Film Flash: Instant Family

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

A simple, sweet, and messy story about the joy and heartache of fostering

Back from the Future - A Thanksgiving Day Reflection

Traditionally on this blog I repost the same essay each year on Thanksgiving.  I continue to get positive feedback on it and I am very grateful for everyone's kind words.

This year I thought I would do something a little different and share with you something a little person and a little strange.  Bear with me as I walk you through a mental habit I have acquired over the years.  I don't necessarily recommend it.  Perhaps its overall tone is too dark for you.  But I have found that it is a reflection that has born good fruit in my life. 

There is a quote attributed to the Buddhist Ajahn Chah which reads: “Do you see this glass?  I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. Yet for me, this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”

This is perfectly in line with the Buddhist philosophy of impermanence: the belief that everything in this material world is going away.  This world can be so lovely and there are so many people and things to love in it.  But this world can also be so cruel and it can take all of those people and things from our lives.  

As I've gotten older I've found that I have become more, not less attached to this world.  Perhaps this is a spiritual failing on my part.  I don't mean that I have become consumed by greed or lavish wealth, although the material comforts of life have become more appealing.  What I mean is that when I come to realize my affections for something, I have this horrible desire to hold onto it tightly and not have it leave my life.

I am a collector.  Right now I am sitting in my makeshift library surrounded by not only hundreds of books but also hundreds of DC Comics action figures organized all over my shelves.  Hal Jordan is pointing his ring right at me while Barry Allen runs on his cosmic treadmill.  Sometimes I will have my nieces and nephew over or my friends and their children.  I give them free reign to play with any of my collectibles.  I do this understanding that children are prone to breaking things.  I accept things will be lost and destroyed, although I have been pleasantly surprised by how little damage has been done.  This is in no small part to their parents' careful attention.

But when something does break, there is a part of me that hurts a little.  Most things can be repaired, but there is a tiny loss.  I know that these are small things, but they reflect the same attitude I have regarding large ones too.  

I loved my first car.  I had essentially lived in it when I was at college.  As a commuter, I would sometimes have long hours between classes.  The back seats folded into a bed and I would take naps in there while staring at the ceiling that I decorated with colorful pictures.  When it was time to give the car away, even though I was upgrading, I was filled with a strong sense of sadness.  I was losing something which had been a big part of my life.  It was just metal and upholstery, but I couldn't help how I felt.

And this story repeats over and over again throughout my life: affection followed by loss.  The only way to avoid the sense of loss, it seemed, was to withhold my affection.  Yet it seemed wrong not to open my heart to these things.  Again, these are only things, but it seems somehow wrong to not enjoy them.  But the more they are enjoyed, the greater the loss when they go away.

I thought about the above quote from Chah.  To think of the things as already broken seemed a little too dark.  To imagine these things cracked and crumbled in their present state seemed to put too much of a pallor over them.  And yet that is where they are destined to go at some future state.  And that is where my mind wandered: to this future state.

At some point in the future all the material things will be broken.  This is a certain truth.  What I could do in my imagination was go to this future and get a sense of that brokenness.  Then I could return to the present and see the thing in its present state.  This would put a concrete sense in my mind of how precious the time is and how I should cherish it.  

When I was a kid, I had a plastic Luke Skywalker lightsaber that would make sounds as the air passed through it while playing.  It has been broken and lost for a long time.  When I think about it, there is a small sense of sadness.  Part of me wishes I could go back in time, just for a moment, and hold it again.  My wife bought me a Master Replicas Luke Skywalker lightsaber.  It is one of my favorite possessions.  But I know that I cannot hold it forever.  One day it will break.  So sometimes when I have it, I close my eyes and I imagine some future date at which it is broken.  I then get in touch with that feeling of loss and the deep desire to go back in time, just once, to hold it again.  I then open my eyes and I am holding it and am filled with a deep sense of gratitude.

We are surrounded by so many blessings.  And yet I often forget to be grateful.  The old saying that you don't appreciate something until it is gone still rings true.  By doing this little reflection and imagining that it is gone, you can increase your appreciation of the thing in the here and now.

And this does not have to be only for material things.  

When I was in the hospital and couldn't walk, I felt so lost and helpless.  By God's grace I have made a full recovery.  And yet I know that time, age, and injury could steal away my mobility again.  Sometimes when I am doing simple chores around the house or walking down the long hallways at school, I close my eyes and take a moment and imagine some future date where I will be back in a wheelchair.  In that moment a feel the sorrow over the loss of my mobility and I feel the wish to go back in time just once and experience what it was like to walk again.  And then I open my eyes and am filled with gratitude that I am upright and walking with ease.

Time will take even more from us.

