A Road Less Travelled

I hate the first part of trying to explain Lars and the Real Girl. You have to start with “There was this man who was so lonely and closed off from everyone around him that he goes and orders himself a life-sized doll.” People tend to look at you strangely at this point. But this really was a charming movie because after he orders the doll Lars’s relationship with Bianca, the doll, is totally respectable. He believes that she is a missionary on sabbatical from South America who he’s been corresponding with over the Internet and that she’s come to visit him.

Lars and the Real Girl is a movie about a man who has distanced himself from people and doesn’t know how to go back. He won’t even have dinner with his brother and sister-in-law. The sister-in-law, Karin, is truly trying to connect with Lars because she can see he is not thriving and he keeps avoiding her or coming up with spurious excuses. My favorite part was when she tackled him and held him down until he agreed to come to dinner. He is so far from everyone around him, though, that he can’t even work through his people issues. So he turns to a doll that he believes to be real, though I’m guessing part of him knows she isn’t because he doesn’t have his normal ticks and troubles around her. Through being with Bianca and being able to say anything without fear Lars works his way back to the people who love him.

So that’s Lars and I liked watching him work through his issues, but what made this movie shine is the community around him. Lars needs Bianca to work through what’s bothering him so the town needs to pretend with him or it will all come to naught. So an entire town decides to pretend a life-size doll is real because they love Lars. I thought that was beautiful. And furthermore, one of the groups that makes up the town is the church Lars attends. I was shocked by how well the church was portrayed. Normally, they’re the dopes that break everything they touch, but in this movie for the most part they step up to care for their brother. Not perfectly, of course; that wouldn’t even be close to accurate. But throughout the movie the church shows true love for Lars.

I have decided that I really like indie movies. Lars and the Real Girl was a movie about real people who looked like real people and talked like real people. There were no grand speeches, but there were some very profound things that were said. My favorite not-speech was when Lars goes to his brother Gus and asks him how a man knows when he’s a man and not a boy anymore. Gus fumbles his way towards an answer, gives up, then tries again and actually comes up with something good. The answer sounded like something a normal person would say as opposed to many movies where answers sound like something a screenwriter would write. I think there is a time and place for grand sounding speeches, but I’m glad that there weren’t any in this movie. It was such a small movie with such normal people dealing with each other and movie talk would have ruined that.

Watching Lars and the Real Girl didn’t change how I think about my day-to-day life because I don’t currently know anybody who believes that a doll is a real woman. It did reinforce many of my ideas of life together. Life together as a community is difficult, can feel silly and is truly beautiful when done well.

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I have just returned from having some, well, personal tests done. When I’ve had these tests done in the past the experience was uncomfortable both physically and socially. Plus, they found something I wasn’t all that thrilled about. So I am pleased to report that we didn’t find what I was expecting to find and that my inside bits are right where they are supposed to be.

If you need some uncomfortable and highly personal tests taken I recommend Peoria Imaging. They are quick, professional, pleasant and, my technician at least, very understanding that you are not in your ideal circumstances. The tech was awesome, in fact. We had such a pleasant babble that I forgot to be stressed and almost forgot to be uncomfortable. Plus, she told me a fun anecdote from her days of working in the cardiac department that I can add to my “Medical Tech is Freaky” tales. Seriously, for all your personal and uncomfortable testing needs, try Peoria Imaging!

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My brother Jonathan has been telling me for a while now that I need to see the television show Lost. I kept putting it off because it’s a show that’s still running and I hate starting things that I can’t quite finish yet. My sister Adiel got into the act and told me that I would really like it. I held out for a while, but then she told me that Lost was in its final season and that I could watch it online (abc.com). I had just started into the first season when I got sick. Having nothing better to do I spent quite a lot of my sick days either sleeping or watching Lost. It really is as good as they both said it was.

The show is aptly named. The premise is that an international flight from Sydney, Australia to L. A. crashes on a jungle island. There is a large cast of characters and we learn about them through flashbacks of what their lives had been while they deal with what their lives are now. It’s elegantly done. There’s the day-to-day survival that must be taken care of and there’s also a mystery about the island they crashed on. The show is so aptly named because all of the characters are lost in the Christian use of the word. They are all searching for something and the Island, which is almost another character, offers to give it to them. The characters are looking for salvation.

