Burri

I never expected the lesson from a teacher like this.

It is far too easy to forget that we have such great museums in New York. One of them is the Guggenheim museum. On this day it was displaying the work of Alberto Burri, titled The Trauma of Painting. On this day, he became my teacher, and one painting became the lesson.

I wasn't expecting much from the display after the first few exhibits. But then I entered the Sacchi section, and was completely blindsided by one exhibit. I ended up staring at this one painting for the majority of my time at the museum. Even, after leaving the painting, I kept returning to look at it more, diving ever deeper into the movements on the canvas.

The museum described Sacchi below:

 

The particular painting that enraptured me was titled Sacco E Oro (Sack and Gold). Here is the museum description of this piece:

From the Sacchi description above the following sentence struck me as I saw this piece: "Lacerated and threadbare, the material evinces anger and shame, but also vulnerability and dignity."

As I stared at the image I was struck by the voices of anger and shame screaming loudly, and then by the subtle whispers of vulnerability and dignity.

The black spaces, not captured well in the photo below, are not devoid of texture and movement. Instead, they are rough, shiny, dull, smooth, flowing and still all in different ways.

The sack sections are rough, overstitched, pulled tight giving an almost Frankenstein-like appearance of skin. The patch like quality led me to think of skin torn and broken, trying desperately to cover the darkness below, not dissimilar to the rags someone impoverished might wear to keep warm. They spoke of years of pain and wounds stitched up and woven together, but with rough scars remaining.

The red spoke powerfully of a fresh wound, bleeding through, a place of acute pain and anger. Tiny in comparison to the whole painting, but placed in perfect counterpoint to the gold.

The gold spoke of a glorious past, one filled with dignity and prosperity. It spoke of a past longed for again, but probably never to be experienced.

Together, the painting spoke of a rich heritage, a hard life filled with damage and heartache, but still with hope. It spoke of an old man or woman, standing with dignity and claiming great power long since lost, in a body carrying the scars of a tough life. It depicts the many pictures we see of victims of trauma, holding themselves together with what they can, even as they bleed out for all to see.

I am well aware that art reflects the artist and the observer equally. And so I am aware that I saw myself within this painting, even as I saw the post war Europe of Burri's painting.

Those words from the original description of Sacchi stuck with me in this picture - evincing anger and shame, but also vulnerability and dignity. I cannot think of a better description of what life actually is like, and what becoming like Jesus in this world looks like too.

There is anger and shame as we encounter those parts of ourselves and others that are hideous or hurtful. There is vulnerability as we expose ourselves and receive the baring of others into our lives. I don't believe we can actually be truly vulnerable without at least the opportunity for anger, shame and hurt to be felt. In fact, I think those things WILL happen when we are vulnerable.

What I love most about this panting of Burri's is that it isn't beautiful in the classic sense of the word. It is rough, dirty, and hard.That is what life truly is like...rough, dirty and hard. That is what being a Christian really is...rough, dirty and hard. That is what Jesus was...rough, dirty and hard. But it doesn't stay there...because there's that gold piece, speaking of a long lost past, but pointing forward to a hoped for future. It is in the essence of vulnerability that our hope is found.

It is in the working out of that vulnerability...in the receiving and sharing of those wounds of our lives that we find dignity. I don't think Jesus was ever more dignified than when we was stripped bare, and with blood and sweat and tears be bore the anger and shame of my own brokenness. His vulnerability brought me dignity. His vulnerability brought you dignity. He invites us to share our vulnerability with each other so that together dignity might be experienced for everyone.

That's what I see...tell me...what do you see?

The Wall

A teacher met with a student to discuss her struggle with vulnerability. She described her struggle as being surrounded with a wall that she cannot break. The teacher, with divinely inspired wisdom, offered to walk the wall with her to find a gate.

It is the greatest secret in the world...we all have walls, built to protect us that in the end harm us. We build them to keep us safe but instead they insulate us from the very things we need to grow. We cannot find each other because our walls hide us...the real us!

And like that student we all need to find a gate.

But I wonder...who in your life offers to walk the wall with you. We all need wall-walkers. We all need people in our lives who will walk on the other side, talking and listening to us, while we search for gates to get out.

Gates! If only they were these large monsters of iron and steel. But, they hide, masquerading as brick and mortar. Hidden in shadows, they shift and flow, disappearing from one place only to appear somewhere else. So the search is not easy, and it takes wisdom, observation, and courage - which is why you cannot walk the wall alone.

So who is your wall-walker? And whose will you be?

Door's Howl: MockingJay 2

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

Synopsis

The final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy (quadrilogy for the moneymakers!) meets, exceeds and fails to meet expectations. Just like the book, the movie is filled with surprised that are not expected. Katniss Everdeen faces her biggest challenges yet in this installment (the choice between two love interests, the choice between two authority systems and the choice about her role in the war to name a few). The Hunger Games series intrigued me from the first movie. I read all the books and then watched the following installments of movies. They were all good in their own way.

