My Muse

My muse won’t let me rest,
visiting me at the most inopportune times,
demanding my attention, my affection,
just to prove her hold over me.
And I give it, every time.

She scares me with her seductive power
the ferocity of her hunger.
The ever-present threat of her absence.
For her I forget to eat,
forget to bathe, forget to shave,
forget my wife,
forget any distraction
that keeps me from hearing her small voice.

I’m a slave
I’m a slave
I’m a slave to her rhythms.
To declare my love is a waste of breath.
She knows she owns me.

I cannot hope to possess her,
nor bend her to my will.
But maybe ... in those still moments
when I hear her soothing voice with alarming clarity
I can hold her, if only for an instant.

My Muse shows me Truth
and the Truth shows me the Creator.
I delight in her. In her I find rest.
Yet I hate her.
My peace and my torment.

Thoughts for her consume me in a fire of prose and images.
Words come with grace and ease
The story is where we meet,
for a brief respite.
We make love to the page
Inspiration and servant
entwined
Everything falls into place.
I can’t force her.
I beg for the release only she can bring.
So when she comes, it’s perfect.

But when we’re done,
with my heart still thudding in my chest,
she departs.

And I long for her all over again.

She drains me and yet restores my soul.
My mistress.
My muse.

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Writing Blahs

Have you ever bought into a lie about yourself, something you knew wasn’t true, but you bought it anyway? In fact, not just bought it, but bought it wholesale, like there is a low elf-esteem clearance sale going on. And you had coupons.

I’m trying to figure out why I have been in such a “blah” mood when it comes to my writing. Maybe not so much blah, as much as “unmotivated”. To at least feel productive, I’m doing research for a story that I’m on deadline to write. For that matter, I’ve just wrapped up a short story that I’m letting sit before I re-visit it with a fresh eye. And there is the research for the book-blog experiment I’m helping launch next year. I still have television and comic book reviews to turn in. I have two novels that need revisions and two more that need to be outlined. I really ought to write part two of the blog I started only a few days ago.

With all these projects on my to do list, I still can’t help but feel discouraged like Qoholet--the Teacher, to whom the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible is attributed–and throw my hands in the air in a rant of “all is meaningless.”

All of this mood, the source of my “why do I even bother to write” discouragement, originated from the lips of the most fundamental of packages.

My mother.

For two minutes, what I’m sure meant to be “keep at it, honey, your time will soon come” came out along the lines of “why haven’t you gotten a book deal yet? Other people get their book deals right away.” Then she proceeded to tell me how the publishing industry works, how my time could be put to better use, and why I’m not seeing the kind of money (fill in the blank) is making at his job. Mothers have a way of knowing what buttons to push, even inadvertently (however well-intentioned). So that even my latest sale not even two weeks ago tastes like ashes in my mouth.

Basically, I was taken back to the guest blog I did for Brian Keene called Parenting and L’art Pour L’art: Writing, despite our most fervent daydreams, it is not exactly the fast track to riches. We write, we indulge our muse, because we have to. In order to still the voices in our head. Because something in the core of our being crawls up and takes hold of us to move pen to paper. I sympathize with any parent who sees their child toiling away at any “worthless” endeavor, because they want the best for their children. The French call it “l’art pour l’art,” art for the sake of art, and it isn’t practical ... Over a civil cup of tea, [my mother] managed to squeeze in a bit of commentary asking when I would quit wasting my time with this writing thing. After all, I wasn’t making any real money doing it. She never saw herself as being particularly discouraging; this was just her typical brand of “negative encouragement” as she tried to steer me back on a course she judged to be more realistic.

It’s odd to hear or feel that 90% of your life is a waste, but I know I have to snap out of this. Luckily for me, I have three things working in my favor. The work and deadlines loom with enough tacit pressure. The work has to be done. Plus, I have a strong community around me. Friends who support me, prop me up if they have to. Colleagues who have been there, not with my mother, but we all have our discouragers. And my faith.

Faith? How are you going to bring your faith into this? Well, I’m glad you asked. I’m convinced that when you do what you were meant to do, it is to the delight of the Lord. It helps that I also think that one reason Christianity has become so seemingly dry and dull is because we don’t allow room for each other to wrestle with art. Instead of letting it speak to and through us, we feel uncomfortable unless we make it conform to established dogma, being more propaganda than art.

It boils down to the fact that my priorities are not her priorities. I can’t live her life and she can’t live her life through me. I simply needed to remind myself of that.

And gear up because the holidays are soon upon me.


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God Conversations part I - Counting Conversations

My mom used to sell Mary Kay make up. Lord knows, she was a gifted saleswoman. What made her a good salesperson was the same thing that kept her from being a good person to just hang out with: she became all about the sales pitch. When I saw her coming, I was tempted to run the other direction. I didn’t care if I was a winter. I wasn’t into any male beauty products. I didn’t have any friends that might be interested in having a Mary Kay party. Suddenly, she never met a stranger, only people who might need someone to help connect them with their make up needs. Watching her in action, every conversation eventually turned to that person’s make up needs. Evangelicals are constantly under pressure to “spread the good news,” made to feel like bad Christians if we aren’t telling everyone we bump into about how Jesus came and died for their sins. In effect, we’ve been turned into salesmen. That’s why when people find out that you’re a Christian, this deer in the headlights look comes over their face and they try to weasel out of whatever conversation you were having.

I’m all about sharing the gospel message of Christ, I’m not about cramming it down everyone’s throat. I don’t buy into the “greatest act of love is to share Christ”/“confrontational evangelism” brand of guilting folks into a state of constant witnessing. We’ve become “decision counters,” being all about forcing that moment of sales-pressure decision for Christ. If nothing else, you know what? Not everyone is wired to be a salesman. We have unique personalities, unique gifts, and we should take that into account when figuring out how to go about sharing. There is no master pitch to learn; there is more than one way to evangelize. We’ve bought so much into the modern idea of how to network and salesmanship, that we’ve often overlook the power of “ordinary evangelism”.

Few people want to be “preached” to about God whereas a lot of people want to talk about God. There is a fascinating difference in perception between the two. When people speak of being preached to, what they mean is pointed conversations with agendas. You see, it’s easy to find people who will talk to you about religion. It’s harder to find someone you want to talk about it. Luckily, I find that being a horror writer who works at a church is a dual-edged sword for conversations: certain “church types” shun me, not wishing to engage me in any meaningful conversations (yay!) and certain “non-church types” seek me out to talk (yay!). In both cases I think it’s has a lot to do with preconceptions about me. Rightly or wrongly, I’m seen as someone who doesn’t quite fit the mold of what people expect. I listen without judgment, trying to engage them in a spirit of love. One interesting effect of this is that I’ve been allowed to be the fly on the wall in a lot of situations and it has let me learn some insights into how we as Christians go about “witnessing” or evangelizing.

My hack theologian friend put it this way: we must believe that God is at work in the ordinary – in our small, simple acts of love. We must believe that God will work through a simple “thank you,” an encouraging word, even a simple smile. Though we cannot change the world, we can, through the simplest acts of kindness, change someone’s world. When our focus is narrowed like this, we are finally in a position to accomplish something ... Jim Henderson argues that one of the main problems with traditional evangelism is that we are pressured “to close the deal with people, and we haven’t been shown the value and importance of simply connecting with people in a normal, ordinary way.” In confrontational evangelism, connections are not counted; only deal-closers prove one’s witness was a success. Ultimately, however, the connections we establish with others have more spiritual impact than forcing a decision on someone and then moving onto another target.

