that grace and the Hand that this grace comes from will continue.

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My First Screener and The Resurrection of Gavin Stone (2017)

In past years I've been so immersed in the independent and prestige film scene, I almost forgot about the strange world of Christian film I grew up around.  I was quite content forgetting, until I got an email inviting me to watch and review the WWE Studios film The Resurrection of Gavin Stone. The film was billed as "a lighthearted, family-friendly Christian comedy" which is exactly not how I wanted to spent 90 minutes of my life. 

After much discussion with my fellow film reviewing friends, where we debated the merits of wasting precious time versus accepting my first screening, I decided that taking the assignment could be way to strengthen my writing and discernment skills. And to jinx my career as a critic by turning down my first screener invite just felt wrong.

Watching a yet-to-be-released film on my iPad in my bedroom via a private screening link was a pretty neat feeling. If only I could access films like Paterson or The Red Turtle this way! One can only dream... But The Resurrection of Gavin Stone was actually entertaining. But it was also flawed, revealing a sad and dangerous picture of church life and what it means to be a Christian. It was a great exercise to think through what it was trying to say. To read more about that, head over to my review at Reel World Theology. 

Let me know what you think! And if you know anyone looking to screen some indie or prestige films, you know where to find me....

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2016: A Year Amongst Books

To live a life amongst quality books has, for me, always been a supreme value and a sign of a life well lived. Although I've always struggled to read, I've always loved books. I love shopping for them, organizing them, and planning which new volumes to tackle next. I'm always collecting lists of books recommended by trusted thinkers and writers and towards the end of every year I consult these lists and make my own spreadsheet of all the books I hope to read during the next year. (And let me tell you, 2017 is looking promising.) Because so many of the books I've lived my life amongst in 2016 were recommended to me by others, I feel it is an essential service to put a list of these favourites together, with the hope that you too will come across something worth pursuing is. Perhaps a title or two from this list strikes your interest and deepens or enriches your life in some way.

Last year I read 72 books. That number astonished me and I remained convinced it would never repeat that feat. This year I read 74 books, so go figure. I'm not holding my breath for 2017 though.  My goal is always to close the month with five completed titles.

I offer this list in a roughly chronological order.

I read Malcolm Guite's advent poetry anthology Waiting on the Word: A Poem A Day for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany last year and found it to be a delightful poetry education. Malcolm selects poems from across time and genre, including religious and secular poems. Then he offers a short essay walking us through the language and meaning of the poem, explaining why it offers value for our advent journey. Malcolm also reads each poem aloud on his website, which is itself an education on how to savour poetry's language.

I listened to Will Paton's excellent recording of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. It's a breathless and detailed look at what it means to be alive and to truly notice and enjoy the life around us. Since I'm a sucker for anything Inklings related, I really enjoyed the fine new biography of the group The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings. It was a joy to read and it was great to have a more up to date examination of their lives and their influences.

This year I also prayed through The Psalms for the first time. It has shaped my prayer life more than anything else. I plan on re-reading them indefinitely for the foreseeable future. The Psalms are the prayerbook of the Bible. They were prayerbook of Jesus, and have been the prayerbook of the church for two millenniums. How can they not become my prayerbook as well? My vision is that these songs will be woven into my own life as I pray, sing, read about, and make art around them in the year ahead.

My best friend recommended East of Eden and what a book! Some books you read quickly because you can't wait to hear what happens next. Others you read slowly to savour each sentence. This book was the first time I encountered both. Every year I pick up an Annie Dillard volume, and this year I picked up An American Childhood. And Makoto Fujumura's book Silence & Beauty helped reshape my view of how Christ can be shown in a culture and through that culture's art.

Mike Cosper's book Stories We Tell was crucial in reframing the way I approached stories and cinema in particular. When I look back on my year of movie going, I notice now how little I watched prior to reading this book and how much more willing I was to engage with this medium after reading it. His approach acknowledges the power that stories old over us. It brings out the deep desires that stories tap into. And it opened up how many of our society's greatest stories hint at the True Storyline of scripture. I've been thinking, talking, and writing about the ideas in this book all year and I hope these thoughts continue.