When I was babysitting my nieces and nephew over the course of several days I was exhausted.  Not having children of our own, the overwhelming time commitment hit my wife and I hard.  There were times all I wanted to do was crash on the couch.  But then my niece or nephew would ask to play a game with me.  As tired as I was, I would take a moment and close my eyes.  I imagined a future, not too distant I am sure, where they will be too cool to play with their uncle.  They will be more interested in hanging out with their friends and then they will be gone and grown with families of their own.  I feel how much I missed being with them as children and I wish I could go back just one more time and play one more game with them.  And then I open my eyes and I am filled with gratitude that I get to play their games.

Last year my mom got sick.  We thought she was getting better, but then she went back to the hospital and began her month-long decline towards the end.  I will never forget looking at her there in the hospital.  Her eyes were a little glassy, not with unconsciousness but with sadness and depression.  She was never going to get out of the hospital.  She would sit there so silent, so lifeless, just numbly watching TV.  We'd ask her questions and she would often just answer with a limp shrug.  It was hard to be there with her sometimes, to see her suffer in body and spirit like that.   

But then I closed my eyes and imagined the not too distant future when I would be sitting there at the funeral home looking at the casket as the closed it one last time.  It would be the last time I would ever see her face.  I was filled with an overwhelming, choking sense of loss.  I felt so deeply that I wished I could have one chance, just one chance to go back and tell her how much I loved her.

And then I opened my eyes and I was filled with gratitude that she was still here.  I held her hand and with tears streaming down my face I told her how much I loved her.  I told her I was sorry for everything I ever did that ever upset her.  I told her that I have a great life because of her.  I told her that if by God's grace I help people know the Lord and put them on the path of salvation, then it is only because she put me on that path.  All of the good things I've done in my life I owe to her for giving me life.  I told her how grateful I was to be her son.  I told her how grateful I was to be with her now.

Even now just writing that last paragraph, that moment hits me hard.  And when the time came soon after where they closed the casket for the last time I wished I could go back and have one chance, just one chance to go back and tell her all of those things again.

But I can't.  

Real time allows for no do overs.  The only time we get them is in our imagination.

As I said, this reflection may not suit your personality and is perhaps too dark.  But if you want to give it a try...

This Thanksgiving, if you are having a bad day with the kids or at work or with your spouse or in your broken down car, then close your eyes and imagine a time in the future when you will no longer have around you the kids, the job, your spouse, or that broken down car.  Let that unpleasant loss touch your heart for as long as you can stand it.  And feel yourself wish for one chance, just one chance to go back and enjoy those kids, that job, your spouse, and that wonderful broken down car.  

And maybe, just maybe you will feel a renewed sense of gratitude when you open your eyes and come back from the future.

Film Flash: Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

As a stand-alone movie, it's lacking.  As a set-up to a bigger movie, it's excellent.

image by Yasir72.multan

New Evangelizers Post: 7 Reasons for an All Male Priesthood

I have a new article up at NewEvangelizers.com.  

Recently, I had a former student ask me why the Catholic Church only ordains men to the priesthood. Below is my admittedly long-winded answer.

I know that this is a stumbling block for many. As a young Catholic, I did not understand, nor did I accept the teaching. I couldn’t see how it was fair that men could have access to something that women could not. It wasn’t until I had my conversion experience at 17 that the matter became clear to me. For me it comes down to this: did Jesus know what He was doing or did He not? Knowing Jesus, I knew my answer.

In his 1994 encyclical Ordonatio Sacerdotalis, Pope St. John Paul II settled the matter once and for all. He stated that the Catholic Church has no power whatsoever to ordain women to the priesthood. It should be clear that his statement does not say the Church will not ordain women. It says the Church won’t ordain women. That is an important difference. The encyclical is incredibly short and does not elaborate much on the rationale. You can read the letter yourself at your leisure. Here are a few explanations as to why this teaching holds. Many of these ideas are from John Paul II himself and Sr. Sara Butler

1. Christ did not choose women for priesthood.

All of the ones that Christ chose to be priests were men. This is an undeniable fact of Scripture and Tradition

2. This choice was free

Some have argued that He was only acting in accord with His culture. But even a simple glance at the Gospels would dispel this notion. Jesus broke many social taboos, especially regarding women. We see this with the Sinful Woman in Luke and the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John. The Gospel portrait we have of Jesus is of a Person who cares little for social opinion if it gets in the way of the morally correct thing to do. It was one of the reasons why He was killed.

3.This choice was done under the influence of the Spirit.

The choice of the 12 was down after Jesus had spent the night in prayer. Acts 1:2 makes clear that this choice was made under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. This was not a simple bureaucratic or random choice. God the Son, in prayer to the Father and through the Spirit chose only men.

4. None of the successors to the Apostles were men

We must always go to those who knew Jesus as the first interpreters of Jesus’ words and actions. When they chose bishops and priests to follow them, they understood what was changeable and what was not. All of the Apostles were Jewish. But their successors were Jews and Gentiles. But not one of the bishops believe that they had the capacity to ordain women to the priesthood. And this has been the consistent teaching, unbroken, for centuries. This makes it part of unchanging Sacred Tradition

You can read the whole article here.