Ordinary evangelism demands that we reevaluate our standards for success. Our focus must not be on numbers, but on loving and serving people. Too often, confrontational evangelism evaluates its success on the numbers of decisions it generates. Instead, we must evaluate our success by how faithful we have been to demonstrate the life and love of Christ; in other words, by the connections we have made. The real test of Christian witness is not how many decisions we gather, but how well we love others. One way to evaluate this is to answer the question: Is our Christian faith making us a better or worse neighbor?

We need to be in-the-moment relationship builders. Constantly making connections and being a part of people’s lives. Conversations need to be the end goal, listening and learning about people for their own sake. It becomes about building relationships and seeing where they go. Small talk has lost its value since the only talk worth anything is our “conversion speech.” Yes, this is a more holistic way of sharing our faith, but I think it spares us from falling into the pitfall of evangelism objectifying people, reducing them to objects to obtain for God. The difference between friendship evangelism and intentional friendship is the difference between manipulative vs. genuine relationships. Intentional friendships is about sharing life with people without an end strategy, not looking for an opening to make a pitch. It’s about loving people for who they are, where they are, and how they are. Be a genuine human being and care for other people genuinely.

I’m not interested in arguing with people. People have a lot to offer, and I want to learn from them as well as give anything that might be of use (just don’t look for me to have all the answers on every spiritual matter. You might as well get used to “I don’t know” as my spiritual answer). Too often, evangelicals, from their pulpit of hubris, act like “unbelievers” have nothing to offer. Look, there are many worldviews from which to learn. For me, a simple stance of mutual respect (mixed with a healthy dose of humility) leads to people being able to converse. Converse–not preach at each other, not try and persuade one other to a new view–setting the stage for challenging and meaningful dialogue. Conversation for its own sake, talking about any and all issues, not as set up for the “get out of hell” pitch. Be real. Be who you are. Trust God to be at work in the ordinary. Otherwise, this quote from the Big Kahuna best sums it up:

"It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down.' That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other reason. Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore; it's a pitch. And you're not a human being; you're a marketing rep. "


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Test: How ghetto is you?

[Snarked from Black Folks]

GET A PENCIL AND PAPER BEFORE YOU START THIS. BE truthful!

1. You've ever used an album cover for a dustpan. (5 points)

2. If you've ever run a race barefoot in the middle of the street. (10 points)

3. You had a candy lady in your neighborhood. (5 + 5 extra points if your house was the candy lady)

4. If you ever had to pick your own switch or belt. (3 points for each)

5. If you have ever had to walk to school or walked home from school. (2 points)

6. If you have ever used dishwashing liquid for bubble bath. (5 points)

7. If you ever mixed Kool-Aid one glass at a time because you got tired of other people drinking up the Kool-Aid you just made. (5 points)

8. If you have ever played any of the following games: hide and go seek, freeze, tag, Momma may I? or red light/green light. (2 points each)

9. If your neighborhood had an ice cream man. (2 points + 2 if he rang a bell)

10. If you refer to "Now and Later" candies as "Nighladers". (5 points)

11. If you've ever run from the police on foot. (5 points + 5 if you got away)

12. If you've ever had reusable bacon grease in a container on your stove. (5 points + 15 if you still do it)

13. The batteries in your remote control ever been held in by a piece of tape. (5 points)

14. If you have ever worn any of the following fragrances Brute, Hai Karate, Jean Nate, Old Spice, Chloe, English Leather, Stetson, Charlie, or Faberge. (1 point each):

15. You've ever used Tussy. (5 points)

16. You've never been to the dentist. (15 points)

17. If you have a friend or family member whose nickname is one word said twice: dee-dee, fee-fee, man-man, Kay-Kay, lee-lee, ree-ree, ray-ray, nay-nay, etc. (10 points)

18. You have ever paged yourself for any reason. (3 points)

19. You've ever worn house shoes outside of the house. (2 points)

20. You add "ED" or "T" to the end of words already in the past tense (for example, Tooked, Light-Skinneded, kilt, ruint, etc.) (5 points)

21. You use 'n'em to describe a certain group of people ( for example Craig'n'em or Momma 'n'em). (5 points)

22. You've ever driven on a donut more than 2 weeks after your flat. (5 points)

23. Your child drops his/her pacifier and you sanitize it by sucking it. (10 points)

24. You have ever slept in a chair to avoid messing up your hair. (10 points)

25. You've ever left a social gathering with a plate. (2 points)

26. You can't hold a glass because of the length of your nails. (5 points)

27. The gold teeth in your mouth spell words. (10 points)

28. You don't have your own place but your child has a leather coat and a pair of Jordan's. (15 points)

29. You constantly hit *69 and ask, "Did you just call here?" (10 points)

30. You think Tupac is still alive. (20 points)

31. If you are going to have to use a calculator to add your points. (25 points)

TEST RESULTS:

0 - 50 points - I guess you were raised in the suburbs

51 - 75 points - A bonafide ex-hood rat

76 - 150 points - Spent a little time in the projects, huh?

150 points or more - Still there, huh?

*******
I pointedly refused to break out my calculator to add up my score and still ended up at 89. For the record, I know many of my redneck friends would score pretty high on this also.


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Too Old to Club

After the dark cloud that has been following us lately, we thought that we owed it to ourselves to go out on the town and just celebrate ... life. This week brought a lot of birthdays (happy birthday Janrae Frank!) and we thought that the perfect excuse to go out. One thing that you should know is that I’ve always had a heart for singles ministry. A lot of my time in “ministry” has been with singles groups, the over-looked group in a church (unless they need people to staff the nursery). Church culture pushes “the family” and have a way of making singles seem like they are doing something wrong by not being married (or worse, like incomplete people or even “sinners”).

Now, the twenty-something crowd loves my wife and I. I’m a pastor-type that they can invite to go to night clubs with (hey, I’m all about keeping my finger on the pulse of things ... and having excuses to ditch the kids). However, I came to two inescapable conclusions while hanging out at Jillians:

1) To quote Cedric the Entertainment “I’m a grown ass man.”

2) My wife has to outlive me.

Two rules will govern this post: there will be no pictures and no pics (though many of my co-conspirators hang out on my message board), but let me tell you, I think that I’ve gotten old. Sometime in the last month or so. In theory, Jillians sounded like a cool place to hang out. Hibachi grill restaurants on the first level, pool and video games on the second level, and a dance club and a bowling alley on the third level (with a bar on every floor). I ain’t got time for throwing food as part of our dinner entertainment (unless it’s at a family dinner). Folks shouldn’t have to spend a good chunk of an evening combing hair out of their weave, that’s all I’m saying. I ain’t got time for drinks called “blow jobs” or “red-headed sluts” (tasty though they may be). And as always, some people need to remember that Jesus turned water into wine, not tequila.

Tequila is no one’s friend.

