Movie Review: Into Great Silence

But--if you cannot give us ease--

Last of the race of them who grieve

Here leave us to die out with these

Last of the people who believe!

Silent, while the years engrave the brow;

Silent--the best are silent now.

-Matthew Arnold, "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse"

Into Great Silence is an experience of monkish life at the Grande Chartreuse monastery high in the French Alps. This is not an easy film for contemporary people to watch because, true to its name, it is mostly a silent film. There is little to no dialogue and what plot there is must be supplied by the viewer. Indeed, the filmmaker added no music and used no artificial light in the film. What you see is what you get, in a sparse and importantly rhetorical way. The film is as stripped down as the lives of the monks, but it manages to capture the appeal of leaving behind what is no longer needed and embracing the grace and beauty that already surrounds you. For more on the filmmaker, Philip Gröning, see this excellent review.

Indeed, the opening sequences are so full of silence and stillness that it was almost painful. Although Kathy and I both sat down to watch it, only I was able to finish it, and that at some considerable exertion of will power. Of course, that may not sound like a recommendation, but I'm really glad I watched this film. It is both contemplative and sobering, still and silent in some deep way that most of contemporary life is no longer capable of recreating. In fact, I was struck by the depth of the religious commitment possessed by these men and I realized how little faith I have and how little discipline and how little consciousness of beauty.

Most of the time the monks are filmed in their rooms, reading, studying, praying. One gathers from the film that their whole life passes between reading, eating, studying, praying, and working. This doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. Interspersed toward the end of the film are shots of the monks standing quietly in front of the camera. What is striking is how young their eyes look in these shots - much younger than most of the eyes encountered these days in contemporary settings.

The best scene of the film is a few minutes of the monks sledding down a freshly snow-covered mountain. The effect of the silence of the monks' lives is reinforced by the fact that all of the sounds experienced there are strikingly natural. It is a world where tools make noise, but not machines. Rain dropping on the roof. Wind blowing. The stream rolling down the mountain. A monk chopping wood. A monk gardening. And so on. The only artificial sound in the whole film, really, is the ringing of a church bell, but somehow it feels like such a natural and fitting sound for the landscape and the architecture. The sounds fit the place and they seem to break up the silence just perfectly.

The simplicity of their lives is astounding and the depth of their spiritual life in solitude and contemplation is inspiring. It really makes you wonder how little you could get by on. Maybe a wood burning stove, a couple of books, a chair, a table, and a bed. And work. Of course, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of family life and women are completely absent in the film, which for me, ultimately means I could never choose this monkish existence. However, it led me to question Hume's assertion that the monkish virtues are more vice than virtue. His claim is that the active life is better than the life of contemplation and solitude. Of course, contemplation and solitude is what we have too little of in this world of ours, and this film reminds the viewer that choosing to live without these virtues is at best to lose something essential in the human experience.

The final scenes of the film are an interview of sorts with a blind monk who talks about the emptiness of modern life and reinforces the grace and gratitude that should prevail in the human experience, gratitude to God for the beauty of the earth and the simple life. One of the best moments in the film comes earlier. The image on the screen is that of an old cloister hallway with sunlight streaming in. One of the monks is speaking to their weekly sabbath gathering:

Consider the analogy of the sunbeam:

Whoever feels its kindly light rejoices

as if the sun existed for him alone,

yet it illuminates land and sea

and is master of the atmosphere.

In the same way,

the spirit is given to each one

who receives him

as if he were the possession

of that person alone.

Christmas Sermon, 2011

Good morning Brothers and Sisters. Merry Christmas!

Christmas is truly a wonderful time of year. It comes, of course, in a time of darkness. This time of year, especially in Minnesota, we wake up and it’s dark outside. Many of us leave for work or school in the dark and return home again in the evening – again in the dark. Christmas is a celebration of light in a time of darkness. Christmas is a celebration of life in a time of death. Christmas is a reminder that God is not dead nor doth he sleep!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)

Christmas is a celebration of the coming of the Son of God. “God has come among us. He will come again. We remember and rejoice” (Faulconer). The coming of Christ into the world means that each of us can be saved from the darkness, sin, and death of this world. The coming of Christ, which we celebrate at Christmas, means that each of us can be redeemed from the fall of man – the fall that brought darkness into every one of our lives in the form our eventual death and the separation of our spirit from the Father.

The scriptures are full of prophecies about the coming of Christ into the world. Prophets from Adam and Alma to Zenos and Zenock, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob – all these testified that Christ would come into the world and save all mankind who believe on Him.

This morning I would like to call your attention to two prophecies of the coming of Christ, both made by women, both recorded in the first chapter of Luke.

It is there we hear the story of the angel Gabriel visiting Zacharias and Mary, announcing the coming of two babies: John the Baptist – an Elias, cousin and forerunner to the other baby, JESUS.

