7 Quick Takes: Shakespearean Edition

Blogging Challenge: Day 5

1. I mentioned that this is the Summer of Shakespeare at our house.  Last night I got the chance to see the production of King Lear that my husband is performing in for the third time.  Incredible play, incredible production.  I wasn't that familiar with Lear, though I saw it once a few years ago at the big repertory theatre in town.  This recent production has so much more impact.  Part of that is packing a gigantic Shakespearean tragedy into a tiny 60-seat store-front theatre, but much more of it has to do with the performances, directing and design.

2.  Speaking of Lear, my new idea is to write something (maybe a short play, maybe a novella) inspired by Lear about a family struggling with the challenges of an elderly parent with early to mid stage dementia.  I've been around those particular challenges quite a bit in my almost three years working at a retirement community, and in seeing the play these past few times have recognized a lot of very common family dynamics that often result.  My husband's production allowed the characters of Gonneril and Reagan, Lear's eldest daughters, to be a little more sympathetic than in most productions, emphasizing the strain that their father's past abuse and current mental health have put on them.  It would be interesting to explore further.

3. My husband has also started rehearsals for a production of Hamlet that will take place at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum.  This venue is a replica of a classical Italian villa, with an enclosed courtyard and extensive gardens.  It's an incredible setting for the play, and it really sounds like they are taking advantage of the distinctive features of the building and grounds in their staging.  I'm excited.

4. Shakespeare project #3 is a short film adaptation of Richard II, one of the lesser-known and seldom performed histories.  My husband is playing Harry Percy, who in later plays is known as Hotspur.  My favorite history is Henry IV, Part I in which the fiery, somewhat rash, but brave and passionate Hotspur is defeated in his quest for the crown by Prince Hal, the lazy, smug wastrel who later becomes Henry V, of "Crispin's Day" fame.  Or at least that's my read on the play.  Other interpretations have something to do with Hal's development into a king and hero, blahblahblah.  HOTSPUR.

5.  We're currently watching "Slings and Arrows," a Canadian TV show that ran from 2003-2006.  The story centers around a Shakespearean theatre festival (inspired by the Stratford Festival in Ontario) and the various people that make up its little community: actors, administrators, corporate sponsors, critics.  I've seen it before, but it's just as good the second or third time around.  It's whip-smart and hilarious - each season is built around the production of one of Shakespeare's major tragedies, and themes from the play being produced shape the plot.  Highly recommended.

6.  Has anyone seen the new Joss Whedon Much Ado About Nothing yet?  We were excited about it but haven't found the time, and now I'm afraid it's probably gone from our local art house theatre.  I was in a student production of Much Ado in high school and loved the Branagh film adaptation, but have never seen it professionally staged.  I'm curious to see what a director who has spent most of his time on vampires and superheroes will do with it.  To be fair, superheroes are awesome and The Avengers was one of the best superhero movies of all time.

7.  For a few years, Milwaukee had its own professional theatre company focusing on Shakespeare's works.  Then the funding was pulled for one of its major grants, and it folded.  It was discouraging when it happened, but in the last few years a number of Milwaukee theatre companies have risen up to fill the void.  Clearly we as a city have a passion for classical theatre.  One of our most active local critics recently wrote on his blog that he had seen 4 Shakespeare productions in 8 days.  Just another sign of the way the arts are exploding in our beautiful city.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Too Many Doors

Blogging Challenge: Day 4

I heard once that, according to the principles of Feng Shui, it's bad to have too many entrances to an office space.  I'm guessing it has to do with energy escaping or the flow of chi or something.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1905

Whether or not you give any credence to Feng Shui, I can personally attest to the fact that working in a room that sits at a sort of public crossroads is not ideal.  My work space adjoins three other offices and the hallway, and I also serve as the gatekeeper for the CEO.  This means that there is a steady flow of traffic through my office, plus a constant multi-layer buzz of noise and activity coming from the adjoining offices.

My boss has sometimes called me "the water cooler" because my coworkers have a tendency to gather in little gaggles in front of my desk and chat.

