Whitney – yes, Jesus loves me!

The Secret Life of Bees

Having just finished the novel, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd in advance of our book group meeting tonight, it just leaves me enough time to write a quick review of it. I have actually read this book before, about five years ago after coming back from a long summer of work experience and holiday in South Carolina, where the book is based and where the novel is set.

It is also, following Generation A by Douglas Coupland, the second book running that our group has read where some of the major developments rely on bees.

Set in the deep south the 1964 , the year the civil rights act was passed, it follows a young teenage girl called Lily Owens who lost her mum when she was four. Her father was a bitter and angry man who ran a peach farm. Since her mother died she was being brought up by Rosaleen, one of her father’s black workers who he plucked out of the fields to work as a nanny. Lily misses her mother and misses real love and affection from anyone except Rosaleen and she treasures the few trinkets she has as a memory of her mother – including an icon of the black Madonna which bears a handwritten inscription, Tiburon, SC.

One day when Lily was about 14, she was accompanying Rosaleen into the nearby town to register to vote. Many of the white men didn’t want blacks registering and Rosaleen gets herself into a scrape which results in her being charged, beaten up and jailed. That night, afraid of the fury from her father, Lily breaks Rosaleen out of the hospital where she is being held and they run away  - towards Tiburon.

There, they stumble into the place which was the origin of her mother’s Black Madonna icon, a pink house of middle-aged black sisters, August, June and May, who keep bees and make Black Madonna honey.  Lily lies about who she is but it later transpires that they knew from the outset – as her mother had been there ten years earlier. She is welcomed and is slowly healed of her hurts and pain, and gradually learns the truth about her mother and the accident that killed her.

It is beautifully written, with deep characters and rich descriptions of the pink house, the process of keeping the bees, and the rather odd rituals of the sisterhood of women. There are also two scenes of racial tension which transport you into the mood of the time. The novel speaks of out need to be loved and accepted right from early on in our lives. When this isn’t there it pervades and colours everything else and one cannot really move on until it is dealt with. In the house, Lily is loved and accepted. There is no pressure for her to tell the truth about who she is but the sisters allow that to come out in her own good time, only after she knows she is safe. Lily had to learn how to trust, receive love without feeling undeserving, and ultimately, to forgive herself for her unwitting part in her mother’s death.

There are many phrases and quotes of the book which I liked. For example, when Lily first enters Tiburon and finds herself staring face-to-face with the same picture of the Black Madonna which is adorning a honey jar in the general store, Lily muses:

I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.

Some of this mystery comes alive in the author’s description of keeping the bees.

She was also looking for herself. As August was telling the story of a statue of the Black Mary whilst they were both preparing the honey jars, Lily reflects:

I was so caught up with what August was saying I had stopped wetting labels. I was wishing I had a story like that one to live inside me with so much loudness you could pick it up on a stethoscope, and not the story I did have about ending my mother’s life and sort of ending my own at the same time.

Everyone needs a story greater than themselves: this is, I believe, a universal truth of human nature. However, so often, the stories we do construct for ourselves are uninspiring or unhelpful and merely obscure the person we were created to be. Lily learned that she had to own parts of her true story and come to terms with it, as the same time as realising that this story didn’t define her. There was another story of who she was and what she could become.

Ultimately, the novel is about healing, redemption, self-awareness, forgiveness and love. Not romantic love, but the everyday love and stability of a close-knit community that does wonders for an individual’s self-worth and self-perception – the simple act of living life alongside each other. Lily needed to love herself and know that she was loved.

Score 4.5/5. I wonder what the group will think this evening!

There is also a rather fine movie of the book starring Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifa, Alicia Keys, and Sophie Okenedo

District 9

District 9 is thoroughly recommended as an original, entertaining and thought provoking sci-fi movie. I’ve not seen another film like it. It is set and shot in South Africa in a reality-documentary style – the early part of the movie is filmed on a handheld video camera and has a shaky quality to it. As the movie progresses the film gradually changes to more normal cinematic pictures, but it does so gradually so you don’t really notice it.