If I were to choose one book of 2016, it would be Eugene Peterson slender volume Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer. Rarely have I read a book that includes such elegant writing with such spiritual truth. I ended up reading one chapter from the book aloud to three different friends. I also did a photo project based off that chapter. I can't wait to read more of Eugene Peterson on the Psalms. 

James K.A. Smith's You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit was another influential read. In it, he argues that although Christian thinkers and culture have been focused on changing what we think, it is in fact our desires and habits that are much more formative. These habits of the heart are shaped in subconscious ways by the shopping malls, cinemas, and Facebook feeds, but God has given the church an even more powerful tool: the rhythms of church worship. Since Mike Cosper is very much influenced by Jamie Smith and since I got to meet Jamie in September, the thinking in this book has been flowing throughout my year.

At one point I was trying to read Bob Dylan's memoir, Chronicles Volume One while eating a meal. Every time I put my pencil down to take a bit of food, I was forced to pick the pencil back up again to underline yet another sentence. This book describes the well-worn grooves of Dylan's artistic creation process. The last half of the book, which walked us through the week surrounding the recording of my favourite Dylan record, 'Oh Mercy', captured the frustrations and break-throughs of creating an album.

I really enjoyed how Brett Lott integrated the steady, heart work of being a Christian with the steady, hard work of being a writer in Of Letters & Life. The tiny, jewel-like story The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog is a volume I hope to read aloud one of these Christmases. Listening to Neil Gaiman read his terrifying volume The Ocean at the End of the Lane was a fantastic audiobook experience. The Gift: Creativity in the Modern World helped change my approach to how to give away the art I create. Driven to Distraction and The Dyslexic Advantage re-woke and changed my perspective on my very real disabilities. I hope these books don't just sit on the shelf but make a difference in my 2017.

I spent most of the year reading through the Harry Potter series and it's accompanying complementary books. What a ride! Although I remain unimpressed by her prose, I'm floored by the richly detailed world J. K. Rowling has created and am shocked at how deeply Christian her stories are. Her world is a treasure and I thoroughly repent of my prudish and judgmental attitude what I thought was a superfluous and dangers world of mere "witchcraft and wizardry."

Finally, Art & Fear was an encouraging and confronting book that I've already given away many times and hope to return to. And it took me three years to work my way through Seamus Heany's giant poetry anthology Opened Ground. Those words became melodies that I worked, created, slept, prayed, and lived amongst these last three years. I'm grateful.

A small selection of my favourite books from 2016. The rest are lent out or are ebooks. 

A small selection of my favourite books from 2016. The rest are lent out or are ebooks. 

Public and Private Grief in Jackie (2016)

Director Pablo Larraín’s new film exploring that infamous week of Jackie Kennedy's life is a highly unusual biopic.  It uses a variety of film stock, shooting styles, and moods to peel away the various images that Jackie created for herself to reach her inner life. It's also a profound film about grief and features a truly remarkable performance by Natalie Portman. 

I caught the film last week and reviewed it for Reel World Theology. I'm really happy with the review and I hope you take the time to read it and to watch this fine movie. 

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2016: A Year Amongst Music

I've been wanting to put a list together like this for years. But every time I tried to assemble it, it would largely consist of older albums I had only discovered that year.

Not so this year.

People keep celebrating how remarkable a year 2016 was for music. But it really sank in when I went to write down every influential album I listened to this year. On one half of the notebook's pages I wrote down all of the 2016 titles. On the other I recorded the older titles. I ran out of room on the 2016 page.

So here then are the 2016 albums, followed by a list of my favourite older discoveries.

1. Paul Simon's Stranger to Stranger

This album gets top mention for three reasons. First, he has promised to take a hiatus from music, very possibly making Stranger to Stranger the 75-year-old's last album. Taken as a whole it is also one of the best of his late-career albums (although I prefer some of the songs of 2013 'So Beautiful or So What'). The production combines Simon's folk and world influence with exceptionally mixed electronic music, embracing the new while continuing the craft of the old. The fact that it's been woefully missing from the best of year lists also prompts its high rank on my list.

Second, this album seems to sum up 2016. "Ignorance and arrogance, the national debate." The music's weary cynicism, schizophrenia, and loneliness speak to the heart of what it meant to be woke in 2016.