Some are looking for forgiveness for past sins, looking to be saved from their guilt. Some are looking to be saved from the penalty of past sins, hoping to be forgotten by those who know what they’ve done and want them to pay for it. Some are looking for purpose, to be saved from a meaningless life. Some are looking for an escape from the well worn path their lives were running in, looking to be saved from old mistakes and kept from making them again. They all want something, they’re all looking for something which is why they were on the plane in the first place. And for each of them the Island offers a kind of salvation. But the Island is capricious. The Island is not their friend.

The Island doesn’t actually care whether the survivors are saved from what they carry. It offers salvation, but doesn’t actually care about the people it’s offering to save. If a character accepts salvation it only kinda sticks because the Island doesn’t have any power to change anybody. In one episode a character might confront his issue and maybe it’s resolved for now, but the next episode comes around he’s back to making the same old mistakes. Nothing really has changed because the people haven’t changed. The Island doesn’t have any power to transform and, even if it did, there’s no telling that it would.

Now, I don’t necessarily think J. J. Abrams, the creator of the show, intended to say what I see in it. Just so we’re clear on the point. And I’ve only seen the first two seasons so far. I’m told that the focus starts changing in season three. But, regardless, I do see this theme in Lost and I see it because it’s everywhere. Wherever there are people there will be people who are looking for salvation and putting their hopes in a substitute God. The gods they choose are weak and capricious, offering salvation, but powerless and loveless. The world is full of people flying here and there, running and chasing at the same time. They run til they can’t breathe anymore, but in the end they’re right where they’ve always been- lost.

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Death is a very frightening thing. We have no idea what is on the other side, what’s waiting for us, what’ll happen when we stop breathing and moving. The far side is terrifying. I should say, apart from Jesus and what He’s said the other side is terrifying and all that. But that’s the kicker. The only way to live and die without fear is to trust Jesus.

I watched Reign Over Me because one of my sisters and one of my brothers said it was excellent. It was. It was an excellent portrayal of grief and sorrow where there is no Jesus to trust. The movie is about a man, Alan, who has no one to talk to who bumps into his college roommate, Charlie, who lost his entire family in one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It’s four years later and Charlie still hasn’t begun to mourn. He has persuaded himself he doesn’t remember anything about his wife and daughters. But Alan wants to help him.

In a strange way it’s a buddy movie, the best sort of buddy movie. Alan and Charlie want the best for each other in their own way. Some of the most enjoyable moments are when they are just hanging out together listening to music, riding around the city, watching funny movies. But hanging in the background of Charlie’s life is what he’s lost. He can’t forget, he can’t move one, he doesn’t want to remember. He’s stuck in this loop, this horrible cycle, this tearing grief in a world with no God.

I was told that this was an atheistic look at grief, but I was not ready for the complete lack of God in the movie. Charlie wasn’t even angry at God for what He’d done. The question never came up. Stuff happens and you adjust or you don’t. God is not part of the equation; He’s not even in the math book. And that is why Charlie’s life is tragic. His suffering is pointless, meaningless. He has nothing to hang any hope on other than his friends and they let him down.

Because I was already feeling down and contemplative thinking about death without Jesus I thought I’d watch One Last Thing, a movie about a sixteen year old boy, Dylan, dying of brain cancer. He seems very cool with dying. He jokes about it, he talks about it, he stares it in the face and doesn’t flinch. But underneath he is angry and terrified. I would be scared too if I were him in his world.

The movie gives three options for life after death- your soul ends and you rot underground, you get to go to a loosely defined ‘better place’, and or you get reincarnated. Those are not good options. If I had to choose of course I would choose a ‘better place’, but the movie doesn’t actually make any decisions about what happens to Dylan. The question is left open.

These two movies together left me deeply sad. This is life in world where God is not. This is life and death and mourning with no hope or meaning. I’ve seen it up close and I can tell you it really is as bad as all that. But at the same time this is art doing what it’s supposed to. The movies asked questions and showed world views. They made me think and feel someone else’s world. And the movies, though not made by Christians, did what Christian art should do which is to point me to Jesus and to remind me why His way is the best possible way to live.

I give Reign Over Me four out of four stars. It was fantastic in composition, heart breaking in story, and outstanding in acting.