Some people would probably love being at the center of things and always up on the latest office gossip, but this work environment leaves an introvert like me feeling jumpy and exhausted by the end of the day.  It makes me less productive, too - I need a certain amount of quiet and privacy in order to focus and do my job well.  I often wish my office had fewer open doors.

Pope Francis has talked a lot, directly and indirectly, about opening doors.  Here he is in one of his homilies back in May: 

We think today of Jesus, who always wants us all to be closer to Him, we think of the Holy People of God, a simple people, who want to get closer to Jesus and we think of so many Christians of goodwill who are wrong and that instead of opening a door they close the door of goodwill ... So we ask the Lord that all those who come to the Church find the doors open, find the doors open, open to meet this love of Jesus. We ask this grace. 

This is an important message, especially in an era when tribalism and "us vs. them" seems to be the prevailing narrative. It's good to be reminded that, when it comes to reaching out in love, the Church can't possibly open too many doors. 

However, I think the way in which each of us individually opens the doors of his heart will look different.

I've been thinking about this as I read coverage of WYD.  Pope Francis is becoming notorious for giving his handlers and security people headaches by, essentially, opening doors - seeking out closer contact with those he meets and making impromptu changes to his schedule in order to reach more people.

One example was his last-minute addition of a pilgrimage to Aparecida on what was scheduled to be a day of rest without any scheduled commitments on Benedict's original itinerary.

This change may relate partially to the difference in physical health between Benedict and Francis, but it probably also has something to do with their personalities.  As an introvert, Benedict's self-knowledge and prudence would lead him to plan in the appropriate amount of rest and time alone to allow him to be fully present and effective as a loving pastor.

As an introvert, I know that I become less effective and less able to deal with people calmly and helpfully if  I'm working in an environment with constant interpersonal interactions.  They wear me out and don't allow me to recharge.  The same applies more broadly to the Christian life and my personal pursuit of holiness.  Although it is my responsibility to push my comfort level to a certain extent, it is also my responsibility to work with my personality, both strengths and weaknesses, to determine how I can live out my calling as a disciple of Christ most effectively.

At this point, I'm about ready to sock anyone who implies that Benedict is less loving and open than Francis.  But that doesn't mean the two of them won't come across differently, or that some people might respond differently to their distinct personalities.  As Simcha Fisher noted recently, none of us is the whole Church, and something one person doesn't respond to might be just what another needs to hear.

We need to recognize how each of our two recent Popes, in his own unique way, opens the door to God's love.

All the Books

Blogging Challenge: Day 3
 

Sometimes I'm afraid that I've read all the books.

It's not that I think I've read all the good books.  I've read quite a few of the great classics of the western canon, but there are many, many more that I haven't read.  Most of Dickens for instance.  Or, you know...Madame Bovary. 

It's not that I think I've read every book I'll ever like, either.  I just finished a recently-written, Pulitzer-winning novel about an immigrant family from India and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It wasn't a classic or a work of genius, but it was well-written and a good read.

It's more a fear that I've read all the books that will ever be my favorites.  I mean the books that I've read literally dozens of time, that I can practically recite from memory, with characters that feel more real to me than a lot of real people that I've known.  I mean the authors with whom I feel a strange personal connection and who have informed my artistic, philosophical and even spiritual worldviews almost as much as my own parents.

I can't go back and read Til We Have Faces for the first time, or the Confessions, or Brideshead, or Gaudy Night.  I can't re-discover the works of Shakespeare or Gerard Manley Hopkins or Graham Greene.

These books will always be a part of my life.  I'll buy new used paperback copies every few years because mine will have fallen apart and lost their covers.  I'll take them to bed with me when I can't sleep, read them to my kids, lend them to friends.  I'll still cry when I re-read them decades from now.

But it's been quite a few years now since a new book was added to that list.  It almost seems like that chapter (so to speak) of my life is over.  I miss it.