Now, I missed out on much of the club scene when I was in my own 20s (I had started a singles ministry called, well, Twenties). Still, I ended up breaking my vow of never going dry-humping-to-a-beat (read: being married means never having to go dancing again) with my wife. Now, I love young people (see, that’s when I knew I was old: I started referring to twenty somethings as “young people”), but I shouldn’t have to consult the Kama Sutra for the latest dance steps. Though I did think the picture of some of our group pole-dancing might make for a good picture for our first church bulletin. “From left to right you see the co-pastor’s wife, the head of our children’s ministry, a member of our arts team, and the wife of our volunteer research scholar (or whatever we’re calling him, we suck at titles).” Thus, the no pictures rule, that and the fact that there are still pictures of me in a coconut bra, from a luau I threw once, floating around out there; leading people to point and ask “he does what at the church?” I will admit that those present with the last name Broaddus (and there were a few of us representing), still know how to break ‘em off some on a dancefloor. Maybe I should revise this. I’m too old to club, my wife is an eternal 20-something (reverting back to her clubbing past, including enjoying being hit on by guys. She has a slightly different recollection of this evening). Though, I was also reminded why I don’t go clubbing with my siblings. I don’t need to see that.

You see, “I’m a grown ass man.”

Which is why my wife has to outlive me. I’m not trying to be that brother too old for the club. You know the one, there’s always one. Standing at the end of the bar. Drink in one hand, eyeing the ladies just a little too hard. With a little too much gray, or a too balding thatch of hair. A little too old school. I don’t have time to do the dating scene anymore, faking the empty banter. I don’t have time to keep up with the attitude and fashions of the day. Heck, I don’t even have time to be sensitive to another person’s quirks. And, frankly, I don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to break in someone new (my wife has no choice but to stay with me as once you go black ... your credit is messed up, too). Long live the queen.

I’m her “grown ass man.”

Okay, that’s it. Lack of sleep makes me loopy. I’m rambling like an idiot. Another blog entry to make our head pastor proud and giving him another excuse to conveniently forget that I have a blog (read: plausible deniability). Yet none of this is going to stop me from hitting this here little “post blog” button.



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The Lost Art of Imprecatory Prayer

As you might imagine, I took a measure of grief from some circles regarding the guest blog Wrath James White graciously wrote for me. To me, the “words of Wrath” almost sound like the contemporary voice of an Old Testament prophet. However, the criticisms got me to thinking about some of the kinds of prayers that make us uncomfortable: imprecatory Psalms. Imprecatory Psalms or prayers are those petitions for misfortune, or curses, on another; the righteous asking God to carry out His justice. They are heartfelt, often angry sounding pleas for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the wicked. Simply put, we see the evil and injustice perpetrated around us, to people we love, and we cry out.

We’ve become accustomed to prayers with lofty, spiritual speak–often marked by sentimentality–and though they aren’t bad, they aren’t the full spectrum of “valid” prayer. There are all sorts of prayer, all sorts of ways that we can talk to God. There’s no secret formula, no code language that only one religious group or another knows that catches God’s ear. And while we are comfortable talking about the blessings of God–and there are many, showered on the faithful and non-faithful alike– we forget about the curses of God. We’ve lost those good, old-fashioned “God come smite these folks who have pissed me off” prayers. Imprecatory Psalms were recorded and preserved for use in public worship; a pattern for Israel as well as the cries of individual’s hearts. So, imagine these words set to 70s soft rock music (you know, how all worship choruses should be done):

“When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children. May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.” Psalms 109:7-13

We have come far in our modern sophistication to where these kinds of prayers make us uncomfortable. They don’t fit inside our tidy, theological boxes. We relegate the harsh rhetoric, the curses and smiting, to the God of the Old Testament, not to be confused with the all-love-all-the-time God of the New Testament. It’s like we think that God’s smiting aspect was simply a phase He went through, neglecting the continuity of story between the Old and New Testaments. Jesus’ “woe to you” cannonade that He unleashed on the Pharisees (the religious leaders of the day) was imprecatory language. So unless you want to believe that His sandals were particularly binding that day, we may need to re-evaluate how we view God, have a bigger picture of who He is, and what it means to authentically talk to Him.

There seems to be two issues that need to be wrestled with. For one thing, is God big enough for us to be real with? We are called to be authentic. I don’t know if there’s any such thing as being too authentic, because since we are broken vessels, the fact that we are a mess is sort of taken into account. Half the time, we don’t even know what to pray, so the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. However, I think part of being authentic allows for us to be authentically pissed (and by “pissed”, I mean “righteously angry”). The second thing we have to wrestle with is whether or not it is the loving thing to do to pray for God to crush our enemies. Religion does not have a monopoly on morality, and the desire to see justice done unites the religious and non-religious alike.

I would argue that we are, in fact, obligated to pray these kinds of prayers. Radical hatred is the right response to radical evil. We need to be angered by evil, by injustice, by the wrongs of the world. Evil needs to be resisted, opposed, even wept over. Rage is a perfectly natural, valid first response. It is human way to deal with our pent up fury. It is doubly an appropriate response if we do it before God, the God of Love and Justice. We have to expunge these “dark emotions” from ourselves. Part of forgiveness process is us venting our grief, frustration, and anger, only then can we continue with the healing/forgiveness process. Imprecatory prayers help put things in perspective. The words are, and should be, shocking to hear.

There do seem to be two prerequisites for imprecatory prayers: only the innocent dare pray them and only the wicked need fear them. The prayer-er needs to be one whose hands and heart are clean, worships God, and in right standing with Him (which sometimes means confessing their own sin in the process), not suffering because of their own sin, and innocent of the charges of the wicked. The prayer-ee cannot merely our enemy, but must be God’s enemy. So we’re not talking about the neighbor who lets their dog poop in our yard without scooping, the family member who has annoyed you, or your boss who’s a constant jerk to you. I am talking about those guilty of long term disobedience and unrepentant wickedness for individuals and nations (a fact we’d be better to keep in mind with the decisions that we make as a nation). I’m not a fire and brimstone sort of guy and that’s not what this is about: there are real consequences to real evil.

The language of imprecatory prayers should shock us, or at least make us nervous. If nothing else, it has the propensity for leading to a Crusades mentality, to crush all the infidels in the name of Jesus. To paraphrase Greyhound’s ad slogan, “go Jesus, and leave the smiting to Him.”

This doesn’t seem to line up with the love Christ talked about. We have trouble reconciling this spirit of vindictiveness with the meekness, gentleness, and peace that Christ embodied. Well, yes it does. Though a valid expression of anger, we can’t remain at the “rage” stage. Hatred, any declared emnity, changes us. It skews our perspective. We can’t get caught up in it lest it corrupt us. Imprecatory prayers are our way of giving our anger over to God. We want God’s grace, His justice based on who He is (lovingkindness).

Look at Psalm 109 in its entirety. For all the harsh sounding language, David’s just asking God to do what He said He would do. The imprecatory part of an imprecatory psalm is only part of the psalm not the entirety of its message. On a practical level, compare David’s severe prayer with how he lived his life. He refused to harm his enemy (King Saul, the common subject of
David’s laments and imprecations), despite having several opportunities. In fact, he was conscience-stricken over the spirit in which he even cut off a piece of Saul’s robe.

Eventually, we have to move from our first, gut (human) response to a “Christian” response. A Christian response is not slapping a happy face on a situation. A Christian response is not spouting a bunch of cliches meant to comfort but feeling like cattle prods. A Christian response means looking at circumstances in light of Christ’s mission. There is a tougher idea to reconcile: no one is beyond divine grace. We are commanded to love our enemies, returning a blessing for a curse. While often shocking, imprecatory prayers allow us to put things in God’s hands. Ultimately our prayer becomes “God forgive them and transform us.” A Christian response is moving toward reconciliation, a forgiving of our enemy. Grace doesn’t preclude justice being done. Call evil deeds what they are: evil. We must protect the innocent. However, our actions must move toward redemption.