This final installment is slow...painfully slow at times. The beauty of the movie is found in its constant dashing of hope and the sheer unwillingness of Katniss to accept despair. Katniss is faced with choice after choice and her choices give the movie its up and down feeling. Her ability to fight is powerful, and keeps you engaged. Sadly, I think the movie would have been better as one movie with the first part of Mockingjay as this installment could have been much shorter. The other characters seem by-products in this movie with little development paid to each of them. Additionally, each step of the way heroes become villainous and villains become heroic. This is part of the Hunger Games meta-narrative.

The main actors each perform powerful roles. Jennifer Lawrence is excellent as Katniss and Josh Hutcherson carried the Peeta role well. The others have little to work with and their screen time and lines are sporadic and disjointed.

You find the depth and surprises of Mockingjay Part 2 in little lines interspersed throughout the movie. They are said without fanfare, but if picked up, speak volumes about the movie. The obvious ones are about truth and lies (everyone lies to Katniss in some way...except Peeta who uses Katniss as the means to tell what is real or not). The Hunger Games and reality tv metaphor continues as does the larger discussion of what a free vote is. Katniss's choices right to the end make the movie powerful and sad, especially her last choice with Peeta. Less noticed lines like "If you die, let it be for a cause, not a spectacle" is powerful. Said in what might be a throwaway speech, it becomes a consistent metaphor right to the final speech of President Coin who announces the death of President Snow as more than a spectacle.

In the end the whole thing is a spectacle as all Katniss has ever wanted is to enjoy a peaceful life. Something each of us wants...and this for me is the most powerful metaphor. We are all Katniss (or at least we want to be)...courageous in volunteering to save others, skillful in our fights, looking for love, trying to avoid being a symbol for a political party, but entering the fight when we must and in the end wanting to raise our families in peace and quiet.

Her final line leaves us with the question that needs answering, as she speaks of nightmares she says, "Did you have a nightmare? I have nightmares too. Someday I'll explain it to you. Why they came? Why they won't ever go away? But I'll tell you how to survive it. I make a list in my head, of all the good things I've seen someone do. Every little thing I could remember. It's like a game. I do it over and over. Gets a little tedious after all these years, but there are much worse games to place."

Her solution to the nightmares is a game...what is ours to the nightmares of our time. And echoing in the back is the statement about death...die for a cause not a spectacle.

Score

Mockingjay Part 2 scores a Crescent Moon. The Hunger Games Series is a New Moon.

Scoring System

Wolves are thought to commonly howl at the moon. So, the better the moon, the greater the howl. Description of scoring system below.

Full Moon - best you can get, must watch and must own
New Moon - great movie, worth seeing and buying
Crescent Moon - average to above average, good to watch, but may want to wait for DVD
Sliver Moon - below average, not worth seeing and only get it on DVD when you have nothing better to do, like having a root canal
Moonless Night -not even worth mentioning - avoid at all costs!

The Gap and The Voice

No, I don't mean the clothing line (what happened to them anyway). I mean the gap a person experiences that causes a change or transformation. I've been thinking a lot about these gaps lately.

Recently our family has got into watching The Voice. While watching we heard the song Samson by Regina Spektor. The song struck me powerfully. You can hear The Voice recording here.

I downloaded the song (both The Voice version and Original) and found myself listening to it over and over. The song seems to be written from the perspective of Delilah and the romance she had with Samson in Judges 16.

The Bible tells us that Samson fell in love with Delilah. Delilah is bribed by the rulers of her country to find the secret to Samson's strength. She proceeds to search for his secret setting trap after trap for Samson. Each time he keeps his secret. Until verse 15 says the following:

¹⁵ Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’^c when you won’t confide in me? This is the third time^d you have made a fool of me and haven’t told me the secret of your great strength.^e” ¹⁶ With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. 

¹⁷ So he told her everything.^f “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite^g dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” 

Listening to the song and thinking of the Bible account, I was struck by a number of thoughts. 

1. Samson's love for Delilah. Some might call him a fool, others blinded by love or lust. He wasn't exactly a great moral man! But I would say to those people that maybe they don't understand love. The same word here is used for Abraham's love for his one and only son Isaac. It's the same word used for the command to love God. Samson loved her.

