Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Ah, I’ve missed Aaron Sorkin and in that spirit, I have really looked forward to the premiere of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It's directed by Thomas Schlamme and written by Aaron Sorkin, a master of the “at work” genre. He made the mundane aspects of work interesting, giving us Sports Night and The West Wing. That is the reservation I have about the show, it has that great Sorkin dialogue, but it also has the “been there” familiarity of the Sorkin touch.

Sorkin kept a lot of his tricks and rhythms that he picked up on The West Wing, from the winding camera-work, to the dialogue on the move, down to the W.G. Snuffy Walden original music. The show is populated by rich characters played by terrific actors, including some The West Wing alum: Bradley Whitford and Timothy Busfield.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip follows the behind the scenes workplace of a once cutting edge and relevant sketch comedy show. After a live, Network-like rant from the show's founder, Wes Mendell (Judd Hirsch) - a meta moment, as NBC is realizing the place it is in with its shows - the new president of "NBS" entertainment, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), makes some changes. Facing down the network head, Jack Rudolph (Stephen King’s Desperation’s Steven Weber), she decides to bring back the brilliant writer/director team Jack forced out, Danny Tripp (Whitford) and Matt Albie (Friends’ Matthew Perry).

“Not everyone of whom is necessarily the grotesque stereotype you’d like them to be. Most of these people have nothing except their faith and that moves me.” –Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson)

The show has a potential for interesting dialogue between the red and blue states ... that is, when it isn’t sharpening its ax to grind against the 700 Club/Pat Robertson. The show within the show features such sketches as “Crazy Christians” and “Science Shmience.” It attempts to balance the out the edge of satire toward religion by also having a fully rounded Southern Baptist character, Harriet Hayes who believes that “He who sits high in heaven laughs”.

The fact is that we are to be a joyous people, to laugh, to sing, to dance, all to express the joy within us. We are wired to worship. And while the history of the church is an often troubling one, with plenty to apologize for, Jesus instituted the church. Jesus participated in congregational worship. Put another way, Miroslav Volf, in a moment of personal reflection, communicated the paradox of a broken church. He said, “I am not a Christian because of the church, but because of the gospel. However, it was only through the broken church that I received the gospel. Because of the gospel, I participate in the church.”

“You gotta ask yourself ‘is she for real?’” –Danny Tripp

It’s hard to make smart television. We dumb down everything, from our newspapers to the text messaging culture and movies that point this out in satire, we sweep under the rug (look for Idiocracy to become the next Office Space). To fight for quality and intelligence automatically means a smaller audience and moves against the grain of our cultural mindset and this show will more than likely serve as Exhibit A. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is not without its flaws. The experience is like approaching Saturday Night Live with a The West Wing style gravitas. It is sometimes a little too self-important and self-referential. However, its characters are real, flawed, and smart spouting dialogue that is witty, intelligent, and funny. Sure the show was heavily-hyped, but the question remains, will anyone care?


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Prison Break

“I guess in a place like this, you never know which day is going to be your last.” –Michael Scoffield

One of the most spiritual shows on television, along with Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 (not including those set up to specifically explore those themes, like Joan of Arcadia), was the show Oz. Why? Because do you know when many of us think about God and life? When we’re desperate. When we’ve reached the end of our rope and hope. When we’ve seen where life has gotten us under our own efforts. When we see the bars/cages of our life for what they are. Prison Break has more in common with 24 than the harsh depictions of prison life found in Oz.

Make no mistake: Prison Break isn’t trying to be a documentary on prison life. In fact, the set up is fairly ludicrous. Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) is on Death Row, framed for the murder of the U.S. Vice President. His brother, Michael Scofield (The Human Stain's Wentworth Miller), was one of the structural engineers that designed the prison. So concocts an elaborate plan to escape, tattoos the schematic of the prison on his body, then robs a bank to land in the same prison as his brother. If you can get past the set up, then sit back and enjoy the ride, because it’s a roller coaster of a show.

Wonderfully shot, the show itself is a technical beauty. Despite the show being chock full of action, we wouldn’t watch if we didn’t care about the characters. And the show is full of brilliantly acted characters: John Abruzzi, an incarcerated mob boss (Constantine’s Peter Stormare); the legendary D.B. Cooper (Muse Watson); Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell (Robert Knepper), the white supremacist with the survival capabilities of a cockroach; and dishonorably discharged Benjamin Miles 'C-Note' Franklin (Rockmond Dunbar) among others. Criminals, but none seemingly too unsympathetic or beyond redemption (except maybe T-Bag). And that’s what the show is, a journey of redemption.