Lack of Updates November 2018

Hello Dear Reader,

I'm sorry I haven't updated this blog in the last week.  I will also not be updating much this week (although I have a New Evangelizers Article due tomorrow).

Please forgive the delay.  I am currently in a two-week period where I have to do the following:

-turn in grades for the quarter
-have auditions for our student film
-we are in hell week for the fall play I am directing
-I have to finish my first draft of a term paper on Metaphysics.

I thank you for your patience with me as I try to juggle all of these responsiblilities, but that does limit my time to write on this blog.  I should be back up to speed on the 18th.

I appreciate your understanding and I will be back soon with:

Film Reviews for Life Itself and Bohemian Rhapsody
TV Review for Jack Ryan
Comic Review for Heroes in Crisis #2
A Film Flash for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
...and more.

Stay tuned!

Sunday Best: Top 10 Queen Songs in Movies

In honor of Bohemian Rhapsody premiering this weekend, I thought I would look at the best uses of Queen's music in movies.  Queen always had a very distinctive style that would tend to kick the movies into overdrive. 

So here are the Top 10 Queen songs in movies.  To be clear, these aren't necessarily the best Queen songs of all time.  But these are the 10 best uses of them in film.

10.  "WE WILL ROCK YOU!"  - A Knight's Tale

This is an incredibly silly movie like Ella Enchanted, which tries to bring an anachronistic modern style to a medieval world.  Yet, the opening does a good job of transitioning you into this strange amalgam by getting your blood pumping with this sports anthem.


9.  "THE SHOW MUST GO ON." - Moulin Rouge! 

Jim Broadbent does a wonderful turn as the manipulative theater owner who is overwhelmed with guilt over putting the show ahead of the health and the love of the people in his life.  Queen's song is surprisingly apropos of everything this scene needs.

8.  "ONE VISION" - Iron Eagle

OK, I will admit that after watching Iron Eagle, I would listen to rock music while playing After Burn on my Sega Master System.  I haven't watched the movie in a while and I'm sure it would come off as incredibly silly today.  But watching this teenager fly a near-suicide mission into enemy territory to save his father while getting into dog fights with his F-16... well, I thought it was better than Top Gun.  And Queen's music helped cement that in my memory.

7.  "PRINCES OF THE UNIVERSE" -Highlander 

I think it speaks to the power of Queen's music that the opening of the film is just a simple credits sequence against a black backdrop but with this song playing at full volume.  Without having to see any visuals, the song lets you know the tone, tenor, and themes of the movie and primes you to enjoy what you are about to see, no matter how low the budget is.

6. "DON'T STOP ME NOW!" - Shaun of the Dead

Edgar Wright is a visual genius of a director; he is someone who does not waste shots but uses every visual the tell the story.  But he also is excellent at incorporating music as part of the narrative, as he did in his most recent Baby Driver.  But this sequence at the Winchester is funny, absurd, and scary all at the same time while Queen heightens all of those conflicting emotions.

5. "WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS" - Revenge of the Nerds

This is a raunchy film that is actually incredibly morally corrosive, even by 1980's standards.  But through all of that raunch it has a surprisingly heart-warming and uplifting ending.  Gilbert's speech about being an outcast always hit home for me.  And then the Queen song hit exactly the right note, starting with the sad piano solo and then building to ecstatic crescendo.


4.  "WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER" - Highlander

Highlander is the only movie on here twice, not only because of how many Queen songs are on the soundtrack, but also because of the diverse ways in which they are used.  This may be the saddest ballad that Queen ever wrote and it is woven into the story so perfectly that it elevates the immortal pain of Connor MacCloud that stays with you and reminds you that immortality can be a curse

3.  "FLASH GORDON THEME" - Flash Gordon

That thumping base that builds the anticipation followed by that crash of energy as they sing the hero's name followed by the harmonious scream of ecstasy... this song is so over-the-top that only Queen could pull it off.  How can you not love a song with lyrics like "FLASH!... AAHHHAA.... HE'S A MIRACLE!"  Quite possibly the best comic hero theme song ever.

2.  "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY" - Wayne's World

I will admit that I was completely ignorant of Queen as a band (though I was familiar with some of their songs), until I saw this movie.  This movie captured how ordinary people reacted to Queen's music in our daily lives of hanging out with friends and driving around town.  It showed how Queen could make our lives just a little more epic and fun.

1.  "UNDER PRESSURE" - Grosse Point Blank

This is a perfect union of rock music and visual storytelling.  Martin Blank is going through his existential crisis as a hit man at his 10 year class reunion.  But this one moment of really looking at a baby for the first time and seeing the miracle of life is a fantastic film moment.  Watch Cusack's performance as you feel the wheels in his head turning and the wall around his heart breaking through like the desperate emotional crescendo of the song.  And that is the power of Queen's music: it can break through and hit you right in the heart.

Thoughts?

Film Flash: Bohemian Rhapsody

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

Feels like seeing Queen in concert.  A moving tale of loneliness, despair, and semi-redemption.

image by Yasir72.multan