It is firmly in the “aliens come to earth” genre, but unlike other movies in this genre it is not about aliens coming to take over the earth (Independence Day, Mars Attacks) or about them making friends (ET), but the aliens arrive as refugees. Their giant spaceship comes to earth and stops over the city of Johannesburg and for three months, it does nothing. On the trip over the aliens leadership had died (we’re not told how), leaving on the ship just the worker aliens. With no leadership they are unable to do anything.

When the humans eventually break into the ship, they find thousands of malnourished and dying aliens. They are suddenly refugees in need of care and unable to get home. They are transported off the ship and placed in a secure compound just outside Johannesburg called District 9.

Twenty years later, the species have multiplied and are still stranded in District 9. It has become a slum with crime all around and dwellings built out of plastic and corrugated iron -  whatever rubbish can be found. Hostility has grown between the humans and the aliens. The multi-national authority governing the district decides something needs to be done. The aliens are to be evicted and moved to another refugee camp many miles away from the city. The film follows Wikus van der Merwe, the leader of the eviction process, as he and his team go into District 9 to try and move the aliens on. During the course of the eviction, Wikus gets covered in some biological alien liquid (which I think contained some alien DNA) and he slowly starts evolving into one of these aliens.

District 9 raises questions about how we treat refugees, how we deal with poverty and slum areas, and how we relate to those who are different to us. As it is set in South Africa, there are clear throwbacks to apartheid era attitudes. In fact, the movie was shot on location in a real-life slum village just outside Johannesburg that had recently been cleared. The inhabitants had just been moved to proper housing elsewhere. It is telling that Wikus had to become one of the aliens to understand them, to break down the barriers of ‘us’ and ‘them’. As he is half-evolving, he is forced to hide from the authorities in District 9 and to ask for help from the same aliens he was just trying to evict. It raises all these questions but never over-flogs them to get in the way of an excellently told story.

Very original, very engaging, excellently written and produced. As science fiction films go, this is hard to beat.

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.

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.

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.

Goodbye Bafana – a movie review

Last night we saw the excellent movie Goodbye Bafana, based on the book of the same name. It is the true story of James Gregory, a young prison guard in South Africa who gets sent to work at the maximum security prison at Robben Island in the late 1960s. As he speaks the tribal Khosa language which he learned from a black friend on the farm where he grew up, he gets detailed to guard new prisoner Nelson Mandela and some of his ANC contemporaries. They are imprisoned for acts of terrorism against the Apartheid government. Gregory is asked by the intelligence agency to listen into Mandela’s conversations and feed back any details of ANC plans.

Gregory and his wife Gloria are typical of their time. All their news they get from the newspapers, tey have no TV. ANC publications are banned so they believe what the authorities tell them – that the ANC are communist terrorists intent on taking away land from white people and killing them. They attitudes are similarly racist. At one point Gloria tells her children that it is God’s way that black and white should remain separate.

One incident in the story occurs during Mandela’s first meeting with his wife, Winnie. Sat behind a glass screen and speaking through telephones, Gregory is listening to every word. He feeds back to the intelligence agency that Mandela has a son from his first marriage who has just got a car and a driving license. It is not long before this son is found dead in a car accident. Gregory suspects that he was murdered and blames himself.

As the story develops, Gregory starts speaking to Mandela in Khosa, and their friendship gets closer. Gregory’s attitudes slowly change, particularly after he sees how blacks are treated in the street and get a chance to read an illegal copy of the ANC’s charter of beliefs. Finding life more difficult on Rebben Island, Gregory eventually moves to a different job, but six years later is reunited as Mandela and other ANC prisoners (Walter Sisulu, Andrew Mlangeni, Ahmed Kathrada and Raymond Mhlaba) are moved to a slightly more comfortable prison at Pollsmoor. Once again, Gregory is Mandela’s primary guard. This remains the case until Mandela’s eventual release from Victor Verster Prison on 11th February 1990.