Finally, Paul Simon is my favourite artist and in 2016 I got to witness him perform songs of this album live. How could this not become my album of the year?

 

2. Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book

In the face of what so many have called truly tough year, this album of full-hearted joy has taken the world by storm. So much of this album shouldn't have been; its streaming only, free download status, its label-free release, its unabashed Christianity, and its generous joy. It blissfully breaks down barriers between secular music and Christian, gospel and hip-hop. It taught me to love R&B. It embraces the complexities of the  world and giggles back a song of mirth and praise.

 

3. Bon Iver's 22, A Million

At first, we weren't sure if Justin Vernon would ever return to the Bon Iver moniker. Yet we were sure that whatever work the man would drop next would be well worth exploring. But nobody counted on something so entirely different and yet so entirely good. Every track on this 33 minute, electronically charged, broken down with expert craft album feels like a prayer. As a whole, it's a minuet and affecting masterpiece.

 

4. A Tribe Called Quest's We've Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service

First, Phife Dog passes away and there's an outpouring of grief. Then, Quitip announces the final Tribe album just weeks before its realise and we collectively hold our breaths hoping that it is a fitting send off to these legends. And then, during the week of the election and hours after Leonard Coen's death is announced, the album drops and everyone hails it as excellent. There is so much to enjoy here. The beats are fire. The verses are funny, enjoyable, thought-provoking and fun. The messages are some of the most challenging that Tribe have ever worked on. To be honest, I've only really made my way through the first half of the album. Every time I try to listen through the whole thing, I get distracted by the excellence of the first half of the album and have to go back and re-listen to it from the beginning.

 

5. Frank Ocean's Blonde

2016 convinced me to enjoy R&B. Colouring Book announced that it was worth listening to. Marvin Gaye persuaded me it could became art. And then this album showed me how damn convincing it could be. The music is a roller coaster of pace, tempo, and reach. But above all, this album is emotionally hooking. I have no idea what he is singing about, but I know it is disparately important.

 

6. Leonard Coen's You Want It Darker

This final album of the man whom Bob Dylan called "the number one song writer of all time" is tragic, tender, and haunted by life, death, and God. It was a beautiful album before he passed away just weeks after its release. After his death its mournful, bittersweet quality, so perfect for late night ruminating, perfectly encapsulated the late evening of a full, yet broken life.

 

7. Carl Bromel's 4th of July

I'm so glad I discovered this gem of a record. Epic landscape songs like the 10 minute long title track are paired with self-contained songs like Rockingchair Dancer, a delictly told story of how the narrator's assperations changed as he has matured. The music's beat and riff is the perfect complement to the well crafted visuals of the lyrics. This album sustained many late night walks home from work. It rewards repeated listening and I'm happy to recommend it to everyone.

 

8. Micah Bournes No Ugly Babies

I met celebrated spoken word poet Micah Bournes while in Portland this summer, when he told me about how, despite never singing or playing an instrument, he was hard at work on his first blues album. The songs he was writing could only be told in this medium, and what songs! They are tunes you dance to on your way to work or karaoke to in the shower. They get under your skin with their stories of confidence in the face of despair, commitment in the face of easy love, and joy and hope in the face of pain.

 

9. Wesley Randolph Eader's Highway Winds

Wesley's world-weary, dust and tear-streaked record of heartache, failure, and disappointment is somehow ballasted by a hope and comfort that sustains despite all odds to the contrary. The production is equally timeless, feeling like some dusty vinyl pulled out of a shelf of old bluegrass records.

 

10. Christmas Albums: Chance the Rapper's Merry Christmas 'Lil Mama and Josh Garrel's The Light Came Down

This year gave us two very different but both excellent Christmas albums that I'll be pulling out annually for years to come. Chance the Rapper decided he was not content with being named artist of year by every other year-end list and gave us all a pre-Christmas gift of this jewel like EP. Like his more-famous 2016 release, it effortlessly combines the sacred and the secular and is bursting with joy. There is a sadness and tragedy underneath it all too.

And Josh Garrels' lush Christmas complication deserves mention for its dark, comforting, intricate mixture of original tunes, classics, and covers.

