1. A few bits from the editorial “Summoned Lives” by David Brooks last week, in which he compares two ways of life: The Well-Planned Life (endorsed, ironically – or not so ironically – by a “serious Christian”) and The Summoned Life. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which one we gravitate toward:
“People who think in this [Summoned Life] mode are skeptical that business models can be applied to other realms of life. Business is about making choices that maximize utility. But the most important features of the human landscape are commitments that precede choice — commitments to family, nation, faith or some cause. These commitments defy the logic of cost and benefit, investment and return.
The person leading the Well-Planned Life emphasizes individual agency, and asks, “What should I do?” The person leading the Summoned Life emphasizes the context, and asks, “What are my circumstances asking me to do?”
In America, we have been taught to admire the lone free agent who creates new worlds. But for the person leading the Summoned Life, the individual is small and the context is large. Life comes to a point not when the individual project is complete but when the self dissolves into a larger purpose and cause.
2. In the Wall Street Journal, 1986 Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden, a childhood hero of mine, reflecting on his career and the problem of internal and external expectations (ht WDR):
“I’ve done both,” Mr. Gooden said. “I’ve said, ‘I should have taken better care of myself off the field. Maybe if I had done this more. Maybe if there were pitch counts.’ Stuff like that. But, you know, you have to give yourself credit on the things you did accomplish. That was part of my problem: beating myself up, trying to live up to others expectations, and living up to my own expectations.
3. The wonderful discussion in our recent post notwithstanding, John Shore on The Huffington Post sums up many of this blogger’s sentiments about Anne Rice’s recent “announcement”: Yaaaaawn.
4. Robert Duvall gave a fascinating interview to Christianity Today about his new film Get Low, where he also talks about The Apostle, his own faith, Mbird hero/screenwriter Horton Foote (Tender Mercies, To Kill a Mbird) and Hollywood’s attitude toward Christians. According to Duvall (ht RF):
Get Low is one of my favorite films in a long time and a wonderful character. “Get low”—I don’t even know what that means. I guess it means to get low for Jesus before it’s time. Keep above the ground before you go below the ground.
5. Talk to anyone who’s had contact with any of our nation’s so-called “Christian colleges” in the past ten years and you will hear about a rather disturbing trend (at least for those of us who consider ourselves convinced/committed Protestants): almost without exception, these institutions have become veritable factories of Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy. The cynic in me is tempted to reduce it all to psychological factors, reactions and counter-reactions to Law-heavy, anti-intellectual Bible church upbringings combined with a big dose of daddy-issues, but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling. Jonathan Fitzgerald takes a thoughtful look at the phenomenon here.
6. Along similar lines, from gawker a few weeks back, an amusing update from the world of modern-day asceticism/Pharisaism known as Portland, Oregon, entitled Portland, Oregon: Backlash Capital of the World.
7. Finally, at the risk of PZ/nepotistic overload, “The Age of Anxiety AKA Two Fugitives on Their Way to the Same Place” appeared yesterday over at mardecortesbaja and really is worth your time. It’s a stunning look at the parallels between Akira Kurosawa’s 1955 film I Live In Fear and Roberto Rossellini’s 1952 film Europa ’51. Important note: the ultra-hard-to-find Europa ’51 is showing this evening on TCM – don’t miss it!
P.S. The LOST epilogue just dropped online!
COMMENTS
12 responses to “Another Week Ends: Summoned Lives, Dwight Gooden, Anne Rice, Getting Low, Swimming the Tiber, Kurosawa and Rossellini”
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Hey, thank you for the kind words re: my take on the Anne Rice thing. You guys have been great to me. I sure appreciate it.
Hey JS, your piece on Anne Rice was especially great, a standout in one of DZ's best weekly roundups yet.
I am just going to focus on the Robert Duvall interview, which made me so freakin happy. A few thoughts:
First, I can't urge EVERYONE at Mockingbird to watch TENDER MERCIES and THE APOSTLE, both mentioned in the interview. These are simply two of the great movies made in the last 30 years. An absolutely lovely Robert Duvall sleeper not mentioned is RAMBLING ROSE.
Second, I was struck by Duvall's gentle but firm opposition to approaching storytelling as a vehicle for "messages". Thank God. Whether it is secular filmmakers lecturing us on their Agenda of the Day, or Christian filmmakers or critics intellectually reducing a movie to a gospel slogan (which then gives us permission to like it), we need more people like Duvall willing to embrace the strange nonverbal unconscious realm in which great art always operates.