This all sounds kind of morose.  I'd be curious to hear from people a little older than I am about their reading experiences at different stages in their lives.  Did you continue to occasionally have that experience of discovery and kinship with a previously unread author?  Or were you pretty much tapped out by the age of 28, and had to think about reading a little differently?

Review in Five Bullets: Promised Land

 Blogging Challenge: Day 2

Promised Land came out last year, but we just got around to watching it.  It's co-written by John Krasinski and Matt Damon, who also star along with Frances McDormand.  The story follows a representative of Big Natural Gas, Inc. (okay, "Global Solutions") as he makes a preliminary visit to a farming community to try to convince its residents to lease their land for hydraulic drilling for natural gas ("fracking").

• My first reaction on hearing a description of this movie was that it sounded a little dull and preachy.  I wasn't entirely wrong: despite the "twist" at the end (which spoiler etiquette dictates I can't reveal), it followed some pretty well-worn plot tropes and was quite heavy-handed in its message.  My main exposure to the whole fracking controversy has been the documentary Gasland, and I haven't really done any research into opposing viewpoints.  However, unless the doc is based on pure falsehood, it would certainly seem that fracking is at best a risky technology and at worst an environmental and public health catastrophe and a deliberate exploitation of impoverished families for corporate interests.  Still, fictional explorations of ideas like this are always best if they are secondary to great story-telling.
• On the other hand, the protagonist was actually the representative of the "bad guys," and the story of how he got there was pretty compelling.  The fact that the farming lifestyle has become unsustainable and dependent on big industries and government handouts is a heart-breaker of which I wasn't fully aware.  I did find his big conversion at the end to be a little implausible, though.  I can certainly buy that the discovery of unethical practices by your employer might lead you to quit your job, but usually not by way of a beautifully crafted tear-jerker of a speech in front of hundreds of your employer's screwed-over constituents.  But it's the movies, after all.
• Speaking of farming, I wish I was more moved by the tradition of farm life and its place in American history and mythos.  My grandmother grew up on a farm, so it is part of my heritage, even though I've been a city kid all my life.  This movie had a lot of scenes of people talking about their land and how it had been passed down for five generations as well as numerous montages of cows juxtaposed with American flags set to stirring music.  I simply don't respond to that, somehow.
• I'm in no way immune to John Krasinski's charms - in fact, I think what he and Jenna Fischer created on The Office with the Jim/Pam romance is one of the reasons the show has become so iconic.  He's drily funny and deadpan and charming again in this movie, but - sheesh - is he a one-trick pony.  The character might as well have been named Jim.  Except that Jim wasn't such a sanctimonious jerk, so I suppose that required a step outside the memory-foam-levels-of-comfort zone.
• This all sounds like I liked the movie a lot less than I did, which was some.  I particularly liked Matt Damon's performance, with his customary level of craft and nuance.  It really seems like he's due for that big Oscar-winning role one of these days.

The Text

Blogging Challenge: Day 1

At our house the past few months have been dubbed the Summer of Shakespeare.  My husband is working on three different productions of Shakespeare's work - simultaneously - which means we've been absurdly busy but enjoyably steeped in some of the greatest plays ever written.

Forbes Masson as Feste in Michael Boyd’s 2005 

production at the Royal Shakespeare Company

I've seen more live Shakespeare over the years than most people my age, and have always been most affected by productions where the power and beauty of the text itself was given pride of place.

I don't have a problem per se with high production values or even some well-placed spectacle.  The problem is when these things pre-empt, distract from or even mask the power of the text.

Same goes for any given concept or interpretative lens - it has to work within the text rather than fighting against it.   If you're going to set A Midsummer Night's Dream on a lunar colony, you sure better have a textual justification for it.

One of the most powerful productions of Shakespeare I ever saw was in London in 2005 - an RSC production of Twelfth Night (maybe my favorite of the comedies).  There were a lot of things that made the show especially moving, not least the exquisite music played on period instruments.  But one of the things I remember most about it was the way the director chose to highlight the character of Feste, the fool.  It became really his story, almost more than Viola's.  Somehow this was accomplished not by trampling on the text but by drawing out certain things that slip under the radar in a lot of more conventional productions, particularly in Feste's songs.