“Preparation can only take you so far. After that you have to take a few leaps of faith.” –Michael

During the “secret origin” episode of Prison Break, we find that Scofield has been diagnosed with low latent inhibition. People like Scofield see everyday things like we do, but they process everything - their brains are more open to incoming stimuli. Coupled with a high IQ, makes him a creative genius, one that is attuned to all the suffering around him. Scofield became a rescuer, concerned with other people’s welfare more than his own, in short, he became a kinsmen-redeemer.

Originally, the brother or kinsman of a deceased husband was to marry his widow, and if she were childless, provide offspring. The kinsmen-redeemer had a three fold function: he was a redeemer of person (from slavery), of property (an inheritance), and of blood (an avenger). Christ is a kinsmen-redeemer, whose demonstrated grace and mercy by shedding his blood to purchase liberty for us from the prison of sin.

The tattoos on his body are a map to freedom.

“Often the Lord appears when you are in particular need of forgiveness.” –Reverend Mailor

The thing about prison is that it is the ultimate end of self moment. Why people so often find themselves on a spiritual path once they find themselves in prison is because they look around and see the consequences of living life their way on their terms. We are trapped, sometimes by our selves, sometimes by the Law, and sometimes by the circumstance of life.

Michael: Why are you so cynical?
Dr. Tancredi: Michael, I think there’s cynicism and there’s realism.
Michael: And there’s optimism. Hope. Faith.

Faith is the central theme of the show. We see all manner of faith being examined and lived out: faith in their efforts, faith in each other, faith in God (which John Abruzzi finds). Each type of faith is an attempt to escape the desperation of being trapped, of being caught up in a web of conspiracies and forces beyond our control. In Christ there is freedom, a liberation and reconciliation where we are declared blameless and which only puts us on the path to become holy.

“It’s never too late. If you agree to accept Christ into your heart and turn from your sin, he will forgive you. And save you in eternity.” –Reverend Mailor (Thomas Edson McElroy)

Serialized shows are all the hip rage this season (and watch as many of the freshman serialized shows crash and burn before mid season). I’m hoping that Prison Break won’t try to overstay its welcome by stretching out a story that by all rights should wrap up in the third season. Much like The Fugitive, chase shows should know when to end. In season two, our “heroes” find themselves still seeking freedom by their own means. One of the keys to the show is to not get too attached to anyone because, like 24, anyone can go at anytime. On its face, Prison Break is completely ridiculous, but it is quite entertaining.


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Justice - Shark

“A Tale of Two Law Shows”

While David Caruso is doing his best Batman impersonation on CSI: Miami (and the show becoming increasingly ridiculous the more they play into it - With his black jacket as a cape and his sunglasses as his mask, I seriously expect him to do his best Michael Keaton saying “I’m Batman” at the end of every scene), the other branches of our legal system are getting quite the work out. This season, in addition to Boston Legal, we have the freshmen shows Justice and Shark. Let’s see how the freshman class stacks up to one another.

“If you keep digging holes for yourself, people are going to get tired of throwing you down a rope.” –Tom (Kerr Smith)

Executive producer, Jerry Bruckheimer (C.S.I.), brings us Justice which follows the Los Angeles law firm of TNT&G. A forensic look at legal defense strategy, the show is as slick as the lead attorney Victor Garber’s Ron Trott (Alias) smarmy, cocky lawyer. At once the voice of veteran leadership yet nicely greased and unlikeable, he would be a one-note character except that Garber’s charisma shines through despite his character. He heads a team of high stakes and highly paid (are there any other television kind) defense attorneys, the most notable being Eamonn Walker (Oz) who brings a captivating gravitas to his role as former prosecutor, Luther Graves.

At the end of each episode we get to see a flashback of what really happened. The show doesn’t exactly break new ground, trying to be a hybrid of C.S.I. and The Practice, but it is quite watchable.