After the Anunciation, Mary

. . . Arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;

And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth [the mother of John the Baptist].

And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. (Luke 1:39-45).

I want to pause on the image of John the Baptist leaping in the womb for joy! At the sound of the voice of Mother Mary, the baby heard and rejoiced. We too must rejoice when we hear the news of Christ’s coming.

As Jim Faulconer has written:

For some of us the joy of those good tidings came in a flash, sometimes a moment of surprise, sometimes a moment long hoped and prayed for. For others the light of Bethlehem’s star came into our lives gradually, growing almost unnoticed, but no less real. Others still wait to hear the angel’s voice and see the promised star, hoping and remembering Bethlehem in that hope to hear its tidings for themselves. The voice of the angel, of Mary, and Elisabeth is unto all!

The angel’s tidings, like the voice of God, are that God himself, the Creator of the world, has become one of us. He is not far away. He is not absolutely other than us, inaccessible to our pains and fears. He came into the world as we do, a helpless creature of flesh. He left it in death as we do, failing flesh. The Light of the World, its Beginning and End, has come and will come. He is with us, and being with us he would save us from sin.

Directly following the leap of the baby who would become John the Baptist we hear the voice of Mary:

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts

He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever. (Luke 1: 46-55)

The coming of Christ into the world was like the coming of no other King. As Mary said, the might of this King was his mercy. Instead of gathering the proud and exalting the rich and powerful, this King brought a new kind of community, a community and church of charity. This community exalted them of low degree, put down the mighty from their seats, and scattered the proud, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away.

“The coming of the Lord’s justice and succor is so sure that Mary’s psalm speaks of it as if it had already happened: God recognizes those whom we do not, and they praise him for the good things he does for them.” (Jim Faulconer)

The message is for all of us. The coming of Christ into the world is for all of us. The invitation is for us to REPENT AND REJOICE!

Today we celebrate the first coming of Christ into the world. This coming was attended by angels, shepherds, wise men from the east, all of whom testified that a Savior was born into the world. Now we await a second coming of our Savior into the world, a coming just as glorious and powerful as His birth in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago.

Jesus, once of humble birth,

Now in glory comes to earth.

Once he suffered grief and pain,

Now he comes on earth to reign.

Now he comes on earth to reign.

Once a meek and lowly Lamb,

Now the Lord, the Great I Am.

Once upon the cross he bowed;

Now his chariot is the cloud.

Now his chariot is the cloud.

God has come among us. He will come again. Today we celebrate His first coming. Tomorrow we will welcome Him when He comes again – like a thief in the night. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Durham Cathedral

Prisoners of Literacy

For the last five hundred years we have been reading more and more - publishing more and more. Both of these developments have had an immeasurably profound effect on our politics, religion, technology, economy, and society. In short, our whole culture was transformed with the invention of movable typography. The development of typographic man has been admirably traced by many scholars from Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg Galaxy and Febvre, Martin, & Gerard's The Coming of the Book.

As the argument goes, a fundamental transformation in the ordering of our senses emerged from typography such that we have come to rely on vision as our dominant sense - hence, seeing is believing, but also we have come to develop ever new and inventive ways of extending our nervous system into space with vision as the dominant sense in any ratio of the senses. This is accomplished not only with cameras in remote and diverse places, but also the network of computers that make publishing this blog possible. It would be easy to say that the invention of movable type printing transformed the way we communicate - but it is important to remember that these changes were not simple linear developments and they included a devaluation of speech as well as the power inherent in our entire bodies to communicate messages to others.

Walter Ong captured some of these changes in his masterful The Presence of the Word. Building obviously and purposefully on St. John's discussion of the Word made flesh in his gospel, Ong seeks to show the ways the western mind is severely limited by uncritical reliance on typography and takes pains to show how important it is to appreciate the power of speech and sound in communication. He writes,

Sound is more real or existential than other sense objects, despite the fact that it is also more evanescent. Sound itself is related to present actuality rather than to past or future. It must emanate from a source here and now discernibly active, with the result that involvement with sound is involvement with the present, with here-and-now existence and activity. . . .

Presence does not irrupt into voice. One cannot have voice without presence, at least suggested presence. And voice, as will be seen, being the paradigm of all sound for man, sound itself thus of itself suggests presence. Voice is not inhabited by presence as by something added: it simply conveys presence as nothing else does. . . .

That is to say, the spoken word does have more power than the written to do what the word is meant to do, to communicate. We are inclined to think of writing in terms of the very specially gifted and specially trained individuals, professional writers or literary artists who can use writing often in specially controlled or limited circumstances, in truly exceptional ways. We are also likely to forget how very small part of spoken speech can be put into writing that makes sense (111-2, 114-5).