We like to pit seemingly contradictory ideas against one another, but this is not a matter of justice versus mercy, love vs. hate, law vs. grace, or the Old Testament vs. the New Testament. The issue of imprecatory prayers doesn’t rise to the level of paradox. They have value and purpose and should be prayed, we just have to be careful with them. Careful because as you judge, so shall you be judged. Careful to view imprecatory prayers in light of Christ. The purpose of them is to bring the criminal to repentance and if there is no repentance, then for punishment. Imprecatory prayers are like an appeal to the Supreme’s court. Our walks of faith are tricky things to maintain. We try to have a balance, a nuance to them that allows for intellectual rigor as well as allowing for mystery. Sometimes authenticity looks messy.

By the way...
Lost for a smart remark to see off your enemies? Unable to deliver that killer insult? Put an end to "I was speechless!" misery with the amazing Biblical Curse Generator, which is pre-loaded with blistering put-downs as delivered by Elijah, Jeremiah and other monumentally angry saints ... get ready to smite your foes with a custom-made curse straight out of the Old Testament.


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Justifying the Indentation on my Couch

The Fall television season sort of snuck up on me during my recent self-imposed downtime, so I’ve been wrestling with finding meaning in our pop culture. These two things have combined to create a body-shaped indentation in our couch. However, since my subscriptions to TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly ran out at the same time, I’ve been picking shows fairly blind. This has been good and bad, as I’ve been sampling shows at random, um, with a bent toward the boom in genre shows. So I have a slew of new reviews over at my Hollywood Jesus blog.

Some television executives think that there is a ground swell of interest in the inner workings of Washington D.C., thus I have reviews of Commander-In-Chief (reasonably compelling, if you buy the implausible premise) and E-Ring (more compelling, if you can get past the annoying lead characters), both of whom suffer in comparison to The West Wing (a lion in winter; these new shows would be completely unwatchable in comparison to The West Wing in its prime). Of the recent genre related shows, I blew off Supernatural and Ghost Whisperer, but reviewed Invasion (a keeper), Night Stalker (thin, but I’m giving it a chance to grow on me), and Surface (a B-movie stretched into a series). I’m still taping Threshold, but haven’t had a chance to review it, though I suspect that I’m going to enjoy it. And Grey's Anatomy, which I admit that I started watching last year.

On the movie front, I have recent reviews on Serenity (I’m a Joss Whedon fanboy so you can imagine the tone of the review) and on the movie The Gospel. As a matter of fact, I also wrote a second article on The Gospel and the Black Church discussing some growing concerns that the movie highlights.



























Also, the 2004-2005 issue of Hollywood Jesus Reviews goes to press this week. pre-order the latest book This volume covers August 2004 through July 2005. Twenty three HJ staffers will be represented in this volume. This year's collection of reviews covers 90 top films, every one of them reviewed from HollywoodJesus.com's spiritual perspective. The ideas that move the world infuse the cinema, and audiences are still paying attention. Into the darkness of the theatre comes a great light. God is behind the screen, and Jesus is in the seats. Take a close look the next time you're there. Some of my reviews making it into this volume include: Blade: Trinity, Crash, Elektra, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Saw, Shark Tale, and Sin City (the review where Christianity Today said that “Maurice Broaddus put a positive spin on sin.”)

Also on the agenda, the Hollywood Jesus Annual Gathering (HJAG 2005) will be December 29, 2005 through January 1, 2006 in Renton, Washington. Hosted by Harambee Church and the Harambee Community Development Association (HCDA), this once-a-year event is designed to equip and encourage the far-flung virtual staff of Hollywood Jesus—as well as others who support ministry through and to popular culture. Since I’m leading a panel on the Horror genre and co-leading one on comic books, I ought to eventually start working on something to talk about.


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Nemesis Resignation

It is with great regret that I have to turn in my resignation as Nick Kaufmann’s nemesis.

You see, in my errant youth, um, all of this past February, I formally announced that It’s a little known fact that every writer should have an arch-nemesis. I’ve chosen Nick Kaufmann as mine. I’ve dedicated myself to stopping his evil wherever it rears its head. Apparently I have been going about this whole nemesis thing the wrong way. Once again, coinciding with my recent epiphany on stalkers, I’ve had to re-think my role as Kaufmann’s nemesis.

I’d link you to my self-declared “adversary”’s LiveJournal, but then you’d blame me for showing you the ramblings and well, why give my adversary that much more exposure. I think we’d all be better off ignoring some of the exposure seeking trolls in the horror writing community trying to make a name for themselves by besmirching others. Unless they rise to the level of being threatening, then have at them. Mine isn’t even to the level of annoyance, but this person has given me the occasion to question a few things.

Apparently I’ve been going about the nemesis thing all wrong. I look forward to Kaufmann’s appearances in City Slab and Cemetery Dance, with plans on purchasing those appearances. I’m capable of missives that are short, on point, and adhere to the accepted rules of grammar. Though he no longer hangs out regularly on as many message boards, I don’t haunt his LiveJournal, jamming it up at his every post. I don’t have “off my meds” moments causing me to send him multiple e-mails a day, including research/links to esoteric topics that he has little to no interest in.

And I’m guessing that I’m a better dresser.

So, I hereby resign as Nick Kaufmann’s nemesis. The position is now available to all interested parties. I still, however, retain the Nick Mamatas chair in our Indiana chapter of the Horror Writer’s Association. They luvs me.

[Um, so that there’s not misunderstanding, for the record, I relish my adversary because this person makes my life interesting (read: don’t read this as an attack - I don’t want to come home to find my cat in a pot or something).]


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My Rock, My Fortress

Some people need to relax a minute and back away from their keyboards. It’s okay to vent. I’ve officially given myself permission to vent. It’s a perfectly human reaction to troubling, frustrating situations. I’m not going to take a microscope to someone’s theology when I see them venting; that’s missing the forest for the tree jammed in your eye kind of thinking. So if I read someone writing something in their blog along the lines of:

“I feel a whole new kind of lost and I'm looking for anything or anyone to help me find my way. I try to look to God, but I'm so angry at him for this right now that even He's no comfort. And I try to think to myself that everything happens for a reason, and this is in God's plan for me and He felt that I needed to go through this, but all those thoughts make me do is question my faith altogether. Sure God's allowed me to live and breathe, but that's not gonna exactly make me do a happy dance.

“I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not cry. I want to stay up during the day and sleep at night again like normal people. I want to talk to and be face-to-face with people who care about me and not feel inadequate. I don't want to be afraid of the dark. I don't want to look over my shoulders all of the time even in my car.

“Right now, in my state of mind, I think that even if God himself came face to face with me right here and told me why this happened, I still wouldn't be satisfied. And people keep running these tired cliches past me as if any of them will make me feel better. The one that I've heard like 250 times in the past couple of days is, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Well, I was doing ok with the strength that I had before. I could have done without the extra boost. And if these things are the muscle enhancers in life, then I'd rather just be out of shape.”

I’m going to do the human thing by putting my arms around them and letting them know how much they are loved, not criticize their theology.

Frankly, I’m still kind of thinking through a post I made a few days back about how You Can’t Protect the Ones You Love. An idea that has been rattling around in my head is about whether or not we should be expecting “protection” from God. (It’s funny, just in writing that, I feel like I’ve turned God into some sort of mafia don. As if He collects my tithes, prayers, and good deeds as part of some spiritual racketeering scam.)