If done right, productions like that one can honor a centuries-old play and its playwright not by deconstructing but by shedding light on previously hidden facets of the work.

Challenge

I haven't been writing as much as I'd like, so I think I'm going to take on this "7 Posts in 7 Days" challenge.

If you're here for the first time, check out my introduction for what I'm all about.

Healing

Yesterday I went to Cor Jesu, a startlingly cool weekly event organized by the Vocations Director of the archdiocese, some other recently-minted priests, and a gang of Spirit-infused young adults from around Milwaukee.  The concept is perfect in its simplicity: an hour of Eucharistic Adoration, followed by Mass.  The event started small, but over the course of a year or two has outgrown a Newman Center chapel and is now bursting a large church at the seams.

I've been shortchanging my prayer life a little amidst our recent busy-ness, so I was almost viscerally aware of the need for some alone time with Jesus.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you're starving and would eat anything, God sets a gourmet meal in front of you?  That's kind of what this felt like.  For the first time in a pretty spiritually dry few months, He let me feel the intensity of His presence.  Specifically, there seemed to be one word he really wanted me to hear: healing.

I realized that I'd never thought much about what Jesus spent a lot of his time on earth doing: healing people.  I just kept getting hit over the head with how much the world needs this healing right now.  We are individually wounded, and the Body of Christ is wounded by divisions, scandals, and an overall sense of weariness in the face of this age's specific spiritual battles.

This word, healing, just kept coming to the forefront of my meditation all during the hour of Adoration.

Then Mass started, and the Gospel reading was this:

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out
and to cure every disease and every illness.
The names of the Twelve Apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew,
Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot
who betrayed Jesus.

Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Did you catch that?  I didn't at first, and then Cardinal Harvey started his homily.  And it was ALL about healing.  He must have underscored the word healing dozens of time, reminding us that healing was one of the core components of Christ's mission, and that we as his followers are called to be healers as well.  

Often we get really good at imitating the preaching part of Christ's mission, reminding people of the rules, searching out Pharisees to argue with, finding just the right way to drive home a theological zinger.  And this part is important and good.  But it's easy to stop there, to speak the truth and walk away.

That's not what Christ asks of us.  He didn't wait to make sure people fully understood every beautiful and nuanced part of his teaching.  He reached out and touched them.  And after they were strengthened by his touch of healing, some of them were actually strong enough to listen.

Before we talk and teach and confront the world any more, we need to be healers.  We need to be fully present to the world's wounded and diseased in mind, body and spirit, and lay the hands of Christ on them - because he's given us the power to do that!  We can be his hands and his compassionate heart.  Instead of standing at a distance and telling people how they could have prevented getting sick in the first place, we are actually able - and in fact commanded - to lay down next to them, hold them in our arms, and heal them with Christ's miraculous power, which is love.

There's so much more to be said about this, but I'm still processing, and need some time to ponder how I can personally imitate Christ as healer more deeply. 

Four Hands

Photo courtesy L'Osservatore Romano

Recently I got slightly irritated by the way an article of mine was edited before being published in the local diocesan newspaper.  Some of the more theological language had been watered down, and the snipping of just a couple of sentences seemed to me to destroy the continuity and flow I'd worked so hard to achieve.

(I know...just a few short weeks ago I was all kinds of excited about my freelance work, and now I'm already griping about editors.  That must mean I'm a Real Journalist now!)

On Friday, Pope Francis released his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei.  The Pope has called it a "work of four hands," acknowledging that much of the work was completed by his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict.

As I started reading it this morning, I was struck by the fact that Benedict, who is known for his rich, dense, beautifully crafted theological writing, allowed someone else to take over his almost-completed work, rewrite it with complete freedom, and then sign his name to it.  The amount of humility this must have taken is beyond my current spiritual maturity to comprehend.