“And my problem is that I don’t believe in God ... and he hates me for it.” –Sebastian Stark

In Shark, James Woods plays Sebastian Stark (a.k.a. Shark) who has something approaching a crisis of faith when a client he gets free on a technicality goes off to murder. His brand of penance involves switching sides as he ends up working along side the L.A. district attorney, Jessica Devlin (Jeri Ryan). Would now be a bad time to point out that Jeri Ryan can’t actually act? Yes, when Star Trek: Voyager became Star Trek: Seven of Nine, it became more ... interesting is too strong a word, but you know what I meane. However, we weren’t watching because of her acting chops. Luckily, she never has enough screen time to actually say or do much. In fact, she barely has enough screen time to justify her name being in the credits, much less have anything approaching chemistry with Woods. They talk fast and by that I guess we’re supposed to be caught up in their witty repartee.

Did I mention that the acting is thin?

Even Woods seems to not quite get his own character as he stumbles through the scenes. Alternately doing poor versions of arrogant, condescending House-lite when he isn’t doing a watered down James Spader (of the aforementioned Boston Legal). The set ups and characters border on the cliched. This show doesn’t even attempt to break new ground.

“Your job is to win. Justice is God’s problem.” –Sebastian Stark

What is it within us that gives rise to this need for justice? C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, makes an argument for a Law of Human Nature, those laws of right and wrong written onto men’s hearts. “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20) After all, ethical disputes presuppose some common standard of human decency.

However, as we look around at the people around us, we’re disturbed by how men actually behave versus how they ought to behave. Even at our best, we struggle with the already/not yet tension: that we are already redeemed, though not yet fully redeemed. Already holy, not yet fully holy. Something in us tells us that there is a standard of behavior that we ought to adhere or at least aspire to. And if there is some kind of code written into each of us, the fact that we don’t live in a state of lawlessness still points to a Lawgiver. Jesus is our Advocate (1 John 2:1), pleading our case before the Father like a defense attorney.

“Do you miss it? Doing God’s work?” –Betsy (Erin Daniels)

We work in a fallen world, a world rife with injustice, yet we’re God’s co-workers in bringing about justice. Our mission defines our vocation. At least between bouts of watching Vincent D’Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) attempting to do his own variation of the Dark Knight Detective.


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Fear of Freedom

You’ve got to have people who will speak truth into your life, but those people need to understand that making mistakes is part of what learning is about. The goal is not to make someone mistake free, but provide cues and guidelines to help them think for themselves.

I imagine it will be tough to let go of my kids (my countdown clock aside). To get to that stage where I stop worrying, to stop thinking of them as my kid and let them be the adults they are one day supposed to be. Even adopted parents, spiritual mentors, or what have you - they pour themselves into their mentorees, investing in them, and then have trouble accepting you and your ideas once you begin to go your own way. It is rare that people will find themselves in the same place in their spiritual journeys, even moreso with parental figures/mentors. While you won't always be a child, to them, you will always be that child wholly dependent on them and their guidance.

The journey inward is part of the progress. You have to stick to it. Some people compare this time to God actually “giving” you more responsibility by not guiding you by the hand any more. Kind of like a parent with a teenager, how dealing with them is akin to handling a wet bar of soap: you want to keep them in your hand, but the best way to do so is in a loose grip because the harder you hold onto them the more likely they will just squeeze out.

In Christ we have freedom, yet we keep choking it off with our own brands of legalism. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1) We don’t trust freedom and we certainly aren’t comfortable with this whole idea of liberation. Most people want to be told, they want the black and white picture and hate (or at least distrust) anything that smacks of gray. That’s why there is such a comfort to rules and why fundamentalism has its draw. We have this fear of ourselves, of others, of community and church, and of the unknown. We definitely have this fear of taking chances and making mistakes.

Freedom goes against our sense of control, and ultimately, that’s what the extra rules that make up our walk boil down to. It’s the tension that parents have to walk with their children. Letting our children escape our firm, controlled grips and allow them to go their own way. By holding on to them too tight, we don’t allow them to grow. You can’t teach your children from a place of fear. It only teaches them to be in a safe box, unprepared for the world. We grow through paradoxes, through butting heads, in wrestling for answers we may never receive or understand.

Freedom means challenging yourself and exploring new ideas, not sealing yourself away from “the world” and its evil influences. With such separation you lose your sense of mission. On the flip side, freedom does not mean indulge your sinful nature.