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2

God is in an unenviable position. He gets praised when good things happen and blamed when bad things happen. David sings His praises after God gets him out of a jam, the occasion of the Psalm being his escape from an angry king, and is called a man after God’s own heart. Later on, however, his own poor decision making leads to Bathsheba’s life being blown to crap. So often, we, like Bathsheba, end up asking “Where was God?”

We have a natural sense of God as our protector and desire to seek His protection. We want His protection, especially in light of the fact that we can’t protect one another. When bad things happen, it’s like we long for God to step in, in a more direct way, and control things. We don’t ask such things when things are going “okay” (or as we’re making our own bad decisions). It’s like we want a “sovereign” God when it’s convenient. Well, to quote Al Pacino in Devil’s Advocate, “Free will’s a bitch.”

God weeps over tragedies along side us, and if I’m permitted a moment of spiritual speculation, I’d daresay He weeps in a much more powerful way than we do. This isn’t what He created us or the world to be. I know that as a parent, I can relate to the idea of my children not growing into the men I want them to be. It’s tough, for me, to come to grips with the idea that my kids are, well, little people. Imbued with free will. And free will’s a bitch. At some point, despite or because of my best efforts, they will make their own decisions for their lives. The best I can hope for is to be there for them, in good times and bad. To help them, even carry them, through the bad times.

Evil happens. Evil people also have free wills and make their decision to inflict their brand of evil on others. Yes, God can shape evil things that happen for good in our lives, but that doesn’t mean that He caused the evil. Could He have stepped in and stopped it? Sure. Should He? If we’re honest, we have to answer “yes, when it makes our life smoother, but not all the time”. Well, if we want Him to step in, but not all the time to where it robs us of free will, where does that leave us? Are we ultimately in this alone?

Boils down to whether we will have a life based in assurance or based in anxiety. Let me see if I can explain what I mean by that. We can live in a state of freedom in life, having a state of peace, faith, and confidence stemming from the assurance that we have in Christ Jesus. OR, we can continue on our own way, left to our own devices, with fear, doubt, and insecurity, trapped in a cycle of spiritual death. This assurance springs from faith in God as the ultimate protector, that sense that He is the ultimate, faithful judge. It doesn’t mean that He will spare you from every bad thing that could happen to you, but it does mean that we trust in Him ultimately exposing evil for what it is, and avenging us.

Then again, during times trying to my faith, I still find myself echoing my favorite prayer: “Lord I believe. Help me with my unbelief.”



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Prayer for Enemies

Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst command us to love our enemies, and those who defame and injure us, and to pray for them and forgive them; Who Thyself didst pray for Thine enemies, who crucified thee: grant us, we pray, the spirit of Christian reconciliation and meekness, that we may heartily forgive every injury and be reconciled with our enemies. Grant us to overcome the malevolence and offences of people with Christian meekness and true love of our neighbor. We further beseech Thee, O Lord, to grant to our enemies true peace and forgiveness of sins; and do not allow them to leave this life without true faith and sincere conversion. And help us repay evil with goodness, and to remain safe from the temptations of the devil and from all the perils which threaten us, in the form of visible and invisible enemies. Amen.

And Lord help me to get to the point where I can fully pray this prayer.


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The Gospel and The Black Church

Very few movies deal in a real and knowledgeable way with the black church. The Gospel, however, is set against the backdrop of the historic black church and its role within the black community. The movie does well exploring aspects of the historic black church. For example, the black church has always had a missional component to it, serving a socio-political role as well as a spiritual one (and even an economic one). With issues of poverty and economic and social justice at its forefront, the black church—again, historically—has been socially conscious and remained relevant.

Another tradition of the black church is its incorporation of song, dance, and call-and-response into a worship service. Worship has always been experiential within the tradition of the black church. Some people tend to look at black churches and think that the attenders are in it for the emotional ride. There is an affect, but it is a cognitive affectiveness, where truth is felt and worship is (intuitively) experiential. The emotional ride of worship is done within the narrative of the Gospel. Narrative theology, the emphasis on story-telling, thus has always been a critical part of the preaching tradition.

Which is not to say that the church is without problems.

“There is no perfect church ... there is a perfect God.” –Pastor Fred Taylor

The church presented in The Gospel, New Revelations, is indicative of far too many churches, black or otherwise. Aspects of our modern culture have insinuated themelves into the fabric of the church, deterring or outright corrupting its ministry. Values such as corporate policy and philosophy have been bought into by the church. Some people see the main job of the pastor as that of businessman, and the church as a business. The pastor becomes the CEO and the elders the board of directors. Offerings or tithes become income, or worse, profit; and this reduces the Gospel to little more than a product they’re trying to push. The biggest question I was left wondering was “what is the Gospel?”

“You know the Bible backward and forward ... but you still have no clue. You need Jesus.” –Charlene (Nona Gaye)

A crisis looms within the church, not just the black church, as it is losing its youth and facing shrinking congregations. How else can we explain our youth seeking a sense of family in gangs rather than in church? The decline of men in church attendance? The continuing break up of families? Somehow, the message is not connecting with a whole generation. Perhaps it starts in the mentality with which we approach church: for instance, measuring a church’s success by its size. Pastor Frank—Pastor Taylor’s hand-picked successor—pursues this “bigger is better” brand of gospel, aiming to be among the gospel “all-stars” with increased radio, tv and magazine-cover presence. Billboards featuring his face, promoting his “new vision” for the church, begin cropping up all over town.

Sunday mornings become about the performance, the show. The pastor and the congregation are equally culpable in lifting him atop a pedestal. Many of these mega-churches have become all about the pastor, his personality, his interpretation of Scripture. It turns people into church consumers, with church members drifting off to the next charismatic preacher or bigger program, because they come together not to form a community but to be entertained or serviced. Ultimately, this mentality ends up producing consumer-Christians content to drive to whoever tickles our ears (with morality as entertainment) and our needs the most—with the church enabling such narcissistic behavior. So churches end up competing for the “found” and forgetting about the “lost.”

“Some might get lost in the hype.” –Pastor Fred Taylor

Pastor Fred Taylor, in effect, becomes a symbol for God. That he serves as a “Christ figure” is most evident in that it’s his death that sets everyone on the often rocky path of redemption. The path of the “lost” son is examined in my first review of The Gospel, but the movie piles subplot on top of subplot, veering dangerously toward a confusing mish-mash. However, the subplot involving the path of the “faithful” son deserves some examination.

Pastor Frank (Idris Elba, a far cry from The Wire), wanting to move the church into the 21st century, falls into the pride trap of equating himself with the church. The church becomes about the building, the legacy of a man, or the cult of personality built up around that man. Meanwhile, the men worry about trying to grow the church, and therein lies the problem. They often “sell their souls” for the sake of growing the church, losing sight of what it means to be a church and what the church should be about. Things like discipleship, learning in community, corporate prayer and worship become ancillary to the mission of growing the church.

The Gospel message, marketed for maximum appeals, transforms into a message of health-and -wealth promises or a kind of “pie in the sky when you die” philosophy rather than starting with how to live your life here and now. Preaching a message of prosperity, but convinced that they have to look the part, for Pastor Frank means pursuing a course of a new facility (and a better car). This leads Pastor Taylor to gently rebuke him that “We should spend a little less time looking good and spend a little more time actually being good.” Ministry gets reduced to a battle of egos between Pastor Frank, David Taylor, and even one of the church elders. All of which brings to mind the Parable of the Two Sons:

"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' " 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" Matthew 21:28-31 (New International Version)

The church has to be about the work of God’s kingdom, without its leaders losing sight of that fact in a rush to build their own personal empire. As a people, we’ve gone from being a church to going to church, forgetting that we who gather together for corporate worship on the weekend do the work of the church through the week. Forgetting that each member contributes to the mission of the church. The Gospel message is that God has Good News (that His Kingdom is at hand) meant for the world, He has chosen to use the church in order to share it, and we are invited to be a part of it. This is the lesson learned, and the reconciliation found, by the end of The Gospel.