 

11. Other Hip-hop: Kendrick Lamar's untitled unmastered and Sho Bararka's The Narrative

Both of these albums are flawed - Kendrick's, as its name suggests, is messy and unfinished and Sho's is overly declarative in our age of hip-hop storytelling. But both are essential. I turn to the angst and desperation of untitled unmastered to express what I often choose to hide. And I turn Sho's The Narrative to understand the experience of the black Christian in 2016: their despair, injustice, style, commitment, and ultimately their hope.

 

Honourable Mentions:

Jordan Klassen's moody and polished Javlin, Shearwater's driving Jet Plane and Oxbow, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zero's south drenched PersonaA, Baaba Maal's exotic and emotionally hooking The Traveler, Radiohead's urgently contemporary A Moon Shaped Pool, Sturgill Simpson's richly textured A Sailor's Guide to Earth, Slow Dakota's tragic and lovely The Ascension of Slow Dakota, and Wilder Adkin's affecting Hope and Sorrow.

 

Non-2016 releases:

The album I'll probably be listening to the most years from now is Liz Vice's timeless There's a Light. I loved the wilderness-haunted pop of Lord Huron's Stranger Trails. I was finally ready to enjoy the excellent merging of hip-hop and R&B that John Givez provides on Soul Rebel. I was seduced by Van Morrison's bewitching albums like Moondance and Astral Weeks. I continued my endless trip down the Bob Dylan highway with only the beginning his Bootleg series and recent Modern Times. And I became obsessed over this little thing called Hamilton.

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Le Innocents (2016) and an Unusual Community

I miss reviewing films. I miss taking the time to understand what I have just seen by wrestling with it through words. I don't want to simply consume media - I want to engage in it.  

So in 2017, expect to see more film reviews arrive at this space. I've partnered with my friends at Reel World Theology and my first review for them this year is up already on their website. It's for the French-Polish film "Le Innocents." 

The movies follows the strange, true story of a group of nuns in Poland who were raped during and immediately after the Second World War and who are now pregnant. Unlike recent films about monasteries, like the excellent "Ida" and "Of Gods and Men", the main character in this film is not a member of the nunnery, but a young atheist doctor. Her journey into the religious community and how this affect both her and the believers she has to work with has profound implications for how Christians like myself are to interact with those whom we get to know from the outside. 

In my review I tried to pull out some of these themes. Head over to Reel World Theology to read the whole thing. I definitely recommend watching this beautiful film and would love to hear your thoughts on how it might impact our communities.

 

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Death and New Years Traditions

 A good friend and I hosted a New Years Eve party last night and he asked me to put something together to say to our guests. I chose the theme of loss and commemoration. I hope you find it helpful.

 

Why do we do New Years? Why do we gather on a certain winter evening and observe these customary celebrations? To some, these traditions are all that makes sense of their lives. To others, they are random, arbitrary, and serve no purpose except to distract. Yet I suspect that many of us do this merely out of habit. It's just what we do every year, so we just keep doing it. Might there be a purpose, a vocation if you will, for these seemingly random occasions of the calendar?

The other night I was listening to a reading of a fine essay by the 20th century English-French author Hilaire Belloc, who described the Christmas traditions that were kept at his great English estate. Here is his description of their New Year celebration:

 

"In the midst of this season between Christmas and Twelfth Day comes the ceremony of the New Year, and this is how it is observed:

On New Years’ Eve, at about a quarter to twelve o’clock at night, the master of the house and all that are with him go about from room to room opening every door and window, however cold the weather be, for thus, they say, the old year and its burdens can go out and leave everything new for hope and for the youth of the coming time.

This also is a superstition, and of the best. Those who observe it trust that it is as old as Europe, and with roots stretching back into forgotten times.

While this is going on the bells in the church hard by are ringing out the old year, and when all the windows and doors have thus been opened and left wide, all those in the house go outside, listening for the cessation of the chimes, which comes just before the turn of the year. There is an odd silence of a few minutes, and watches are consulted to make certain of the time (for this house detests wireless and has not even a telephone), and the way they know the moment of midnight is by the boom of a gun, which is fired at a town far off, but can always be heard.