2. The Bible doesn't tell us how Delilah feels for Samson, but the song suggests that she loves him deeply too. I hadn't thought about that before. Delilah was trapped - caught in the political power play of powerful men. I'm not excusing her actions, but I think we have a habit of denigrating people in the Bible by prescribing more to them than what the actual passage says. Delilah has been portrayed as evil, a bad woman, a prostitute, a manipulator and I've even heard her called a slut by some. But what if she was a poor woman, in love with a man who hid from her? The song gave me pause...that maybe we need to look at all people as God's children deserving his love and our compassion rather than evil reprobates. It made me wonder about Delilah, for she disappears from the Bible after this episode. She enters a gap that is never resolved. It bothered me. This woman, who for whatever reason betrayed a man who loved her, and disappears. What happened to her? We're left with speculation.

3. At the same time I thought of Samson. He gets taken into captivity. His eyes are gouged out and he is shackled and forced to manual labor. We don't know how long he does this for? It is his gap. During this time of blindness and labor, his hair grows back and during a period of his greatest humiliation, this humbled man calls on God for help.

4. It made me think of other gaps in the Bible - Moses gap of 40 years, Paul's gap of 11-14 years, Abraham's gap of 25 years, the gap in the wilderness for Israel, even the gap in Jesus life from childhood to adulthood. In each one, the gap brought a period of reflection, unlearning and/or learning and transformation. Yes for Jesus too - Hebrews 5:8 tells us that he learned obedience from his suffering. That was some of his gap.

5. It made me think further of our own growth as people and how essential the gap is for us. So often we preach the success, we talk about the success, we celebrate the transformation. But we forget the process...we forget the gap. The gap is where the change happens. The gap is where the work takes place. The gap, if it is essential and I believe it is, is where we need to go to find out who we are and who we are meant to be. 

We need to teach, preach and guide people in the gap and stop pushing them to the success. We need to create a place where people in the gap can find a place to breath and exist without pressure to change. We need to be a people of process, not a people of quick fixes.

So my thoughts drift back to Delilah and I wonder how many Delilah's drift into and out of our lives looking for a place to process, but find instead quick fixes, entrapment or scorn. I wonder about Samson, and how many Samson's drift into our lives blind and weak looking for someone to guide their hands to a place of purpose but instead find people laughing at them and humiliating them in their time of process. And I wonder, am I a Delilah or a Samson?

Shards

I recently spoke at our Men's Prayer Breakfast talking about Paul's reference to his "thorn in the flesh" from 2 Corinthians 12. The word for thorn in the Greek is skolops. It can be translated in multiple ways. It can be a thorn, something small with an irritating prick in your skin, or it could be large, like a tent stake that drives a hole through your heart. It most literal translation is "what is pointed".

There is much debate over what Paul's thorn is, but I don't like the word thorn as used. I think I prefer the word shards. Shards carries a far better meaning to me, Shards is such an applicable word. Shards of glass...it captures images of brokenness and pain, of danger. Shards of rock, that poke and prod, leaving you uncomfortable at least. Shards of broken ceramic that clearly say the plate is beyond repair. Shards of metal that are cast off by the metal worker, but so dangerous if left unattended.

John MacArthur argues that Paul's thorn is a broken relationship in his ministry. He feels it is the best reason for Paul's pain and anguish in this chapter as he refer to the thorn as a messenger of Satan sent to torment him.

I think we can all relate to this pain. Broken relationships are by far the most severe form of pain I know. The break in the relationship can be of any reason: death of someone close, a parting of ways whether by choice or not, a betrayal, or something in-between. The writers used the word thorn to keep to the true sense of the word, but I prefer shards. A broken relationship leaves your heart, soul and even your body wracked with pain as if filled with shards.

Shards are broken pieces with sharp edges that slide into you and leave you filled with pain. They cannot be easily removed for to take them out means cutting you again. And when you get one, there are often plenty more. If the removal is done poorly a single shard can also break into more shards causing more pain. I think this is what broken relationships feel like to so many people - not a stake or thorn in your flesh. But shards in your flesh!

God's answer to Paul is that his grace is sufficient. What isn't answered is how you experience and receive that grace. It's different for each person.

For all those suffering from a broken relationship, I know your pain. I know your shards. My prayer for you and for me is that we would together find the grace of God that is sufficient for our healing.

Summer Adieu

Summer has been hot and wonderful - filled with all that makes up life - laughter, fun, highs, and cries, sadness and lows. As summer winds down and we look towards the fall (and all highs and lows it will bring) it is only fitting to say adieu to summer. It has been one of the best summers of my life...

Humidity Haze

Humidity is a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is how, when it's just right, humidity creates this warmth and softness to the air. It makes you want to be outside and just be...watching a live band, playing mini-golf, going for a run!

The curse is when it rises to that smothering level that feels like you're wearing two fleece blankets in the middle of summer. And it brings with it the humidity haze. Window's fog, your sunglasses cloud up, your clothes stick to your skin and it feels like the air itself is trying to suffocate you.

But, blessing or curse, humidity is better than 108" of snow!