I give One Last Thing three out of four stars. It was a good story, but I felt like it got distracted from sometimes and wandered off. They made the characters real like people, but sometimes that meant that at times they were just annoying. Authentic to be sure, but this is the movies, my boy.

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For many years now I have been a self professed book nut. I love reading books, I love holding books. I will gladly browse when I have no money to buy and I get excited when I find a really good book even when I already own it. Some of the most restful and pleasant times I’ve had have been surrounded by books.

It was only when I moved to Peoria that I became acquainted with used books stores. Either there aren’t any in Erie or I just never knew about them. I bought all of my books (gasp) new. Shopping at a chain bookstore is very different than browsing at a used books store. When I find a book I wanted at a chain store it’s just what I expected. It was supposed to be there. But when I find that same book in a used book store it’s like I’ve just discovered the Mayan temples deep in the jungle. I would dance around in joy, but then I would probably drop all the books in my arms so I restrain myself. I’m dancing on the inside.

When I first moved here Seth and I stopped in at a used book store called the Book Nook on University. Sadly it was mostly full of bad romance novels and even those weren’t very well organized. I gave the Book Nook up for lost. I was very excited then to hear that someone had bought the Book Nook and was trying to make it someplace worthy of good books. Then I met the new owner, Michael Langley, and decided that he struck me as someone who would run a bookstore well so I decided to give the Book Nook another try.

The Book Nook is obviously run by someone who loves books. I spend two thirds of my time in the store looking through the books and the other third talking about books with Michael. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a well-known regular at a bookstore. I got a jump start on being well known because we met Michael in a social setting before I went to his store, but even then he remembered the sort of books I read and had a suggestion for me the last time I was in.

The books in the store go from practically new to gently used and he has a good selection in a variety of genres. I have found several books in the store that I haven’t found at any other store. I even found a P. G. Wodehouse. I never see Wodehouse anywhere! The prices are a little more than some used bookstores I’ve been in, but he gives a comparable amount in store credit if you trade in books.

The store has been in a bit of disorder for a while because Michael recently expanded into the store next door. He just about doubled his space and still has more books than could easily fit in the store. If you ask, and even if you don’t, he’ll tell you that the best books are most likely in the stacks around the store. I’m not sure I’d say the best books, but I have found some good books in the stacks.

There are three used bookstores in the Peoria area that I have visited. The Book Nook is my favorite. If you like books and have an hour or more to spend in a store you should definitely check it out. And hey, maybe I’ll see you there.

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Some time ago I saw a trailer for a movie called Juno. Halfway through the trailer I knew I wanted to see this movie. Tonight I ventured out in the rain and cold to go see it. Juno is about a sixteen-year-old girl who accidentally gets pregnant by her best friend. She doesn’t want the baby and decides to give him up for adoption. Simple enough, right?

Plot wise the movie was very straight forward. But the characters were wonderfully rounded and full of life. These were normal people saying normal things and dealing with each other and their circumstances. Half the movie happened in Juno’s face. There’s a voice over periodically which is vital so that we know what she’s thinking because it is a very introspective movie.

I asked myself while I was trying to explain to Seth what I thought about the movie why I wanted to go see it. It looked painful; why did I actively pursue putting myself through that? The answer requires some background.

Up until I was about seven or eight my mother was a crisis pregnancy counselor. She was the woman who sat down with girls who were pregnant, had no idea what to do and who sometimes didn’t even know how they’d gotten in their situation. She tried to give comfort and help and often had to try to talk them out of killing their baby. She had all kind of stories that came home with her. She had stories that began and ended tragically, stories that began tragically and ended bittersweet, and everything in the middle. There were some stories she loved to talk about because they reminded her why she worked so hard. I grew up with these stories and now I love to tell them so that I remember and so that other people will know. My mom’s favorite story to tell was about an adoption. It’s probably my favorite as well. The story ends with the biological giving her baby to the adoptive parents and telling them they have a son.

It takes a lot of maturity to give your baby to someone else in love. I think it actually takes more maturity to place your baby that it does to have a baby. Not to raise a baby well, for sure, but to be able to look down the road and know that your baby would be better with someone else takes great strength. I’m not sure I could do it.

