The first time I watched this film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58iXypYPNrw) I felt shocked. Should I laugh or should I cry? Was it terrible or was it funny? Now that I've watched it again, I realize the film should be both terrible and funny. It is shocking because it shows us our narcissistic selves. If we don't stop, we'll soon be trapped inside ourselves (which the film appropriately portrays as the saddest place to be), unable to touch or enjoy the outside world.
But laughter comes as the cure. We have to laugh at the end of the film because it's humbling to laugh at ourselves, to say that we are ridiculous, to say that we are lost. That's the first step to loosing the little narcissistic shadows of ourselves. Laughter acknowledges that we are humble and helpless creatures. We are as silly and laughable as dolls caught in a doll shop. This film does not give any reason to hope for an escape, but I put it to you that if you know the end of the real story, you can laugh at this one.
Now for something totally different and just because it's beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iDD7wqtwmM&feature=BF&list=PL6F2A53BF3BD34074&index=6
Enjoy.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Cosmetics and the Cosmos
John Medaille wrote a wonderful article on cosmetics, and like always, it's never only about cosmetics. It's about philosophy, the cosmos, a prison in Columbia, love at first sight, and more. It's worth reading if you like art, if you have a mother, if you live in the cosmos...ok, I'll stop trying to sell this one.
Here are some thoughts and highlights for after you read the article.
“How mistaken I was. It was the lipstick…that could have changed their lives. Now I understood.”
What is curious about this statement is that she offers no further explanation about the life-changing possibilities of lipstick. From this, I draw two conclusions. The first is that for the women reading this statement, no explanation is necessary, and for the men, no explanation is possible.”
Allow me to suggest that a man and his ax are just as unexplainable as a woman and her lipstick. (What I really mean is, it is explainable :).
An ax is a sign of strength, of ability; it says, in a deep macho voice, “I am a man, and yes, I chop my own wood.” But while men are identified with strength (1 John), women are identified with beauty. Lipstick is a symbol of a woman's beauty, a reminder of who she is. It makes perfect sense then, in a place as unfeminine as a prison in Columbia, that lipstick would be important. They just wanted the bare minimum, just the shallow security that comes with a painted-on identity (even that would be better that what they had). At least it could give a kind of security, a reminder of their identity when they felt the most unfeminine and insecure.
We normally associate the word “cosmetic” with the superficial and the trivial, with mere appearances, but this would be to mistake the whole thing. For to understand the cosmetic, we need to look at its root word, cosmos. This word we often take to mean “everything” or “the universe,” but that is not correct. What the term meant to the Greeks was not “everything” but the harmonious composition of parts that produced a coherent and beautiful whole. This starts with the universe itself, in which everything is seen in its proper place, in its proper relationship to everything else, and therefore forms a beautiful whole. This cosmic beauty then extends down through each microcosm, each little part of the whole which displays its own order and beauty, and then right down to the little cosmos of a woman’s face. The need a woman has to order the world through beauty begins with the need to order her face.
From this habit of ordering herself (a habit which extends to women across all times and cultures) women move out to order the family. They take what resources they have, what gifts their men bring, what talents their children display, in what circumstances they find themselves, and try to compose all of these elements into an orderly whole. The habit of making up one’s face is practice for the task of making up the world.
Others might object that this is about appearances only, but appearances are all we have in the world. The cathedral is nothing but appearances, and we may judge whether the architect has truly captured the reality of the Church; the painting of the saint is just a bit of cosmetics on canvas, and we must discern the reality it depicts in its appearance. The bread of the Eucharist is just an appearance
Monday, February 7, 2011
Paradoxical Love
Love is a kind of wisdom, a way of knowing, a way of understanding the world rightly. Love knows that God has made the world like a poem, like a riddle.
It is this same puzzle of Love that Augustine delights in:
What, therefore, is my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God? “For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is god besides our God?” Most high most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demandest dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep silence-since even those who say most are dumb. Confessions ch. 4
This is the paradox of love. It's a poem, a puzzle. God is unchanging, yet changing all things. Old and yet always new. Hidden, yet always present. Working, yet always at rest. And yet, this is what Augustine finds rest in. This puzzle of Love is what gives him stability. There is no end to Augustine's search, and in some glorious unexplainable way, that is his peace. And in this endless search, this restlessness that is rest, Augustine becomes like his Creator; he is dumb, and yet goes on for pages, praising what he cannot fathom.
Perhaps we are choosing to only see one side of the story though. Augustine speaks, because God spoke. It is His drawing us to Himself through the Spirit that causes us to know. The two are inseparable (another paradox!). His Speech is poured out on us and we overflow with words. His Love descends down to us and we see His face. He brings light to our blindness and speech to our speechless lips. And so, Augustine's speechless speech should never end. It will never end.
As we grow in understanding, says Augustine, we think we will reach an end to our search. But the psalmist says, “Seek His face always.” David is not speaking about knowing God as we know other things, but about intimacy with God, delight in God, loving God, knowing even as one is known. As Saint Paul wrote, “If anybody thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But anyone who loves God, this person is known by Him” (gal. 4:9). “Let us then,” says Augustine, “seek as those who are going to find, and find as those who are going to go on seeking.” With an uncanny eye for just the right text Augustine quotes the book of sirach: 'When a man has finished, then it is that he is beginning' (Sir. 18:7).
...on the Confessions Augustine, addressing God,says that his desire was 'not to be more certain about you, but to be more stable in you.' The goal of human life is not to know something about God, but to know God and be known by God, to delight in the face of God. The psalmist had written, “My heart has said to thee, I have sought thy face, O Lord, will I seek,” and Augustine comments, “This is magnificent. Nothing could be spoken more sublimely. For those who truly love will understand. What does the psalmist seek? 'To gaze upon the Lord's loveliness all the days of his life.' His fear is that he should be deprived of what he loves. And what is that? What does he love? Thy face.'”
The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Louis Wilken
And when we do see Him face to face...that will truly be the beginning.
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