At that sound the bells of the church clash out suddenly in new chords, the master of the house goes back into it with a piece of stone or earth from outside, all doors are shut, and the household, all of them, rich and poor, drink a glass of wine together to salute the New Year.

This, which I have just described, is not in a novel or in a play. It is real, and goes on as the ordinary habit of living men and women. I fear that set down thus in our terribly changing time it must sound very strange and, perhaps in places, grotesque, but to those who practise it, it is not only sacred, but normal, having in the whole of the complicated affair a sacramental quality and an effect of benediction: not to be despised.

Indeed, modern men, who lack such things, lack sustenance, and our fathers who founded all those ritual observances were very wise."

 

It is at this point that his largely nostalgic essay takes a serious turn, tackling the subject of death. I'm sure you are aware that media has been talking quite a bit about the number of celebrities that have passed away in 2016. Maybe you didn't need another actor or musician or author to pass away for 2016 to be a year of loss to you. Perhaps you've experienced it yourself, whether loss of life or other lesser deaths. Belloc continues:

 

"Man has a body as well as a soul, and the whole of man, soul and body, is nourished sanely by a multiplicity of observed traditional things. Moreover, there is this great quality in the unchanging practice of Holy Seasons, that it makes explicable, tolerable, and normal what is otherwise a shocking and intolerable and even in the fullest sense, abnormal thing. I mean, the mortality of immortal men.

Not only death (which shakes and rends all that is human in us, creating a monstrous separation and threatening the soul with isolation which destroys), not only death, but that accompaniment of mortality which is a perpetual series of lesser deaths and is called change, are challenged, chained, and put in their place by unaltered and successive acts of seasonable regard for loss and dereliction and mutability. The threats of despair, remorse, necessary expiation, weariness almost beyond bearing, dull repetition of things apparently fruitless, unnecessary and without meaning, estrangement, the misunderstanding of mind by mind, forgetfulness which is a false alarm, grief, and repentance, which are true ones, but of a sad company, young men perished in battle before their parents had lost vigour in age, the perils of sickness in the body and even in the mind, anxiety, honour harassed, all the bitterness of living."

 

Belloc has eloquently listed a whole string of conditions which all of us, to varying degrees, know all too well. Let's call out some of those again - "despair," "weariness almost beyond bearing," "unnecessary repetition," "misunderstanding" between fellows, bodily and mental health issues, "anxiety," - in short, "all the bitterness of living."

I've certainly tasted a small number of these pains, enough to know that they are a very part of reality of life. But to what end? Why all this weary toil? Belloc hints that it all may "become part of a large business which may lead to Beatitude." What is a beatitude? It is a blessing. It is here that Belloc can afford to be vague, but we can not. The blessing that is time and all that it continues is a blessing because its purpose is to sanctify. The purpose of all those things I just listed - a rough outline that you and I could fill in with our own details - is to burn away our self-reliance and push to Jesus in clearer ways than before. Ultimately then, the purpose of time is to glorify God.

So regardless of how satisfying, disappointing, or just average your 2016 was - but regardless is the wrong word. Precisely because of how satisfying, disappointing, or just average your 2016 was, you and have been brought through it by the guiding and controlling hand of our Father. And so we can look forward to 2017 with the same expectation; that precisely because of how satisfying, disappointing, or just average it is going to be we can trust that we will be brought through it by the same hand that has brought us through this past year.

With such a mindset and with our hearts in such an attitude, our New Years tradition can serve a purpose. Let's turn to Belloc one last time:

 

"All the bitterness of living—become[s] part of a large business which may lead to Beatitude. For they are all connected in the memory with holy day after holy day, year by year, binding the generations together; carrying on even in this world, as it were, the life of the dead and giving corporate substance, permanence and stability, without the symbol of which (at least) the vast increasing burden of life might at last conquer us and be no longer borne."

 

Days like New Years are opportunities to mark the seasons and to commemorate what God has brought us through. They are occasions to remember, to give thanks, to reorient our hearts, and to look to Him as our guidance for the time before us. May the Puritan prayer found in the Valley of Vision be our attitude as we reflect back on 2016 and enter into this next year of our Lord.