There is nothing wrong with taking joy in our achievements, or even with the desire to be recognized for the good work we do.  But it's so easy for this desire to go a step too far and become possessiveness, a sense that if our work can't be on our own terms, we'll just sit on our hands.

Here in the 21st century West, we're culturally conditioned to believe that our work belongs to us and even defines us.  And this doesn't just apply to copyright laws and patents.  We're trained to think in terms of whether our work "fulfills" and "actualizes" us and if it doesn't, we deserve a change.

Obviously there is some truth in that, like in a lot of things that can be misleading.  We should use our gifts, and happiness found in our work is one way that God communicates with us that we've found a good way to do that.

However, if we're only asking how our work fulfills us or makes us feel, we might be forgetting the more important questions, like whether our daily work is fulfilling the duties of our primary vocation and is oriented toward the good of others.

Pope Emeritus Benedict has a vastly different set of obligations than us in terms of the scope of his work, but the principle is the same.  None of our work, even the work we are most proud of, is ultimately our own.

Like Niggle's tree, our work can only reach completion and fulfill its true purpose when surrendered to God for the service of His people.

Milwaukee, Listen Up

I'm giving us five years to make something like this happen.

And the timer starts in three, two, one...

Stepping Outside

Following, accompanying Christ, remaining with Him requires a "stepping outside," a stepping beyond. Stepping outside of ourselves, of a tired and routine way of living the faith, of the temptation to withdraw into pre-established patterns that end up closing our horizon to the creative action of God.

-- Pope Francis, First General Audience, March 2013

Some people have a deep urge to help the poor and are tirelessly joyful in that work. For me, this urge is definitely present, but I often don't feel like I have the internal resources to back it up.  A strong tendency to "feel with" people in their pain can sometimes spur me on, but empathy mixed with introversion also means that close proximity to suffering can wear me out.   More often than not, this combo takes me in the wrong direction and makes me reluctant to seek out direct contact with the suffering and needy.

This, of course, is what Pope Francis has been warning us about with all this talk about "stepping outside of ourselves," which is part of the reason I bit the bullet and volunteered at our parish food pantry for the first time this past Saturday.   It's the "fake it 'til you make it" principle - do the things you know to be virtuous even if they don't come naturally, and eventually those actions will transform you into the kind of person who naturally does those things.  As Screwtape so accurately points out, "All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be."

As it turned out, God decided to let me have some training wheels this time around - because I loved it. I felt way more comfortable than I thought I would, and relished the tiny moments of connection as each person came to my station to collect their allotted canned goods.  I realized how much I miss having a job that puts me in contact with people from all the different racial and socio-economic strata of our radically compartmentalized city.

At one point during a brief lull, a little girl came scampering up to me and presented me with a dog-eared deck of cards.  "Do you want to play cards with me?" she asked, grinning shyly.  "I'm sorry, I can't play cards with you right now - I have to work," I said, and then wished I hadn't, because I realized how often she probably hears variations of that.  So many low-wage workers, especially single parents, have to take on multiple jobs just to keep their debts at bay. Kids get stuck at neighborhood day-cares of often questionable legitimacy, or are just left to their own devices.  

So-called "social justice" issues and so-called "family values" issues are so often falsely placed at loggerheads.  Really, they are inextricably linked. The right of the worker to a just wage is, as the Church teaches, a family issue.  A just wage is a family-supporting wage.  If wages are determined by what's best for a corporation instead of what's best for the the family, the family and society suffer.

These, of course, are deep-seated political and societal problems that can only be addressed over time.  In the meanwhile, I'm grateful that my parish offers me the opportunity to "step outside" and serve the poor in direct and concrete ways.

Mothering

This past Sunday, we went to an epic Mass at the Basilica of St. Josephat.  Okay, so all Masses are epic - as the Franciscan provincial who was there so mind-blowingly reminded us, the One who placed the stars in the sky makes himself present at every Mass through the hands of the priest.  But this one was of the no-holds-barred, chant-and-polyphony, choking-on-incense variety that hits you in the face with Heaven.