It is not simply that all of this writing and reading brought on by the tremendous increase in publishing since 1455 have been a benefit to humanity. They have also led us to develop our minds and cultures in particular ways - ways that both liberate and constrain us. To be sure, Typographic Man is by no means dead, but he is gradually being made redundant by Digital Man whose tastes tend toward the cinematic-televisual available by way of the personal, handheld communication device and the changes wrought by this new character remain to be seen, but they will be no less profound or deep in terms of the overall picture of humanity five hundred years hence.

What I hope is never lost is the passionate orator in the flesh appealing with voice and body to a multitude of embodied auditors . . .

Seared Walleye

Thanks to Kathy I had a long lunch today. We went out to the New Scenic Cafe, my favorite restaurant in Duluth, to celebrate our anniversary. (Happy Anniversary, Kathy! Thanks for the many good years.) Fourteen years can go by in the blink of eye, I assure you. In any event, we enjoyed the pistachio encrusted goat cheese salad. I had a seared walleye sandwich on cranberry sourdough - Kathy had a nearly identical sandwich with chicken instead of fish. We followed up by sharing a creme broule and a triple berry pie with ice cream. The walleye was perfectly prepared and everything else was fantastic.

The New Scenic Cafe is across the street from a glorious view of Lake Superior. It was a cold day, but the sun was shining very bright off the lake. Inside, the cafe is decorated in traditional Northern Minnesota decor - lots of light wood on the walls and table tops, some birch and willow branches near the windows, and some funky chandeliers. The service is always good, but, as my friend Ryan pointed out today, one goes to the Scenic for the food - it is always delicious!

The best part, however, was the woman. There's a line from C.S. Lewis' essay, "Meditations in a Toolshed," where he says that when you've really found the one you love it's obvious because fifteen minutes of idle chit-chat with her is worth more than all the favors that all the other women alive could do for you. That sums up perfectly how I feel about Kathy. There are many things I adore about her ~ and I won't go into all of them here ~ but the best thing is how easy it is to be around her, to talk with her, and to spend time with her. I'm glad that she's given me the best part of fourteen years and I hope we'll have many more together.

Ring Out, Wild Bells - Christmas Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler forms of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old;

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Delusions & Commitments

Of all the books I've read in the last year or so, one of the best was David Bentley Hart's Atheist Delusions. Hart is an Orthodox theologian of immense historical knowledge and logical skill. One of my friends recently remarked that he thought Hart had written a book about the positive contributions of Christianity to culture and politics - and then, as an afterthought, or by way of a persuasive editor, tacked on a critique of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. I think that's probably true, although it's difficult for me to say which of the two parts comprising this book I like more. I find the critique of new atheist arguments compelling and immensely entertaining, but I am particularly enthusiastic about Hart's claims concerning the political implications of Christian doctrine.

Alas, I don't have time for a full review of this book now, but I want to point you to Hart's recent article, Believe It Or Not, in First Things. This picks up a number of his arguments from Atheist Delusions, but goes even farther in with respect to criticizing new atheist logic. Hart's style is a bit abrasive, meant I think to match the style of the new atheists, and his critiques withering, but knowledge and logic give one confidence, I suppose.

One of the things that stands out to me in the article is Hart's confident assertion of the positive role traditional Christianity played in shaping contemporary notions of liberty and equality. Another point, perhaps more powerful in the book length argument, is the positive role that Christianity played in shaping western notions of science. The thing that we should take away from all of this is the realization that religion is probably not going to go away - precisely because humans want their lives to have meaning, to be meaningful, and we shall probably never develop a scientific way of understanding religion - because religion, as it's lived and experienced, is primarily hermeneutic. Science is very good for discovering some kinds of truth, but making and understanding meaning is not one of them.

Another crucial point that Hart makes is that most of what atheists argue against is nothing at all what religious people believe. In this sense, many of the arguments against God are often arguments against a particular version of God that no one believes in. Thus Hart:

But something worse than mere misunderstanding lies at the base of Dawkins’ own special version of the argument from infinite regress—a version in which he takes a pride of almost maternal fierceness. Any “being,” he asserts, capable of exercising total control over the universe would have to be an extremely complex being, and because we know that complex beings must evolve from simpler beings and that the probability of a being as complex as that evolving is vanishingly minute, it is almost certain that no God exists. Q.E.D. But, of course, this scarcely rises to the level of nonsense. We can all happily concede that no complex, ubiquitous, omniscient, and omnipotent superbeing, inhabiting the physical cosmos and subject to the rules of evolution, exists. But who has ever suggested the contrary?

It's also refreshing that Hart is willing to grant nearly everything to serious-minded atheists, but what he feels compelled to reject are half-hearted or dogmatic believers in nothing who want to live with few serious commitments. For this reason, he recommends Nietzsche as the kind of atheist to be - one who understands full and well the deep import and meaning offered by Christianity, but still rejects it, rather than the kind that superficially and wrongly defines Christianity then turns away to their own dogmatic assertions that there is no God as if this constituted an argument against dogmatic religious belief.

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