 

“O Love Beyond Compare,

Thou art good when thou givest,

when thou takest away,

when the sun shines upon me,

when night gathers over me.

Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world,

and in love didst redeem my soul;

Thou dost love me still,

in spite of my hard heart, ingratitude, distrust.

Thy goodness has been with me during another year,

leading me through a twisting wilderness,

in retreat helping me to advance,

when beaten back making sure headway.

Thy goodness will be with me in the year ahead;

I hoist sail and draw up anchor,

with thee as the blessed Pilot of my future as of my past.

I bless thee that thou hast veiled my eyes to the waters ahead.

If thou hast appointed storms of tribulation,

thou wilt be with me in them;

If I have to pass through tempests of persecution and temptation,

I shall not drown;

If I am to die,

I shall see thy face the sooner;

If a painful end is to be my lot,

grant me grace that my faith fail not;

If I am to be cast aside from the service I love,

I can make no stipulation;

Only glorify thyself in me whether in comfort or trial,

as a chosen vessel meet always

for thy use.

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That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!

Well, not really. But it kinda sucked.

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year. So for the first time in five years, I used several vacation days to extend my days off.  I was hoping to spend some time with my elderly grandfather, make lots of music with my aunt, see a whole bunch of movies in theatres, and spend time alone reading and writing.

On the 23rd, after a nearly perfect Christmas tree hunt,  I went downtown to meet up with a best friend to watch Jackie at Eau Claire. Thanks to the nasty roads and snowfall, he was unable to show up. So I went into a pub to catch up on emails and ordered a large serving of fish and chips. The meal was too expensive and left a bad taste in the mouth. Frustrated, I went across the street to watch the excellent film Manchester by the Sea. I went to bed around midnight, excited for my vacation to begin.

At 3:10 am I woke up with an even worse taste in my mouth. "Just get rid of it and all will be well" I told myself. That was not so easily done.

It was nine hours later that I dared swallow a sip of water. It took the next twelve hours to get rehydrated, forty hours before I dared eat a full meal, and sixty before the diarrhea stopped. I was throwing up so hard that I burst blood vessels in my left eye, resulting in two days of hazing vision  and looking like I'd survived a bar fight rather than food poisoning. It's now been four days and I'm still exhausted.

I'm surprised how easy I've fallen into despair. To not find enjoyment in the rich gifts around us is expected, for they can quickly grow old. But not finding hope and comfort on the truths and power of prayer and scripture is verging on inexcusable. I have so much to learn!

And then I saw reports of friends' Christmases. A trip to the emergency room on Christmas Day because an infant daughter is chocking. A Christmas Eve in the hospital due to colitis. A wife whose brain tumour has resulted in a hand refuses to recover and is throbbing with pain. Or even worse: a miscarriage.

So I resolve to enjoy these next few days off. It will be easy to look back with regret on time wasted and memories ruined. It will be tempting to find joy solely in the music I'll play, the movies I'll see, the friends I'll meet, the quite time I'll savour. What's the alternative? Perhaps it's knowing that these circumstances exist to humble us, to re-anchor us in something greater than the well-being that we have built up around us, that bursts so easily. When I am made aware of that again, contentment is possible. I can rest in someone outside of myself.

Advent Imagery

Advent is one of my favourite seasons. It's a time of waiting, to realize again the longing for the one who saves us from our sorry state, to yearn even more for His eventual return to set all things new, and our continual need of his coming into our lives.

This year I once again read Malcolm Guite's fine poetry anthology, Waiting on the Word. The book is like attending a poetry appreciation class from a beloved teacher. I got even more out of it this second year through. Perhaps my favourite part of this experience is listening to the recordings of the poems he posts on his blog. Even if you don't have a copy of his book, I encourage you to take the time to listen to these recordings

Every day for Advent, I selected a line from the poem and edited an image in an attempt to capture its spirit. Because I have lately been most comforatable in the multiple exposure style, I decided to challenge myself and limit photos taken in that style to the seven poems inspired by the O Antiphon sequence, which is the heart of Malcolm's book.

I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed the discipline of creating them. Please click on the line of poem underneath each image to read the entire poem. 