It was particularly special because it was the first Mass of Thanksgiving for a newly ordained priest.  He had apparently been a Franciscan friar serving at the Basilica for many years prior to receiving the priestly calling, and the joy of his parish family at seeing him offer Mass for the first time was palpable.

The priest who gave the homily was elderly and in a wheelchair, apparently as a result of some long-term, chronic illness.  His topic was the sacrificial nature of the priesthood.  He told the story of the time when he was first struggling to accept this illness and was visited by then-Archbishop Dolan in the hospital.  The Archbishop asked him, "Will you offer this up for me?"  This personal request helped him gain perspective on his suffering, and to understand that suffering as a vital part of his vocation as a priest called to participate in a particular way in Christ's sacrifice.

I've felt for a long time a specific prompting to pray for seminarians and for an increase in holy vocations.  At this Mass, I was struck with the realization that my recent health struggles could be part of that prayer.  Archbishop Dolan asked his question on behalf of Christ, and it is the same question asked of me.

This also fits in with my call to live out my feminine vocation, as described in the work of St. Edith Stein and Blessed John Paul II, especially until God chooses to bless me with biological motherhood.  At the end of the Mass of Thanksgiving, the new priest presented his own mother with the maniturgium, the white cloth wrapped around the new priest's hands during the ordination rite to symbolize the burial cloths of Christ.  The priest's mother takes part in the priest's sacrificial self-gift, offering her son much as the Blessed Mother did.  Through the spiritual motherhood that all women are called to, I can offer my own small sacrifice in unity with the men Christ is calling to renew his Church. 

Ignorance or Bliss

 The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been going through a...let's say...challenging time in its history.  I won't dwell on why, because I don't trust myself to be charitable.  Regardless, it's hard to ignore what resulted: a confused, divided and disaffected local church. 

At this point, although we are still in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, it would seem that the pastoral strengths of now-Cardinal Dolan followed up by the administrative strengths of Archbishop Listecki have enabled us to begin the process of healing and revitalization.  People are flocking to events like this one, which I'll write more about at some point.  There are also great signs of the Holy Spirit at work through our new Vocations Director, including a men's discernment house and an influx of new seminarians who are in love with Christ and can't wait to get into parishes to share the authentic Faith with our demoralized local flock.

But the damage has been done to a certain extent, and it's not going to be an overnight process of renewal.  I was confronted with this reality recently when my boss asked if I would give some administrative help to the pastoral council at his large suburban parish.  I knew I would probably run into some people I didn't agree with, but thought it would at least be interesting to learn a bit about the inner workings of a parish.  So I agreed.

As it turned out, it was one of the most frustrating and disheartening experiences I've ever had in my years of parish involvement. 

Through a lethal combination of misinformation and faulty ideas, the pastor and council seemed hellbent on isolating themselves and their parish from the resources, structures and community of the greater Archdiocese.  The amazing ways in which other parishes are being renewed - through the full and potent realities of the Faith - weren't even on their radar screens.  Instead, their conversation about how to keep parish membership from continuing to slip revolved around empty theological and corporate buzzwords.

One of the most discouraging things I observed involved the different generations present at the meetings. I was unsurprised by the older contingent - those who lived through Vatican II and embraced many aspects of the misinterpretation that followed.  I expected them and know their rhetoric inside-out.

What was really disappointing was the next generation down.  Many members of this group seemed genuinely interested in serving the Church in some way, and didn't have a chip on their shoulder or an axe to grind.  However, their catechesis in the faith had clearly been so saccharine, substance-less and vague that they had no firm footing to even understand, let alone engage with, the doctrinal confusion on display.

I started this blog partly with the intention of drawing attention to signs of hope and renewal among the next generation of Catholics.  But we can't fix problems that we don't acknowledge, and I think poor catechesis is one of the significant barriers standing between enthusiastic young Catholics and what their hearts are truly longing for.