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The Gospel - A Review

One of the things that the reviewers at Hollywood Jesus attempt to do is wrestle with movies–one of the voices of our pop culture–meet them where they are, and make connections from where they are to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. In other words, we like to appreciate art for art’s sake. So when a movie like The Gospel comes along, it either makes our job that much easier or that much more difficult. One of my major fears when it comes to “Christian” movies is that the audience is going to get less “story” and more “propaganda”. Actually, The Gospel is the latest entry in the “sub-genre” of small budget black movies, more in the vein of Diary of a Mad Black Woman or Woman Thou Art Loosed. But when you go, expect to “have church.”

The Gospel, in a nutshell, is the story of “The Prodigal Son” set to Gospel music, lots of Gospel music. The movie recaps the story in its closing moments. There was a man with two sons, both of whom he wanted to follow in his footsteps. The prodigal decided to live life on his own terms, while the other remained with his father. Soon, however, the road got rough and the prodigal ended up doing all sorts of things to survive, eventually hitting rock bottom. He realized that he had placed himself in that situation, prayed about it, and returned home. His father prepared a huge celebration for him in order to say “welcome home.” In other words, it is a story of ruin and reconciliation, a story of a spiritual journey.

The father in this case, Pastor Fred Taylor (Clifton Powell), spent his time busy doing church, New Revelations, business, forgetting that his first and primary ministry is to his family. Because he was absent–doing the Lord’s work at the expense of his family–his son, David “DT” Taylor (Boris Kodjoe) struck out on his own. Pursuing a career in “secular” music, he rode to the top of the charts with his hit single “Let Me Undress You.” His lifestyle became one focused solely on him and his needs, descending into a spiral of selfishness, separation, and sensuality; cutting himself off from his family and church while treating women as disposable items. This self-degradation, though the way his world might measure success might not have seen it this way, set him on a path squarely set for his eventual moral (and possibly financial) ruin.

“Okay God, what do you want from me?” –David Taylor

One of the axioms thrown at people is that once you hit rock bottom, reached the end of your ability to do things on your own, God has you exactly where He wants you: dependent on Him. It takes David a while to see where his own efforts have landed him, to paraphrase his manager, he had developed a case of ‘bad boy gets saved by a good girl in church’ syndrome. The girl in this case being former American Idol contestant, Tamyra Gray (as Rain)–a lead soloist in the church choir–who reminds him that motivations are important for why he wishes to return to church. It couldn’t be a matter of him returning just to be with her (and thus, due to a piling of subplots, she is removed from the equation).

David’s decision, his conviction of faith, has to be a matter of repentance. The question then becomes “repentance from what”? Pursuing a “secular” career in music is no sin. Choosing not to follow in his father’s footsteps is no sin. However, pride and self-reliance (to the exclusion of God), seeking his own path apart from God, those were the things of which he needed to repent. Only then would he be able to return to the church that he had known, to the life he was meant to lead, and be reconciled with the people in his life.

The movie features gospel performances by Fred Hammond, Yolanda Adams, Tamyra Gray, Martha Munizzi and loads of music by Kirk Franklin. Luckily, for the sake of entertainment, when the plot reached an inconvenient snag, the audience gets treated to a gospel performance.

The movie is not subtle. The characters are a little too one-dimensional, the storyline’s a bit too simplistic, and the movie wraps up a little too abruptly and tidy (if somewhat unclearly). Writer/director Rob Hardy opts to wave a magic wand making every character better rather than provide a feeling of each of them arriving at the natural conclusion of their respective journeys. However, though The Gospel has its problems, when in doubt, you can just close your eyes and ride the soundtrack. Guaranteed, you’ll come out of this movie with a dance in your steps and a song in your heart.

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Guest Blog by Wrath James White

I was at a nightclub almost a dozen years ago, when a girl I hardly knew came up to me and told her that a guy had dragged her into the bathroom and tried to force her to perform oral sex on him. I had seen the girl around the club a lot. I knew she had a reputation for being fairly promiscuous. But that didn’t matter to me. No woman deserves to be assaulted. I don’t know why she came to me with this instead of security. It wasn’t my nightclub. I was just there as a customer like her. That didn’t matter either. She came to me and so I was going to do something. I followed her over to where the guy stood and picked up an empty beer bottle out of the trash on my way. Once we were there the story started to change and it turned out that she had gone into the bathroom with the guy willingly and he had gotten the wrong message blah, blah, blah, one big misunderstanding. I walked away and left them to figure it all out themselves. I dropped the bottle back in the trash where I had picked it up. And then as the adrenalin fled my system I realized that I had been about to smash a bottle in the face of a guy who had done me no wrong because of a girl that I hardly knew. Why? Because rapists are the lowest pieces of shit on the planet in my opinion, right alongside child molesters, wife beaters, and gay bashers. Beating each and every one of them to bloody ruin would be my greatest joy.

One of the saddest facts about life today is the surprisingly few women who have never been sexually assaulted or molested in some way as either children or adults. An estimated three out of five women have been sexually abused. Far too large a number. I can no more understand the mentality of a man who believes he is justified in taking his pleasure from a woman by force than I can those who assault children. It is a cowardly despicable act and should be punishable by death. The three strikes rule for rapists and child molesters who repeat should end with them strapped to a table receiving a lethal injection. Chemical castration does not work as we have discovered because rape is not a sexual act so much as an act of violence and control. You don’t need a functional penis to do violence to someone. There is also the ability to simply stop taking your meds once you are on the outside allowing for the libido to com raging back at full potency. Chemical castration is voluntary and as such is just a gimmick used by cons to get an early parole. Chemical castration is also not a deterrent. It is too civilized and humane to be a true deterrent if we forced cons to take an injection everyday for the rest of their lives with a parole officer present. First we don’t have the manpower and resources for such a plan and second it wouldn’t solve the problem. I think literal castration would be far more effective. After three strikes you could have the choice of losing your equipment entirely not just the testicles but the whole shebang leaving only a hole for you to piss through or just taking the hot shot and getting it over with. I think this would be a great deterrent. If they commit any acts of sexual violence after being castrated they would be put to death without question. The only problem with deterrents like this is that most rapists don’t believe they will get caught and some don’t even realize that what they are doing is wrong. At most corporations it is required to take a sexual harassment seminar yet it is not required in high school or college when our ideas about sexuality are forming. And I have one more suggestion, make the killing of a rapist a legal act and not just to prevent rape but make it legal to avenge one. I’d kill every rapist in four square miles in one weekend … after I castrated them all with a sharp spoon and sodomized them with baseball bats and broomsticks. Fuck a rapist. Kill them all.

I have heard women rationalize date rape. “Maybe I led him on.” Maybe it didn’t really happen.” “I shouldn’t have put myself in that situation.” I agree, women should be more careful with the situations they put themselves into. This world we live in is nothing nice. Still, no man should ever assault a woman. It is never a woman’s fault when she is raped.

