Donald Miller and Story

Whilst on holiday I was leant the newest book by Donald Miller,  A Million Miles in a Thousand Years which focusses on the power of story. Following his first very successful book, Blue Like Jazz (which I have just started reading), Miller was approached by some film makers who wanted to make a movie of his book. The trouble is that Blue Like Jazz is not a novel. It is a collection of thoughts about how he has made sense of Christian spirituality throughout his life. This makes it more difficult to turn it into a narrative that would work on screen.

This notion of story is something he also mentioned in Blue Like Jazz, but it seems he really got into discovering what makes story, story. He went on a week long seminar by story-expert Robert McKee, who has taught the principles of storytelling and writing to many people who have gone on to win Emmy’s and Oscars for their movies and awards for plays and screenplays.

You need a setting, conflict, climax and resolution. So, it had to be translated into a story with a narrative arc – a beginning, middle and end. He also needed to develop a character – a fake Donald -  to be the lead who had a sense of direction – a film about his real life would get stale very quickly! The audience needed to like this person at some level. They needed to be pulling for him to achieve something, to get somewhere, or to change something. And you need to knit the scenes together in a way that helps the viewer progress as the character moves on.

All this made him think about his own life. Where was the narrative arc? What were his goals? (How come he needed to create a fake-Donald to make it interesting?). This thinking led him to get fit, walk the Inca Trail, cycle across america as well as get serious in his own spirituality.

The genius of this book is that he makes us reflect on our own life and the story that we are telling. Is there a progression? Are we growing or just drifting? If people were to watch a movie of our life, what would they say we were living for? Do we have big life goals and smaller day-to-day ones – goals that give us an aspect of conflict and climax and resolution.

In Christian thinking the notion of story has become more important. From Andrew Walker’s excellent Telling the Story to Tom Wright who asks us to step into the great story that God is telling. Faith is not as often spoken of as a series of disconnected doctrines, but one overarching story of Biblical Theology which stretches into the present. At what part of the story does our life fit?

For Christians, can we ask the same questions about our faith? Are we drifting along in a belief that we mentally adhere to, but which doesn’t challenge us any more? Have we reached a stop in our learning about God or in our willingness to seek to follow him? Are we ignoring some hard lifestyle changes that God may be asking for us? In which case, let’s rediscover the challenge by setting small everyday goals as well as large overarching ones.

By the way. The trailer for the movie can be seen on Donald Miller’s blog.

Every mouth may be silenced.

Last night, Stuart Baggs dramatically talked himself out of the firing line in Alan Sugar’s boardroom. It had seemed to be the end of the line for Stuart, who had lurched from moments of brilliance to moments of stupidity and annoyance. With Lord Sugar’s sword of judgement hanging over Stuart’s head, Stuart launched into a dramatic soliloquy that won him over and led to the reluctant dismissal of Liz.

It seems that, despite Stuart’s mistakes in this task where the teams had to sell tickets for and run a London Bus Tour,  Stuarts achievements pre-Apprentice were enough to save him. Now 21, he moved out and bought his own house at 18, drove around in nice cars all on money that he had earned through his business exploits. He was a self-starter and that impressed Lord Sugar. His defence saved him – for the moment. In the end only one will be saved for the privilege of a job in the Sugar empire.

This morning I was reading some verses from Romans 3, nicely expounded by Martyn Lloyd-Jones

^{Rom 3:19} Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

In this section of Romans (from 1:18 to 3:20), Paul has been making the case that no-one can stand on their own merits before God. The Jews were wanting to rely on their status as citizens of Israel, members of God’s people, and the bearers of the law (the Old Testament) but systematically, Paul has deconstructed their arguments. Before God, the Jews cannot stand by their good works, because they are not sufficient; they cannot stand by their birthright (circumcision) as this was a sign to them of being set apart to keep the law, which they were not doing; And they cannot rely on the fact that they were the nation to which God gave the law. The whole world, Jew and Gentile, will be held accountable to God. Because of this every mouth will fall silent. He is making the point the status of everyone who will stand before God is accountable and guilty. Everyone has chosen their own way. God’s judgement is good, righteous and consistent and is always according to truth (Rom 2:2). The good news is to follow, that righteousness and truth are given freely from God to everyone who wants them by a generous act of grace through Jesus Christ.

