Once

If you are in the mood for a movie that has the capacity to melt the core of you, go see once.

A Short Summary:

An Irish singer songwriter (Glen Hansard) passionately tells the story of heartbreak on the streets of Dublin. While singing to nobody in the night on the edge of a Dublin ally a beautiful woman (Marketa Irglova) approaches him and is taken in by his melodies. Finding that he is a "hoover fixer guy", she asks him (who in the movie is unnamed, as is she) if he might fix her vaccum.

This interaction is the begining of possibly the most mezmorizing, no, emotionally magnificent film I have ever scene. The movie turns out to be a giant music video/musical. The distinction is slight since each significant piece of the story is told through song but (thank Jesus) not the unnatural, odd and purely fantistical kind of song that accompanied what has been called the "musical." Rather, the story follows the production of a record writen collaboratively by the guy and the girl in the film which tells thier own individual stories of broken relationships. It reinvents the musical and will forever set the bar for any film that attempts to tell a story through music enacted by its leads.

As an aside, if you don't like Damien Rice, and think another Irish singer-songwriter will ruin a potentially good idea, repent and go see the film. Damien Rice has nothing on Glen.

Without giving up the end I must say, there is great redemption for an emotive indi film. You wont leave wanting to die. Well, you will, but in a good way.

My rating:

Triple Mocha

I Am Living

I am not dead. Simply stated, summer got busy, priorities were made and blogging fell very far down the list. I'm now going to see about making a habit of it. Writing hasn't ever been something I did as a discipline but rather an event that happened when, like Wordsworth, there was some "overflow of powerful feelings." I don't write anything like that guy but I do want to write more. This I shall try.

I Confess, Also

My own set. I'm new here so I thought I should just jump right on in. Plus I was inspi-red.

I Confess: The only truly good theology is done on the knees. Tozer used to read shakespere on his knees praying he would understand truth, I haven't been able to get that out of my mind for years.

I Confess: I've learned more theology from various pastors of my history than professors of my present, with an exception or two

I Confess: (With the rest that...) I've learned more theology from Advanced Writing with Domani Pothen than any of my theology or bible classes

I Confess: I'm certainly more Pentecostal than not in theology, I want that to effect my practice more

I Confess: My favorite book is The Great Divorce, I'm not sure what kind of theology it teaches

I Confess: I will only read all of something if it is life-giving and if it is it might hit too hard for me to ever finish

I Confess: I love the church a lot, I have been called a pastor and I'm still not sure what that even means

I Confess: Theologians sometimes make me afraid of dying

I Confess: The Chinese church is growing by 30,000 people a day, I wonder what theologians are their favorite.

Sages

If you want to read a book that will more than likely challange some assumptions and speak from a different tradition than the most of us (staunchly Pentacostal) read "The Divine Confrontation: Birth Pangs of the New Church," by Graham Cooke. He speaks a language I wish I could, not the best writer persay, but he has a certain authority and what he says hits me somewhere in the parts of my soul I want to be softer.

I was wondering to myself why this might be, what makes those people I call sages, sages after all. I think sages say things that are true almost all of the time. It's not academic mind you, the best sages I know got that way through means that are entirely outside the academy, they know some different paths.

Here are a couple things I've noticed about sages:

1. They wait to learn
Graham cooke said once that he doesn't teach something until two years after he learns it. I know another woman, definately sagely, who doesn't speak about a thing until considering it for two weeks. Something to ponder.

2. They speak for the listener
These people invariably know more than the person hearing them and if they were to unload all the truth they possessed it would kill the person who was listening, so they speak just enough to change today for those who sit at thier feet.

3. The Man tries to get them down
Since so much of what they possess doesn't come from "the man," said man often has a less than favorable view of what they can teach.

4. They don't take themselves too seriously
I took this one from Adam Macinturf, his post "I confess." He said that after reading the catcher and the rye, he didn't wan't to take himself too seriously, every sage I've met is just like that.

5. They follow better sages
I confess my belief that Jesus is the first and best sage, all the people I've met in this catagory learn thier stuff from him and other sages who know him better than themselves.

Upon consideration I think a better title for these people might be Prophet.

Spiritual Depression

I've been reading a book lately by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called "Spiritual Depression." He's a preacher from the old school. Meaning, your life gets changed whenever he opens his mouth. His ministry was in London at the Westminister Chapel where he retired in 1968. People have said of his preaching that at the end of a sermon he would never say "thus sayith the Lord," but not a person in the room would have viewed it any other way.

The book deals with the generally unhappy state that Lloyd-Jones observed in so many believers, which he saw to be a great reason that nobody would want to be a Christian. His desire was that the joy that characterized the early church would be seen in evangelicalism now.

I heard about this book a long time ago and a friend of mine had bought it for me. I tried to read it during a particularly depressed point in my life but I didn't feel like reading. This time round, when my mind is a bit lighter, it has connected with me very deeply.

In the first chapter of the book a text is considered:

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me?
hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance."

Psalm 42.5

Lloyd-Jones points out that the psalmist preaches to himself. That wasn't a new idea to me but it struck me this time when it hadn't before. I can speak truth to myself that is truer than what I feel. He says later that truth begins as an idea presented to our minds that works in relationship with our heart and will. It's simple enough, I just hadn't considered preaching to myself in my present need.

I know that in my times of greatest deppression I can't think a straight thought and the confused murmur moves to a loud hum finishing in a rock concert crechendo of lies. Things I knew become things I don't and things I never believed to be true become very plausible. The bible calls Satan an accuser and the father of lies. If I'm aggreeing with what I hear when no words are clear to me I become partner with Satan in his work against me; not even my state of being is above the truth.

I always thought that statements of truth made in times of confusion were weak and simple, unhelpful and a spiritual mask, even spoken by myself to myself. Sometimes I suppose that's true, when they come from a shallow unwillingness to see reality. All the talk about suffering in Hebrews and the ability of Jesus to speak into it make much more sense to me. Words that are true in suffering can only really come from those who have suffered, especially to the point of shedding blood. In that case, if I can speak the least word of authentic truth to a person in the desert because of those I've had to pass through, praise God!