When I worked as a bouncer at a nightclub in San Francisco called the Sound Factory, every night women would get so drunk at the club that they would pass out. When we found them we would wake them up and carry them out of the club and either put them in cabs if they were sober enough or sit them on the curb until they sobered up where they would inevitably pass out again. By the end of the night there would be between ten and twenty men and women lined up along the curb completely out cold. There friends, boyfriends, relatives would drive up and claim them at the end of the night. I often wondered how many of those intoxicated, unconscious women were plucked from the curb by men who were not their friends or boyfriends and wound up getting raped or worse. I always wondered why a woman would put herself in that position knowing the kind of world we live in. But the truth is that even carelessness and stupidity of that magnitude does not justify rape. It does not make it the woman’s fault. She does not somehow become an accomplice in her own rape because she did something stupid. How many dumb things do you do in a day when you should have known better? How would you like it if you got raped because of any of those dumb decisions? It shouldn’t happen to anyone except perhaps the rapists themselves. Sodomizing rapists in prison should almost be mandatory. Fuck a rapist. Kill them all!

I remember going with a lesbian feminist friend and sometime lover of mine to an art gallery in LA to see an artist she was fond of who had an exhibit on Melrose. There was a piece of political pop art that struck me so hard that I remember it to this day two decades later. It was a picture of a woman her eyes blacked out by a marker on a background of torn red paper with the words “Men do not protect you” written across it in large block letters. Men do not protect you. That is a shame. Because we should. We should be your heroes not your victimizers. You should be able to go to a club and get as drunk as you want, whether I personally approve of that lifestyle or not, and know that you will be protected, that you will not fall prey to some random stranger with a hard on and no moral character. You should know that you can go up to any man in any nightclub and ask him to defend your honor and he would without question because women are the world’s greatest treasure. You should know that I’m not the only man out there that would smash a beer bottle in someone’s face for laying a hand on you. Men should protect you and women should protect themselves and rapists should be castrated and put to death. As I have said about child molesters, rape is not just something you do, a rapist is something you are. And in my opinion it is something that should not be allowed to exist. We should have zero tolerance for this act. Try education. Try rehabilitation. Try punishments and deterrents. But when all of this fails we must be willing to expunge these predators from our society. It is our duty to keep our citizens safe. A woman should feel safe walking down any street in America. She should feel safe going to a man’s house, apartment, or hotel room even if she’s never met him before. She should feel safe walking through a parking lot even if she’s drunk and if she isn’t then we as a society have failed her. Our retribution for crimes against our women and children should be as swift and decisive as that we launch against terrorists who threaten our country. Fuck a rapist. Kill them all!

Wrath James White


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Intro to Wrath

This will come as a shock only to those who don’t know me, but most of my friends are women. One of the alarming things that has never failed to confirm the innate evilness of people is that fact that many of the statistics that I’ve stumbled across state that 38% of girls are sexually abused before the age of 18 and 90 – 95% of all sexual abuse cases go unreported to the police.
In my circles, I wonder if the statistics are too conservative.

I was asked in a chat/interview whether or not my religion kept me from writing about certain things. In general it doesn’t I think anything can be written about and it’s the skill of the writer that crafts the story told. There are times when I can’t get to a certain place that a story or character needs to go. In times like that, it’s good to have friends to call on. Friends like Wrath James White.

I’m reminded of a time in high school when my best friend (one of the few guy friends that I have) went through a “rededication of his faith” which for him meant that he threw away his rock ‘n roll tapes and quit cussing (that was where his conscience had been convicted, and where he was in his spiritual journey). So I, suffering from no such convictions at the time, did his cussing for him. If he ran into a situation that demanded more than his speech and conscious would allow, he’d get this frustrated look on his face then nod my way. And I’d spew venom with the appropriate level of vitriol the situation required.

What can I say, profanity was one of my gifts.

Right now, I don’t know if it’s my faith that binds me (though, truth be told, it’s about the only thing keeping me together most days) or my stoic nature, but I feel like I can’t get in touch with what I want to say. I know that Wrath can bring the passion to the topic that I just don't have, or rather, can't give, right now.

WARNING: Wrath is an “extreme” horror writer, not for the faint of heart. However, here’s a final thought for any “enemies”, one that we were just discussing a couple Sundays ago in regards to God’s wrath (as well as an interesting way to think of Mr. White): wrath is love in action.

And it rarely looks pretty.


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Invasion

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 (New International Version)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers seems to be remade every generation. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1993) and now Invasion (which might as well be Invasion of the Body Snatchers: The Series). Considering that the original was a thinly-veiled political commentary on the fear of communism, I wonder what anxiety this current iteration will tap into. Perhaps the fear of a government out of control.

Created by Shaun Cassidy (The Agency, the cult classic American Gothic), Invasion unfolds the story of a small town, Homestead, at the edge of the Florida Everglades besieged by a hurricane and strange goings-on. The hurricane opener that sets all subsequent events into motion has a special resonance in light of recent events and tragedies, and apparently covers the landing of aliens. A U.S. Park Ranger, Russell Varon, played by Eddie Cibrian (Third Watch) tries to keep his family together while investigating what is happening within his town. Cibrian plays essentially the same character he did in Third Watch (I keep expecting someone to call out “Jimmy”), without the character flaws that made him a more interesting character. Standing along side his conspiracy loving brother-in-law (Tyler Labine), they are threatened by a gathering of sinister forces both military and alien.

At the heart of the series is a tangled web of relationships. Russell is married to Larkin (Lisa Sheridan), a TV reporter. His ex-wife, Dr. Mariel Underlay (Kari Matchett), is now married to Sheriff Tom. The two kids bop back and forth between the two couples. The community begins to clean up and put their lives back together, cut off and under siege by quarantine and martial law, led by William Fichtner (Go, Crash) as Sheriff Tom Underlay, continuing Cassidy’s usage of sinister sheriffs (like the anti-Andy Griffith from American Gothic. In fact, Fichtner seems to channel Gary Cole’s character, oozing menace every time he’s on the screen).

In a lot of ways, Invasion plays out like the movie Signs: an alien invasion story set against the backdrop of how it impacts a family. Like any family, they don’t quite fit together well and are trying to figure out the balance of tolerating and relating to one another; and this is before the aliens come a-visiting. Invasion follows the hit show Lost, guaranteeing a potentially large audience pre-primed for this type of show. Invasion, however, doesn’t have the show device of flashbacks to flesh out and deepen the story, so it doesn’t have the luxury of the week-to-week leisurely hinting that Lost does and it’s plot will have to move with greater speed to sustain its audience (or it may go the way of HBO’s Carnival).

“How can you explain the unexplainable?” Mayor Littles (Holmes Osborne)

One of the things that horror as a genre does so well is examine the fears that we all live with. The fear of evil, of death, of monsters, be they inhuman or entirely too human. That is the basis of the spiritual implications of the show. We have this sense that things aren’t as they should be, that people aren’t who we think them to be. The people we k now and love being ... different. Looking the same on the surface but being strangers underneath. “Are there monsters?” Varon’s daughter asks, and the answer is a resounding “yes.” With Invasion, those monsters are both without and within. The monsters, the extra-terrestrial biological entities, represent the unseen power that we suspect lurk around us, are a part of our everyday lives even if we don’t realize it. I think part of our suspicions have fueled the rise in the belief in both angels and aliens in our pop cultural consciousness. We have a sense, and we work it out in our art, that we do indeed struggle against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.