I’d much rather have it this way than any other. Imagine being faced with a divine Lord Sugar waiting to declare those fateful words “You’re Fired” and left with only my own ingenuity and arguments to make my case. I cannot think what I would say to justify myself and win my approval. I certainly wouldn’t be able to think on my feet and big-up my own achievements like Baggs and Co. because my achievements are not worth that much, and more importantly, God cannot be fooled. His judgements are right and just.

This is why ‘Every mouth may be silenced’ (Rom 3:19) – There will be no self-justification and no arguments because there are no words that can do. Simply a knowledge that I, as we all are, stand guilty before God and am entirely reliant on his saving acts to place me ‘in the right’. The Judge is also the Saviour.

Thoughts on Lost finale

Before I begin…

WARNING SPOILERS!

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WARNING SPOILERS!

WARNING SPOILERS!

WARNING SPOILERS!

WARNING SPOILERS!

Oh, and this won’t make any sense unless you’ve actually seen Lost….

Having watched the final episode of Lost this week, I’m not sure if I was happy or not with the way the ending was written.Here are my assorted ramblings….

Yes, evil was defeated (the John Locke smoke monster), there was a sacrificial saviour figure (Jack) and some heroic actions from some of the others (Hurley, Desmond). Desmond, Kate, Claire, Sawyer, Lapidis and Miles all managed to escape the island on the plane. Whilst Jack died in the process of saving the Island, Sun, Jin and  Sayid had died a couple of episodes earlier in the submarine. It wasn’t surprising that Jack was the saviour figure.

They tried to make sense of the alternate (sideways) reality  – it became as a place of waiting until the  characters remembered their ‘real’ selves from the island, and the relationships they had there. Each of them experienced a ‘flash’ moment of recognition where their other lives suddenly became real memories. They were then all led to a chapel where Jack’s father appeared, explained stuff to Jack and then led them all out the doors into a glorious white light. Jack’s father was called Christian Shepherd – clear religious analogy there – and he took them from a purgatory type existence in the sideways reality to the wonder of heaven, as one by one, they all left their sideways existence behind.

What is interesting is who was in the chapel ready to go to heaven. There were noticeable absentees from the main cast of characters who had been in it from the start – Michael, Ben (who elected to stay outside in ‘purgatory’) Anna-Luica and Mr Ekko from the tail section of the plane, yet they brought back Libby from the tail section, Juliette who was originally one of the ‘others’, and Shannon and Boone, the latter who died in series 1. What most of the characters who came back had in common was that they each seemed to be a love interest for another character at some point.

They also neglected to bring in Daniel, Miles and Charlotte who all had significant roles in series 4 and 5, and who all appeared in the sideways reality too. It seems that the writer’s idea of heaven is a place where all your close friends are, where relationship-love is important, and belief doesn’t really enter into it. Even the stained glass window in the chapel indicated this – it had symbols from all the worlds major religions as if they were all equal and lead to the same place.

I wonder, is this the prevailing view of heaven for those who have no faith? is it a vague hope that we will be with the ones we love regardless of how we live or what we believe?

Gran Torino

Last week my wife and I stayed in and watched a movie on DVD. The movie was “Gran Torino” – an oscar nominated film from last year starring Clint Eastwood. Spoilers follow.

Clint plays a rather crotchety old man called Walt Kowalski, an old blue collar former Ford- auto-worker from Detroit. Walt has been living in the same neighbourhood for most of his life. He is also a Korean War veteran. Walt is generally disgusted with most things in life, but he becomes especially  dismayed as gradually, his neighbourhood is taken over by immigrants. People of Hmong descent have moved in, whilst most of the white people have moved out. The Hmongs are Vietnamese, but for Walt, that is close enough to Korea to be bad. Nevertheless, Walt stays.