Even in the darkness where I sitAnd huddle in the midst of miseryI can remember the freedom, but forgetThat every lock must answer to a key

Even in the darkness where I sit

And huddle in the midst of misery

I can remember the freedom, but forget

That every lock must answer to a key

Album Review: Liz Vice's There's A Light

I met Liz before I had ever heard of her music. I was at a concert hall in Portland at 7:30 am on a Sunday morning to observe a local church music team practice when this tall, African-American woman walked in. She was as sleepy eyed as I was, but exuded a passionate warmth as she eagerly told me about the music tour she had just completed. It was full of disasters; her drummer's grandmother died so he had to be flown home mid-tour, her bass player used every excuse to smoke weed and party, and Liz broke a toe climbing the stairs at a slightly decrepit venue. "Were these Chrsitian venues that booked you?" I asked. "Not at all" she replied. "They just invited me to sing my songs and my songs are about Jesus."

Over that week, I had many chances to interact with Liz. She told me stories of her health traumas and their corresponding miracles, her successful television production career that she was quite happy with, and how her music kept persisting in opening doors for her until a full-time career seemed inevitable. And as I met other local creatives, her voice kept appearing on their projects; in an animated children's music video on entomology, at my favorite hip-hop artist's concert, as a background vocalist for a yet-to-be released blues album.

It was only on my train ride back to Canada that I put on her album, There's A Light, for the first time. I barely listened to anything else for the rest of the month. This is a record that feels classic, like something you would expect to find flipping through the gospel racks of dusty vinyl shop. The music is simple - never too complex, yet full of unexpected flourishes that surprise and hook you in for another listen. The band and production is tight, providing the perfect background to Liz's powerful voice, which effortlessly walks the tightrope of both gentle and expressive. The lyrics have a hymn like quality, expressing robust truths about God and His salvation. But like the most well loved hymns, they convey not merely abstract ideas, but the marks of a life wrestled amongst their implications.

Don't sleep on this record. It's equally at home amongst the wooden pews of a church as it is on the stage of blues bar. I'll be playing it for years to come.

 

Album: There's A Light

Artist: Liz Vice

Year of Release: 2015

Genre: Soul/ Gospel

Stand Out Track: All Must Be Well

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Frances Schaeffer's Art and the Bible

 Over the summer, I participated in a course called Creativity and the Christian. It was a challenge and a joy to be forced to write essays again. I'll be posting what I worked on over the next couple weeks, beginning with three book reports. Each of these books is excellent and I recommend reading. Here is my report for Frances Scaheffer's classic volume, Art and the Bible.

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Key Contributions

The Christian faith has enjoyed a historically rich relationship with the arts. The writings of Dante, the music of Bach, the paintings of Rembrandt, and the songwriting of Bono are small sampling of this heritage. So why is the Evangelical church marked by both an aesthetic barrenness and an attitude of fear and avoidance towards the arts? Is our church's understanding of the arts actually rooted in a proper understanding of the Bible? Francis Schaeffer's seminal work, Art and the Bible, provided a much needed clarity when it was first published in 1973 and continues to offer a reorienting view of a proper doctrine of creativity. 

The Bible's portrayal of reality is not limited to matters of the soul. The doctrines of the creation, the redemption, and the future resurrection provide a framework that permeates all aspects of reality. Christ is Lord over everything, giving us context and boldness for our own acts of artistic creation. With such an anchoring in the objective, true reality, we have both the strength and the freedom to pursue knowledge and art.

We see the character of God both in his creation of the world and in how he directs us through his word. And both point to a God who is himself creative and who made us to worship him creatively. "God is interested in beauty. God made people to be beautiful. And beauty has a place in the worship of God." Observe the beauty and complexity of His creation. Read the descriptions on the various types of art God commissioned for the tabernacle and the temple. Notice the wide range of writing styles that are included in scriptures. If we are made in the image of God, we too are called to be creative and our art has value in itself. "Why? Because a work of art is a work of creativity, and creativity has value because God is the Creator."