Apart from the obvious touching friendship, one of the things that stuck out from the film was the attitudes of the society in the 1960s and on through into the 1980s. The prison guards and police had some very racist thoughts and actions which jarr with our modern attitudes. Some of the lines are difficult to hear. However, they were, I suppose, simply a product of their time. When fed propaganda by the government, when not many people had TV’s and given that most ANC and anti-aparteid documents were banned, there was no other source of information from which to gather their views. They views they held were the views fed to them. Gregory eventually saw through it.

It is worth making the connection to today – what are we being fed by the media and newspapers that dictates what we believe and think about things? True – we have access to a much wider range of information through the internet and more permissive governments, but it is still worth asking what that media is telling us and whether it is misleading or damaging. Things such as beauty is best, might is right, or the continual desire that is drummed into us to own more things and that this will make us happy. Surely we are all a product of our time that is difficult to escape.

Overall, a wonderful, thought-provoking film.

Weekly Links

I thought I’d start posting the links to stuff around the net I’ve enjoyed this week.

First, a funny moment from a spelling bee:

A good article from Christianity Today on looking at the qualities in a candidate rather than political position – How to Pick a President.

Tim Keller writes on what is the Gospel.

From the UK’s TV series ‘The Apprentice’, BBC News looks at interview techniques.

An excellent sermon on the Trinity by Rob Bell can be downloaded here.

John Sentamu criticizes ‘rampant consumerism’.

And I can’t wait for this: Lord, Save Us from your followers:

Into the Wild – movie review

Into the Wild is a movie based on the true story of Christopher McCandless. After he graduated from university in Atlanta, he disappeared, seemingly without trace. He drove out west in search of adventure, in effect to find himself. On the course of his journey, he lost his car in a flash flood, and ended up walking, canoeing and camping to continue his journey. In his desire to find meaning, he eradicated his identity, burning his driving license and social security card, and reinvented himself as “Alexander Supertramp”. He was convinced that the way to find true meaning and happiness was to go into the wild, so he headed for Alaska, woefully unprepared. I should warn you that spoilers follow….

There has been lots written about Christopher McCandless and the mistakes he made. I’m not going to repeat that here, but I will make two points:

Chris McCandless was portrayed in the film as determined to escape the life of western materialism that he was born into. He considered it to be a lie. Why? Well, he discovered truths about his parents that undermined his confidence in them – his father had another family that had been kept secret. He remembered the time when his parents sat he and his sister down around the dinner table and informed them they were going to get a divorce, and they should pick which parent they wanted to live with. The divorce never happened, but the marriage didn’t get any happier. He witnessed blazing arguments and even violence between his mother and father. All the time, the family kept up the appearance of a well-kept, happy, loving family, which had fun together, spent time together and went to church together – living the American dream. It is this that led Chris McCandless into leaving, going into the wild to find himself. I guess the message that the film gave to me was that a lack of integrity between inner life and family and outward appearance can be very damaging indeed. It is indeed, living a lie.

Secondly, the film portrayed Chris as leaving to find himself and find happiness. He was convinced the only way of doing this was to go into the wild on his own, survive by himself, and commune with nature. On his way out there he met many interesting people, from farm labourers in South Dakota, to Hippies in Slab City, to a nice old man in Northern California. From each person he learns, and enjoys their company. But he was still convinced that Alaska was the place to go. He headed out beyond Fairbanks and finds an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere which had previously been used as a hunting shelter. He makes this his home and starts to hunt and scavenge. At one point it seems that he has learned his lesson and found himself, so he starts to make his way home, only to find that a river that he crossed on his way out had swelled and was impassible. He reluctantly returns to the bus. This time he is overcome by desperation and loneliness. At the end of the film, when Chris is dying from starvation – there had been a lack of animals he could hunt for food – he writes in his journal: “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED” – and he remembers all the interesting relationships he struck up on his journey out West. I think this is a good point – happiness comes from relationships, with each other and with God, not through achieving tasks or ‘finding oneself’. It’s a shame that Chris had to be on the point of death to realise this.

The movie itself is beautifully shot – not difficult considering the beautiful surroundings of the countryside of Alaska and the West Coast. The Acting from Emile Hirsch and others is excellent. Well worth watching.

A set of photos from the bus which Chris made his home can be found here.