I knew that this was what Juno wanted to be about and I wanted to see it to know it if was true, if the movie was truth. It was. I wanted to know if the movie looked at an unwanted pregnancy and an adoption whole and without flinching from the painfulness. It did. Juno portrayed all the messiness and conflicting emotions of an adoption. And it portrayed all the beauty and the wonder of an adoption. I was all alone in the theater and I still didn’t cry. I almost cried, but I couldn’t because there were so many emotions, conflicting and confusing. There was too much truth up on the screen to deal with at that moment.

I give Juno extra points because the makers of the movie deeply cared about their story and the truth in it. At the end of the movie you know it’s good, it’s better than the beginning. At the beginning Juno has no idea who she is or what she wants. At the end she has walked such a hard path that now she understands herself and others better. The movie is glad that things are better, but makes no pretense about how hard it’s been. I give it three and a half stars out of four for truth and composition. It loses half a star because of pervasive crudity. Even then, the crudity doesn’t feel like people trying to be crude. It’s just your average, everyday teenager talking.

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A few months ago I had an opportunity to go to an Andrew Peterson concert in St. Louis. For reasons that seems supremely reasonable at the time I declined going, but since I habitually kick myself for it I think I still qualify as a raving fanboy. Andrew Peterson is a skilled lyricist and while some people say his voice isn’t that great I think it sounds like a normal person’s voice and is thus endearing. Last year Andrew Peterson collaborated with Randall Goodgame to make an album of songs for children. I bought it for my niece Lily as birthday present, but then she wouldn’t lend it to me (Actually, I didn’t ask. 650 miles is along way to lend a CD for a week.) so I never got to hear it. Josh and Adiel, knowing my distress, bought the album for Noah for his birthday and so it would be in the house for me. Okay, maybe that last part wasn’t intended, but regardless Slugs and Bugs is now on the premises. And I am so happy.

The album starts out very silly. They sing about postmen, tractors, bears, playing ball inside, and piggy toes. They sing about bizarre parenting tasks like burping and making a child eat beans. The songs are goofy and clever and very singable. Andrew and Randy are obviously having a good time together. Their fun spills out in their songs and is infectious.

The last four songs are lullabies written to specific children. Randall Goodgame sings about his daughter Livi and tells her that her daddy loves her and thinks she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Andrew Peterson sings first to his eldest son Aedan. The song is a blessing and a prayer. Next he sings about his daughter, Skye and how she loves to dance. And then he sings to his son Jesse. This lullaby reminds me of when I used to have a nightmare and would go to my parent’s room. Andrew gives his son directions from his room to his parent’s, but then reminds him that God is watching over him and caring for him while he sleeps. In these lullabies you can hear the love these fathers have for their children. It feels almost like we’ve walked in on a private moment at bedtime.

In between the goofy songs and the lullabies is a song called “You Can Always Come Home”. This is the song where the skill of the songwriters shines. It’s a simple song of unconditional love sung to children that also speaks to any adults listening at the same time. The melody is sweet and simple; the words are simple and poignant.

I love you today and I love you tomorrow
I love you as deep as the sea
I love you in joy, and I love you in sorrow
You can always come home to me

There once was a man who found him a treasure
Buried out under a tree
He sold all he had just to own it forever
The treasure is you, you see

I love you today and I love you tomorrow
I love you as deep as the sea
I love you in joy and I love you in sorrow
You can always come home to me

There once were some sheep safe on the farm
And one little lamb got loose
The shepherd went out and carried it home
That little lamb is you

I love you today and I love you tomorrow
I love you as deep as the sea
I love you in joy and I love you in sorrow
You can always come home to me

I think what is charming about this album is that it is explicitly Christian while still being silly. Too often Christians assume that the only reason for media is to instruct and so often you have music or books or movies that are doctrinally sound, but overly serious and boring. Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame made an album of songs that are enjoyable, are fun, but never escape being Christian. Because they set out to make, first and foremost, fun music when the songs do get profound I am more likely to sit up and take notice.

Randall Goodgame says of Slug and Bugs that “Parents won’t want to stick a fork in their eye when they’ve heard it for the 10th time.” As someone who lives with five young children I applaud that goal and I believe that they succeeded. I was having a tired, cranky sort of morning today and I really wanted some peppy music. I put on Slugs and Bugs and Noah listened for maybe thirty seconds before he ran off. I, on the other hand, listened to the whole album at least twice. And I don’t think I’ll want to stick a fork in my eye even after eight more times.