They other thing that has grown up in the area is gang culture.  One of the Chinese gangs are hounding the Hmong family who live next door to Walt in order to get the young boy, Thao, to join. One day, Walt stands up for their daughter against some belligerent gang members and takes her home.  Whilst the girl starts to befriend him, Thao is bullied into trying to steal Walt’s pride and joy, his 1972 For Gran Torino, as an initiation rite to the gang.

Thao does not succeed, but is caught by Walt. As the family try and atone for the young boy’s behaviour, he is drawn towards them. Thao is loaned to Walt as a worker to work of the debt, and, as Walt spends time with Thao, he begins to act as a father figure to him, to protect him and draw him away from the gang.

Joining this gang would get Thao into a lot of trouble – robberies, murders and so on. It would scupper Thao’s chances of having a decent life,  going to college and would push him down the life of crime. Thao doesn’t want this either and needs the direction of a father figure.

Towards the end of the film Walt decides to do something about this gang which has been plaguing the neighbourhood. He goes round to their house late one evening and confronts them. He pretends he has a gun (but actually only has a cigarette and a lighter). As he pretends to draw this non-existent gun (but is actually reaching for the lighter), he is shot. The gang is immediately arrested and jailed, out of Thao’s life.

Walt’s sacrifice saved Thao from the gang. It dealt with the trouble and allowed the him to live a decent life. Oh, and Thao got left the Gran Torino.

There are many religious overtones in this film, made obvious but the inclusion of a young Catholic priest who strikes up a friendship with Walt. For me, the most powerful metaphor was that of the sacrifice which gave life. Walt’s sacrifice was necessary to free Thao from the burden of the gang.

The obvious comparison is with Jesus. The Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, speaking against all the sin and corruption of his nation, had warned of judgement. However, in the same breath, he also said this:

Be silent before the Sovereign LORD,
for the day of the LORD is near.
The LORD has prepared a sacrifice;
he has consecrated those he has invited. (Zeph 1:7)

The apostle Paul sheds more light on the needs for such a sacrifice:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. (Rom 3:23-25)

All fall short of God’s standards, yet can be brought to God nevertheless. This reconciliation needs a sacrifice to redeem (pay for) the sin. The purpose of this is to give life and enable all to reach their God-given potential. Jesus said:

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

A great Christian metaphor from an excellent film.

Surrogates – movie review

I went to see surrogates this week – first time I’ve been to the cinema in ages. Starring Bruce Willis, who is on form, it describes a world where human robotics has developed into a way of life. Technology has been able to capture the brain signals that control our body – move our eyes, arms, feet mouth etc, and use them to control a robot. The result is that everyone now stays at home and lives through a ‘surrogate’ – a robot that the users control and move about by plugging into a special chair at home. Through them you can do things, such as sky diving, with no risk. You can also create your surrogate to be the a physically perfect version of you.

Almost everyone lives through these surrogates meaning that everyday interaction is through technology. In this world of robots, there are a few people who are unwilling to use the technology. They live in special surrogate free zones in each city. Its a fast paced action film with a good cast and a decent plot.

Although current technology has not got that far (thankfully!) we are living in a technology obsessed world. More and more of our social interactions are through a screen, a phone, or the internet. The point of the film is quite clear.

1. Living though technology numbs you to the physical senses of the world (says the man who is blogging!). There is nothing quite like feeling the wind or the raid, throwing and chasing a ball, and physical touch with others. This cannot be reproduced by technology.
2. Technology does is not conducive to real relationships (it can enhance real relationships, but not replace them). One of the first scenes of the films saw a beautiful, sexily dressed blonde girl-surrogate in a club making out with a male surrogate (who similarly had model looks). The girl surrogate is quickly killed off and we find that the person controlling her was an ugly hairy fat man. Technology allows us to hide from bring real is we want to.
3. It leads to a misunderstanding of, and an inability to appreciate beauty. In the film, in the world full of surrogates everyone looked fake and a little plasticcy. The film makers did a good job here. But the point is that when everyone looks like a model, no one is beautiful, everyone looks fake. We lose the ability to appreciate real beauty, which does not depend on having perfect teeth and perfect hair.