Finally, I wish the Christianity Today author had been willing to explore why it was that some people did indeed see THE APOSTLE as an attack on Christianity. Part of it I think is what I just mentioned — this mania for hunting for messages, verbal propositions you can wrap your hands around and take home after the movie. But the deeper reason is the extent to which almost no one out there really understands the extent to which a man can be thoroughly messed up, always standing on the brink of a huge Fall and utter moral catastrophe, and yet be 100% at the same time in the hands of a Living God who loves him and to whom he belongs utterly.
Living in NYC I can confirm that the Kings College either produces hard-core pelagians (those are the less thoughtful of the bunch and usually attend Trinity/Grace)or hard-core Roman Catholics (the honor students). This particular line in the article made me very angry:
"Croslow’s belief that the Catholic Church most accurately reflects the intentions of the early church fathers is echoed throughout the movement as other evangelicals seek a church whose roots run deeper than the Reformation."
The problem I have found is that NONE of these kids have ever heard the real message of the Reformation in their life and neither has most of their faculty. Therefore Peter Kreft is an intellectual God on that campus. They are all coming out of brain dead mega-churchs with Pope/Pastor Billy leading the way or hard-core, type A, 45 point Calvinism.
The real tragedy is not that they have converted to Catholicism and dislike the teachings of the Reformation, but that they think they have have rejected the Reformation without ever truly hearing it.
Jake, what a thoughtful and perceptive comment. You are so on target.
I thought a telling comment was “If Saint Augustine showed up today, could we seriously think that he’d attend a Southern Baptist church in Houston?”
That's the big problem: a lot of these people equate Protestantism with the sort of complete historical amnesia you might find in megachurches.
But of course almost all the great Protestant thinkers had a huge love and knowledge of Christian thought predating the 1500s.
The problem in a way is this, at least in America: if you want a church that is deeply intellectually engaged, serious about its commitment to the entire history of Christian thought, really believes the Creeds, there's only one visible option NOW clearly flying its flag and that's the RCs. The Protestants today are either mainline liberals (compare the creedal abandonment and low intellectual quality of Spong, say, with Pope Benedict or the fellows at First Things) — or they are megachurches with again low intellectual quality and historical amnesia). Even the neo-Reformation types are constantly booting teachers who suggest that God's act of creation might be consistent with human evolution.
Of course, 50 years ago that was NOT the case. Back then there were all kinds of deeply thoughtful, literate, creedal Protestants and more to the point they embodied a VISIBLE Christian tradition and institution. No longer.
Just want to put a plug in for "Lonesome Dove," my favorite Robert Duvall film. This 6-hour mini-series from 1989 (?) is a masterpiece, consistently rated as one of the top westerns of all-time. Duvall was born to play the role of Augustus McCrae.
He's not bad in "The Godfather" either…
I actually know someone currently attending King's College, but he has the sense to go this the great Episcopal Church I know just off Gramercy Park….
It's true that many christian college students are becoming catholic/eastern, but the most disheartening story for me is just how many simply leave the faith altogether.
Colton, I came here to post after reading that CT interview to say exactly the same thing– Lonesome Dove! Amazing. I love how Duvall chose Gus McCrae as his favorite character of all time. Such a great movie– I highly recommend watching it, especially with your Grandpa and some cheap beer. 🙂
A third cheer for Lonesome Dove! I saw it for the first time last year, and was just blown away. The character of Gus McCrae is tattooed on my heart.
I am glad everyone here loves Lonesome Dove is much as they do. Robert Duvall is indeed wonderful in it — along with some other amazing performances.
And best of all, the STORY is great, and long. You have an opportunity here to fall into a world for almost 400 minutes!
As good as the Lonesome Dove series was, might I put in a plug for reading the Larry McMurtry novel on which it's based? Some of the finest fiction I've ever read.
Tom, I've heard the novel is splendid. I've had it sitting next to my bed for over a year, but I'm in a book club that keeps me hopping. I WILL get around to reading it!
Hey Stamper, I just went back to read the comment you made about Duvall and I wanted to comment a bit…
It's true that the reduction of art to a logocentric "message" strips art of its unique power and that good art always works on the participant (audience/reader) within the subconscious and sub-rational realm. But that does not mean that art itself is devoid of a message or irrational by nature. Even if the art is open ended, it still poses some question or statement which demands a response. Meaning needs a reader to exist, but it is still occasioned by a "text" which only has a range of given possibilities.
What do you think?