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I have recently discovered that I am a hopeless romantic. I love watching people fall in love; I love watching people who are in love. I like watching the awkward newly-weds and I like watching the sweet old couple. I don’t like the genre of Romance, but I delight in love stories.

Last week I watched a truly great love story movie. The Italian movieThe Tiger and the Snow was co-written, directed and starred in by Roberto Benigni who also co-wrote, directed and starred in Life is Beautiful.

Roberto Benigni plays Attilo de Giovanni a professor of poetry in Rome. He’s vague, scatter-brained and excited about everything he does. Every night he dreams he is getting married to a beautiful woman, the woman of his dreams. And then at a poetry reading he meets this woman, Vittoria who is played by Roberto Benigni’s wife, Nicoletta Braschi. We find out that they have some history, but the movie doesn’t tell us what. He tries to have a romantic evening with Vittoria, but she slips away. He shows up at her house to tell her he won’t bother her anymore, that he’s through with her. Unless she doesn’t want that, of course. She just laughs and then gets on a plane for Baghdad where she’s collaborating on a book with another poet, a mutual friend of hers and Attilo. Attilo’s life goes on without her until he gets a phone call from his friend in Baghdad. The U.S. have just invaded. There was an explosion. Vittoria is dying. Attilo drops everything and rushes to her side.

The rest of the movie is this vague, scatter-brained poet in a war-zone trying to save a dying woman. The hospital doesn’t have the medicine she needs so he has to go hack something together that will work. Then she needs oxygen so he has to go find some while the bombs fall. And then, and then…. He never gives up and he never stops being excited and excitable. She needs him, so he’s there even if she doesn’t love him back. It’s wonderfully romantic. And then there’s a twist at the end.

The movie was delightful. When I saw a preview I thought it looked charming both for the story and the cinematography. The movie takes the time at the beginning to make us know Attilo. We see him with his daughters at a circus, we see him teaching a class, we see him being late to almost everything. He has almost exactly the same dream every single night. So when he gets dropped into a different and difficult setting we feel the harshness and his confusion. We get to see a little bit of how Attilo looks at the world by seeing what he focuses on and how he reacts. And since the main characters are all poets the dialogue is delightfully worded at times. It’s poetic without being flowery.

I give this movie four and a half out of five stars. It doesn’t get five stars because, well, I don’t like saying that things are perfect. I heartily recommend this movie if you, like me, can’t resist a good love story.

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I don’t really like most Christian music. Unless the artist is royally ticked off at the Church, doesn’t put his music under the label of Christian or was inspired by Rich Mullins (or is Rich Mullins) then my default setting is ambivalent with leanings towards dislike. Yes, I know this is unfair. I mention this so that you all understand where I come from. And so that when I say that One Day by Anthony Hopp is truly excellent Christian music you understand that this is unusual for me to say.

Anthony Hopp works at Samaritan Ministries with Seth. I’d only ever heard him sing at the Christmas party where he and one other are very, very funny. Just recently, though, he released an album that was done mostly single-handed. Anthony doesn’t say anything new in his music, but he expresses the old truths so beautifully. The title track One Day is fantastic, but my favorite song on the album is simply called Hymn. I listen to it twice each time I listen to the album and tear up each time. The songs are all very melodic sometimes with some electronic influences, sometimes with gospel influences. The lyrics are not complex, but contain such truth and love that they are powerful and moving.

I had a weird thought progression about this album. I was listening to it and I thought “This is truly excellent.” And then I thought “Hey, it’s a local, Christian, indie artist making something truly excellent. That’s cool!” And then I thought “Hey, I think having local, Christian, indie artists making truly excellent music is important. Like, I tend to think that the Christians around those artists should support them.” And then I thought “I’m a Christian near Anthony and I like his work. I could give him money!” So I did. I sent some money to work with Seth and he came back with a CD for me. An even trade I think.

In a few days you should be able to buy the album here. Until then unless you know someone who works at Samaritan I fear you are out of luck. However, Anthony does have a MySpace page where you can listen to some tracks off the album. Sadly, you can’t hear Hymn nor can you read the lyrics so you will simply have to trust me that it is that good.

So, does this album change my default position on Christian music. Probably not, but it does go on the list of exceptions to the rule. I hope you go listen and I hope you like what you hear as much as I did.

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