People tend to think of theology as being of secondary importance.  After all, what does it really matter if we understand all those complicated doctrinal ins and outs as long as we love as Jesus loved?  But the catch is that without deep knowledge of who Jesus has revealed himself to be through his Church, we can't enter into an authentic relationship with him and encourage others to do the same.  The New Evangelization has to start within.

Review in Five Bullets: From Up On Poppy Hill

In general, I don't really like cartoons.  Not sure why - as an art form, animated story-telling just doesn't speak to me much.

There are different types of cartoons, of course.  I can't sit through even forty-five seconds of an "adult" cartoon like The Simpsons or Family Guy without feeling inclined to throw a shoe at the TV and curl up in a fetal position mourning the death of Western civilization.  I do like a lot of Pixar films: the animation is clever and skillful and the stories are well-developed and often meaningful.

As for anime, I was first exposed to it in a whole series of negative contexts.  My least favorite English professor at Marquette, a self-professed deconstructionist, made us watch a well-known anime film as part of a first year honors intro to lit class.  I also had a roommate my sophomore year who watched anime on our shared TV almost ceaselessly, including at 4 in the morning when I was trying to sleep.  My dislike for it might be related to these first experiences, or it might be partly cultural - my sensibilities are pretty exclusively Western.

So, the recent Japanese animated film Up On Poppy Hill isn't something I would have anticipated seeing, let alone enjoying.  But enjoy it I did.

The story has two intertwining plot lines: one about a group of students who want to save their dilapidated but historic clubhouse from being demolished, and one about a romance that develops between two of the students against the backdrop of some complicated family history.  Both are very moving in their own right, and are woven together beautifully.

Here are five bullets, in no particular order:

• I really ended up liking the animation itself - the backgrounds were exquisite and rich in detail and color, while the foreground figures were done in a much simpler style.  It kind of reminded me of puppets against a painted backdrop.  Like skilled puppeteers, the animators were able to convey an incredible amount of emotion and character development with simple figures.  There was an occasionally moment of cartoonish-ness, like the chorus of high school students that started weeping loudly over the possible loss of their club house, tears spouting in fountain-like jets from their eyes, or the president of the philosophy club with his gigantic head to match his larger-than-life personality. These moments seemed a little jarring and out of keeping with the overall aesthetic, but were pretty minimal.
• The cultural and historical details of 1963 Japan were also cool - there were extended scenes just showing the central character, a young woman of high school age, going about her daily business: getting up, rolling up her sleeping mat, preparing rice and fresh fish for breakfast.  It made me kind of covetous of the clutter-free, simple and elegant functionality that seemed to be typical of a Japanese home of that period.
• We tend to associate youthful rebellion with a throwing out of traditional values and ways of doing things.  It was interesting that in this story it was the new, post-war, pro-Western government that was looking to leave behind Japan's intellectual and historical heritage, and it was the activist students trying to retrieve and protect this heritage.
• Despite the fact that the high school itself seemed to be co-ed, the clubhouse that formed the hub of political and intellectual life for its students was boys-only when the story opened.  The girls got involved later, but their energies were focused on getting the place cleaned up rather than participating in the student organizations that were housed there.  It was the 60s, I guess - but I sure hope things are different now. 
• The story had a striking innocence about it, which made me realize just how rare that sort of story is in our current cultural climate.  There was no snark, no melodrama, no irony.  At one point a character quotes this from Diogenes: "Humans have complicated every simple gift of the gods."  Something to think about.

Blair on Suburbs and Other Good Stuff

At the endlessly worthwhile Patheos web forum, Peter Blair has an interesting article about my favorite hobbyhorse: The Real Case Against the Suburbs, or, How Ought Christians to Think About the Common Good?

Money quote:

I should note, in closing, that the suburbs are really just a cultural symbol of the larger point we were trying to make. That point was: Bradley was right to suggest that we need more ordinary, God-loving, everyday Christianity. We don’t all have to be radically missional in the sense that some evangelicals promote. But we should not mistake the normal cultural standards of 21st century American life for “ordinary” life. By the standards of both grace and nature, ordinary American life, in many ways, falls far short of what ordinary life should look like. Of course, this gap will always be with us, courtesy of the Fall, but that doesn’t mean that certain cultural arrangements can’t make it bigger or smaller.