“It’s like part of me is here. Another part, a different part, is pulling me away.” Dr. Mariel Underlay (Kari Matchett)

Yet, we look around us, seeing the evil that people are capable of completely on their own and realize that part of this same battle is fought inside us. Turning out gaze within, we know that there is an evil that lurks within us, that is a part of us with which we also struggle against. Invasion captures the reality of us struggling against our own flesh (our inherent weakness as human beings) as well as powers beyond us. We forget who we really are, what we were created to be, and are left as lost, bewildered, and stumbling through this life as those infected by the alien presence.

“God’s in charge. I just handle the paperwork.” Sheriff Tom Underlay

A mix of horror and science fiction, Invasion is a great companion for Lost. It’s a very good s how with a strong cast and a great storyteller behind it. It’s subtle, not in your face, with the groundwork laid for an intriguing series. Especially if you remember, like Lost, it’s less about the mystery and more about the people.

Grey’s Anatomy

“To be a good surgeon, you have to think like a surgeon. Emotions are messy. Tuck them neatly away and step into a clean sterile room where the procedure is simple. Cut, suture, and close ... But sometimes you’re faced with a cut that won’t heal. A cut that rips the stitches wide open.”

Thus opens the second season of Grey’s Anatomy, the surprise hit for ABC at the end of last season that caused them to shelf and then move Boston Legal. Paired with Desperate Housewives, and keeping a larger share of its audience, Grey’s Anatomy continues the trend of the meaningful, wraparound narrator voice over that gives so much weight to Desperate Housewives.

Grey’s Anatomy is out-ER-ing the still lingering ER, following the personal and professional lives of five surgical interns (“grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain”). Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is the daughter of a famous doctor (Dr. Ellis Grey), now suffering from a debilitating disease. She inadvertently finds herself involved with her supervisor, Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) and ends up rooming with a couple of her fellow interns.

The loosely drawn characters border on being one-note cliches, but they are well-acted, solidly written, and well used. There’s the ambitious/career-focused (Sandra Oh’s Dr. Cristina Yang, though this could easily describe her supervisor with whom she gets involved with, Isaiah Washington’s Dr. Preston Burke). There’s the “angry, black boss” (Chandra Wilson’s Dr. Miranda Bailey though this could easily describer their chief, James Pickens Jr’s Dr. Richard Webber). There’s the affable, yet hapless with women Dr. George O’Malley (T.R. Knight) and the selfish, self-absorbed cad, Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers), who sees patients as “pieces of meat” and surgeons as “butchers”.

Grey's Anatomy focuses on young people struggling to be doctors and doctors struggling to stay human. Surgeons are particularly vulnerable to developing God-complexes. They have to be confident and sure, and as interns, have to pursue procedures in order to hone (and demonstrate) their gifts. So on the one hand, they get to hold lives in their hands, seeing the marvel of God’s creation in intricate detail. On the other hand, they can tend to not waste time getting to know the patients except so far as they need to in order to proceed with their procedure. There can be a cost to be paid.

“You ever wake up in the morning, realizing that no one loves you, and ... I don’t know ... care?” Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens (Katherine Heigl)

Such pursuit of career over everything can lead to an empty way of doing life. To make it to the top, to put the job first, as Dr. Webber puts it, is a power kick, however, “you’re never more surrounded, never more along. You’re everyone’s father, everyone’s boss, and no one’s friend ... No emotions, no compromise, no personal life.” The words “physician heal thyself” becomes the diagnosis as well as the treatment plan.

Once the problem is correctly identified, a salvation plan is needed, and they turn to a variety of self-salvation schemes. As Dr. Shepherd puts it, “It’s like I was drowning and you saved me. That’s all I know.” The doctors scrape together bits of a life, develop relationships out of their spare moments, and create some sense of community. Unfortunately, even Dr. Grey points out “that’s not enough.”

Funny and sexy, the drama realizes that real life comes down to relationships. Relationships are messy, but they also are only part of what it means to become fully human. To live as we were created to be and live involves becoming a disciple, to intern in a new way of living and follow a new rule of life. Else their fates will echo the closing sentiments of the voice over narrator.

“They say practice makes perfect. Theory is the more you think like a surgeon the better you get at remaining neutral. Clinical. Cut, suture, close. And the harder it becomes to turn it off–to stop thinking like a surgeon–and remember what it means to think like a human being.”


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You Can’t Protect the Ones You Love

Sometimes I really wonder if it’s worth loving other people.

People come into our lives, some by blood or by birth; others drift in and insinuate themselves as such a part of your world that they become closer than some family. Relationships are such a double-edged sword: they are messy and complicate out lives, yet they give our lives such meaning.

It scares me to love some of you so much, knowing that I can’t shield you from bad things out there, from bad people seeking their own selfish ends. Knowing that I can’t take the bad things onto myself in order for you to not experience it. It’s arrogant, and maybe condescending, but it’s honest. It’s the same knowing fear every parent experiences when they stare into the face of their newborn child. It’s the same knowing fear that couples experience when they look into each other’s eyes when they give their marriage vows, understanding that one will have to watch the other die. That doesn’t make me hurt any less when horrible things happen to people I care about. I feel like a failed father, a poor friend, a useless husband, or an impotent big brother.

I suppose that I could go into how God sent His son and had to watch Him die, but that doesn’t feel real satisfying right now. Somehow that feels too remote a spiritual lesson. It does, however, give me more insight into what Mary went through watching her son–her child whom she held in her arms, whom she bathed and fed, raised and loved for a lifetime–be crucified unjustly.

But when all is said and done, I don’t regret loving the people God has brought into my life. We can’t live from a place of fear. We can’t be afraid to love out of fear. All we can do is love without taking one another for granted, pray for one another’s continued safety, and be there for one another when the bad times come.

And they will come.

No matter how much I want to protect you from them.


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Desert Wanderings

As I sit here still waiting on my 40 acres and a mule, I’ve been reflecting on a few things that have been bumping around in my head. I want to have one of those brother to brother conversations. I’m not saying that white folks are excluded from this conversation, but this is a family matter. Plus, the last thing we need is another brother pointing the finger at the black community in front of white folks. It smacks more of them staring down their nose in judgment of the community while seeking white folks approval than it does truly engaging in conversation.

That being said, I was at the Emergent Conference and a pastor made a comment that stuck with me. He wondered aloud about whether the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years, once Pharaoh released them, in order to get the slave mentality out of their minds and souls. It was a throwaway line, however, the thought has stayed with me. The Israelites had been enslaved for generations and that slave mentality, the culture of oppression, became ingrained in their very scarred souls, part of the character of who they were. The mentality insinuated itself as part and parcel of their identity. So when I carry the thought forward, if in 1965 black people were civilly “set free”, have we been wandering to get the “back of the bus” mentality free from our souls? In other words, it’s 2005, now what?

Part of my musings revolve around us continuing the real, honest discussion going on in barber shops and churches across the land in order to search for answers to how we can reclaim our communities. I feel like an old man complaining about today’s youth. Maybe I’m mis-remembering the past, but it seems to me that there was a time when black folks lived together in community. Sure, this was a holdover of segregation and the failed experiment known as housing projects, however, the history of America includes its share of regrets and hard examination at itself. The country was founded on a central hypocrisy of all men being created equal, except for its slaves; and that hypocrisy eventuated in our Civil War. Later, black people could fight and die for the rights of others in World War II, and not have their own at home; and that eventuated in the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights movement was a direct result of people working