A good film which highlighted some dangers that our technology obsessed world needs to be aware of.

Simon Cowell on TV talent shows

Great quote from Simon Cowell about the importance of shows like X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent:

“The great thing about it is when you start seeing it in places like China and Afghanistan. It’s democracy. We’ve kinda given democracy back to the world.”

via BBC NEWS | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | Oprah show subtitles Susan Boyle.

I didn’t realise talent shows were going to save the world

Stranger than fiction

Stranger than Fiction is a charming comedy. Will Ferrell lays Harold Crick, a very straight laced guy who has nothing extraordinary about him. He goes to work at the IRS, counts his steps to the bus stop and generally his life runs like clockwork. That is, until he hears a voice. An English female voice which seems to be describing everything he is doing and thinking. He finds himself hearing the voice of an author who is writing and narrating his life. Unfortunately this author has a habit of killing off her main characters.

The story is driven along with a love interest and the inevitable difficulties that the main character faces when he realizes he is in a book, and of the author when she realizes her character is real.

The movie raises questions of death. What would you do if you knew you were going to die? Would you go through with it if it was for a greater good? And from the authors point of view, would you compromise your art to save a life.

One interesting thing was the point at which Harold made the conscious decision to go through with the end of the novel. There were shades of gethesemane in that scene. Someone who would voluntarily give up their life for someone else, knowing in advance what is going to happen is someone you want to keep around.

Jade Goody RIP « Nick Baines’s Blog

Some excellent words from the Bishop of Croydon on the death of British reality TV celebrity, Jade Goody, who dies this morning. His final paragraph offers hope.

My final word on this is simply that the root of Christian faith is the confidence that death itself cannot separate us from the love of God as seen in Jesus Christ. The narrative of this world says that violence, death and destruction have the final word and ultimate power: the cross and an empty tomb say appearances can be deceptive. God who creates, sustains, redeems and loves has the final word and that word is ‘resurrection’.

God Tussi Great Ho

There’s a new Bollywood film out that I can’t wait to watch. It a remake of Bruce Almighty but, obviously, in a Bollywood style. Will be interesting to see if they change the story at all to cope with a predominantly non-Christian audience.

Make Me A Christian

This week I watched the channel 4 reality tv series “Make Me a Christian” (it was aired a number of weeks ago on Channel 4 UK and I only just got around to watching it on the internet). The unofficial website is here. It took a dozen fairly normal people who were searching for faith and put them through 3 weeks of ‘Christian book camp’ – some time of teaching, mentoring, worship, and a number of other activities designed to help them understand the Christian faith.  In many places it was painful watching. It portrayed Christians as moralistic people who are only interested in sex (and not having it). As the mentors met with the participants individually, it was very difficult to watch as the mentors seemed to judge them very early on in their acquaintance.

Now, I’m sure that part of the obsession with sex was due to the editing of the producers who dictate exactly what will go on the air, and that the participants did a whole lot more things than the show revealed. One mentor was reported to have asked for her scenes to be cut out. But I think my uncomfortableness came from the expectation that the participants should live as Christians (by going along with Christian morals) before they’d actually believed. Surely this is the wrong way around and that is why it ended up feeling judgmental. The old expression goes “belong, believe, behave”. It seems the shows mentors were expecting them to behave before belonging or believing.

When people come into contact with Jesus, only then are they changed with the help of the Holy Spirit. I’m not sure whether we should force Christian morals on people from a quite different worldview.

Having said that, all of the participants were changed in some ways. It was very interesting to see Laura, described on the channel four website as “a lesbian who sometimes sleeps with men”, to visit a gay church in London and see right through their pick n’mix theology. Martin, described as an ‘athiest biker’, was challenged when he went to help in the Salvation Army soup kitchen for a day. Sarah and her family discovered the benefits of having time to rest out of their busy schedule, and it certainly seems to have brought their family closer together. Whilst none of them became beleivers (I think) they were all changed in some way. Overall though, I’m not sure a reality tv show is the best way to introduce people to Christianity.