Blair mentions several of the points that I talked about in one of my first posts about the importance of shared public spaces in creating authentic community.  He brings up some other interesting points too, including the impact of urban/suburban structures on criminal justice policy.

Another important idea he brings up (and one with broader applications) is the tendency among Christians to have a knee-jerk reaction against theories or lines of thinking perceived as "secular" without actually subjecting them to real intellectual scrutiny.

A kind of aversion to Christian adoption of secular thinking is behind a lot of the more harmful facets of American Christian thought (e.g. continued skepticism of evolution). I am not saying Miller himself is a creationist, only that the kind of language he employs here gives comfort to that kind of thinking. All truth is one, and we shouldn’t hesitate to adopt something just because it has a secular provenance.

 I think this is important to consider, though I would snag another of the phrases that Blair uses and note that often Christians and those in the secular arena are speaking two different "cultural languages" even when they seem to be voicing support for the same theory. 

Relatedly, Blair goes on to caution evangelical Christians like himself against thinking that any position worth holding needs to be boiled down to some specific Biblical text.

An ethics grounded in proof-texting the Bible will always be thin, watered-down, and incomplete. Christians need to engage with the breadth of human learning, and an argument can be quite persuasive and intellectually binding on a Christian even if it does not once mention the Bible.

 Catholics ought in theory to find it easier to avoid this pitfall, since our faith recognizes Tradition as a key part of God's revelation to humanity.  Catholic thought has also been in dialogue with secular scientific and philosophical thought for over two thousand years now, which means we should feel confident engaging these systems on their own turf.  Of course, we can and do subject our Tradition to "proof-texting" as well. Catholics would do well to remember that we have nothing to fear from secular scientific or philosophical inquiry pursued in good faith. There's only one Truth, and any true thing pursued honestly will eventually lead there.

May Day

My husband got a call this week about an acting gig taking part in Sunday's re-enactment of the "Bay View Massacre."  Bay View is a Milwaukee neighborhood just south of downtown.  It's gradually changing into a hipster paradise of  trendy restaurants and record shops, but was historically part of the southside industrial corridor of foundries, steel mills and meat packing plants.  It actually started as a company town for workers at a rolling mill called the Milwaukee Iron Company, and became the center of the workers' rights movement in Wisconsin in the late nineteenth century.

In 1886, thousands of striking workers marched from St. Stanislaus Catholic Church to the mill in Bay View, demanding an 8-hour work day. At the governor's orders, state militia fired on the marchers, killing seven. 

A re-enactment of this event has taken place every year since 1986 at a historical marker where the mill used to be.  The theatre piece itself was highly stylized and involved two ten-foot puppets representing the governor and the labor leader.  A small ensemble of actors marched with signs, chanting:  "This is what we want, no matter what our skill:  8 hours to work, 8 hours to rest, 8 hours for what we will!"  Then each actor stepped forward to remember one of the people who died, speaking as a friend or family member, and draped a red scarf over the monument.

I'm not usually one for heavy-handed symbolism, or the over-theatrical, or puppets.  But this seemed like an appropriate use of all three.  It was very much in the tradition of street theatre in the context of social activism, and I felt connected both to local history and to struggles for fair working conditions still taking place worldwide.  It was surprisingly moving, and I am really glad that this event is being remembered.

Of course the afternoon's program then veered into the political, and I started squirming internally, because I know that many of the politicians who now claim to speak on behalf of workers support laws which are the very definition of injustice. Our political environment in the U.S. tries to force us into one of two boxes, and as Catholics we have an even more difficult time than most resisting this, because of what we know to be at stake.  But, knowing what's at stake, it's all the more important for us to maintain our "both/and" identity - we don't have to choose just one thing to fight for.

St. Joseph the Worker, pray for us.