 

Strengths and Weaknesses

For Schaeffer, art is an expression of  "the nature and character of humanity." We can recognize the excellence of an artist's work without having to agree with his outlook on life. To enjoy an author's skill with words or a director's vision of the world is a way to honour the image of God in those people. But that doesn't necessarily mean we embrace what that artist is saying morally. Every man, artist or not, is bound to the Word of God.

Schaeffer's articulates the minor and major themes in the Christian message and how Christian art should include both. The minor theme includes the reality of the fallenness of man, the resulting sense of meaninglessness and tragedy, and the "defeated and sinful side to the Christian life." The major theme is the joy that opens up when we realize that God is real and knowable, and that there is hope through redemption and the future resurrection. To underemphasize the minor theme is to be false to reality. "But in general...the major theme is to be dominant - though it must exist in relationship to the minor."

He also distinguishes between using art to worship God instead of worshipping the art itself. He observes that the Law "does not forbid the making of representatives art but rather the worship of it." If our art finds its worth as an offering to God rather than to men, then there is meaning and significance to our efforts. But our tendency, as humans and as artists, is to instead worship the work of our hands and elevate it over God. "Fixed down in our hearts is a failure to understand that beauty should be to the praise of God." Hezekiah destroys Moses' bronze serpent "because men had made it an idol. What is wrong with representational art is not its existence but its wrong uses." May our worship be only to the True King, so that our art may serve Him instead of taking His place in our lives. The book was so rich I struggled to pick out weaknesses.

 

Personal Application

Schaeffer's charge to keep our art contemporary is an important challenge. "If you are a young Christian artist, you should be working in the art forms of the twentieth century, showing the marks of the culture out of which you have come, reflecting your own contemporaries and embodying something of the nature of the world as seen from a Christian perspective." This requires vigilance, being constantly aware of how the content of your messages fits within the style of your art. There is no easy answer. We must ask careful questions of our audience and listen closely to their feedback. Does the medium distract or confuse the content? "The Christian...must wrestle with the whole question, looking to the Holy Spirit for help to know when to invent, when to adopt, when to adapt, and when to not to use a specific style at all. This is something each artist wrestles with for a lifetime, not something he settles once and for all."

Ultimately, Schaeffer's book offers me freedom. "The Christian is the really free man - he is free to have imagination." It is a freedom rooted in a proper doctrine of our God and his world. It is a freedom offered through the redemption of our hearts in Christ and the guidance of His Spirit, replacing the paralyzing effects of idolatry. It is also a freedom coming from the realization that we are given a lifetime to express everything that needs to be said. "No artist can say everything he might want to say... into a single work... If a man is to be an artist, his goal should be in a lifetime to produce a wide and deep body of work."

Over the years, I've struggled with feelings of inadequacy or failure when my creative endeavours don't succeed. Through this book, I've realized how much of this stems from finding my identity in the art, rather than using my art as a means to worship God. My prayer is that my work would be to an audience of One and that my satisfaction would come from this alone.

 

Questions for the Author

If, through Christ, our "whole capacity as man is refashioned" - our soul and our mind and body - how does this apply to taking care of our bodies; health, fitness, and beauty?

"The arts and the sciences do have a place in the Christian life - they are not peripheral." It's clear from this book that having proper doctrine is central to holding the arts and sciences in place. What focus then should churches place on teaching these other topics?

He talks about the ugliness of many evangelical church buildings and compares it to the construction of the temple, which was full of physical beauty. How do these guidelines from the Old Testament era apply to building churches in the New Testament?

In what ways can our contemporary church's architecture and physical aesthetic provoke praise? How should we balance our emphasis on this with the other purposes of the church? How should we convey the importance of this to leaders in the church who overlook it?

Hezekiah "had the temple cleansed and worship reformed according to the law of God." In what ways does the church's contemporary worship need reforming?

How does he interact with nudity in art? This applies to viewing classical art, like paintings and sculpture, but also modern art, like film and literature. Sexuality and the body are beautiful and matter to God, but we are also accountable to a higher moral standard.

He talks about art that is produced within the Christian framework, even if the artist is him or herself not a believer. Does this happen less and less on our culture? Also, there are some who find truth and beauty and echoes of the Gospel in all art, regardless of who created it. What would Schaeffer say to this? When should we be critical of a work's worldview and when should we enjoy and learn from what it says?