So go easy on parents/mentors. Parents will always be parents and as you grow and go your own way, they won't always trust you to not stumble until you don't stumble. It's tough being a parent. You see your kids growing up, making mistakes (that you're powerless to prevent them from making). The best parents are doing their best to keep their hands at your side, ready to catch you when you fall; while some, well, they are busy wrapping their house in bubble pack so that there are no hard corners for you land on. You want to seal them up in a cocoon of your making, or maybe in a "safe" Christian ghetto. However, we don't live in a safe world nor has God called us to stay in safe places. We are to go into the world and in so doing, we have to trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us and for Christ to help us back up when we fall. We have to trust the Bible in what it says and (just as importantly, but more scary) what it does not say. If you are strong, carry the load of the weak; and if you have to wave your freedoms in the face of the “weak,” you’ve probably just revealed yourself to be one of the weak.


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Blogging In Black - Racism in Publishing II

Yeah, I’m also now blogging for Blogging In Black (you might have noticed the button for it on the side of my blog). Blogging in Black is a collective of literary professionals sharing their views on the writing life, publishing, and anything else on their minds. Think of if as Murderati with black writers. I’ll be writing over there once a month, usually on the 27th of the month. Anyway, this month’s column is a follow up to my blog, Racism in Publishing. Now there’s a court case involved and I think there is an issue that is of interests to all writers about what we’d be willing to do in the name of getting published.

Racism in Publishing II


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Friday Night Date Place - Treasuring Friendships*

We are relational being, created to form relationships with one another. Intimacy with others is a need hard-wired into us. Because friendship is a beautiful and unique form of love, it truly provides a genuine opportunity for our need for intimacy to be met apart from family and romance. One protection against isolation and loneliness is to create and sustain solid friendships. Their benefits range from emotional encouragement to spiritual support and stability.

Granted, we are quick to call some people friends. We’ll call casual acquaintances (from work associates to people whose faces we recognize at a party to people we interact with on messageboards - people we see during the normal course of our lives) friends. Which makes it tough to distinguish who we are talking about when we talk about our closer circle of people that we call friends. We even distinguish that circle of friends from those we call our “best”/closest friends, those people we trust intimately. Then, in the final circle, is our spousal friends (certainly leading to an interesting Dante-esque image regarding final circles). Regardless, we need friends at each of these levels for an emotionally healthy life (though I wouldn’t suggest having more that one friend at the spousal level).

We must live in the midst of a caring community. Love must be shared. Life must be shared. There’s no such thing as instant intimacy. Friendships are a blessing from God, opportunities to both share and receive His love through another. Like any relationship, you have to be willing to risk being vulnerable to establish a friendship. All relationships have a measure of inherent risk to them. Sometimes it can be tough to maintain friendships with the opposite sex. Difficult but not impossible, you just have to be clear because, like any relationship, friendship affords the chance to develop intimacy.

Good friendships have several characteristics:
-Loyalty. Relationships are built on trust. Defending your friend. Supporting your friend in good times and in bad.
-Communication. Listening. Speaking. Accepting. Understanding. Forbearing.
-Challenging and stimulating. You ever hear the phrase “iron sharpens iron” (actually, it’s a proverb: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17)?
-Fun. What’s the point of spending time with people whose company you don’t enjoy?
-Self-sacrificing. Putting your needs above their own.
-Loving. All of our relationships should be characterized by love.

Lastly, we want to be careful about who we choose to be our friends and which voices we let speak into our lives. They should be formed around the right kind of things, with us choosing our friends because of their character. I can’t emphasize character-based friendships enough. Not because of what they can do for us, or what kind of status they bring to us, or just because they are cute. Like any relationship, we can’t be too needy, draining the friendship. Just like you can’t rush intimacy, you can’t be desperate about forming a relationship.

We need to be present in the lives of those closest to us. Touching their lives, pouring ourselves into each other’s lives. People aren’t an interruption of our lives, they are the reason for our living. While you can’t be everyone’s best friend, you can significantly impact one person. Good friends are worth their weight in gold. Treasure them when you have them and don’t take them for granted. Let them know how much you appreciate them.


*Once again, owing a debt of gratitude to Rich Vincent.


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Black Passion

I am sitting in my living room and right above my television, obviously the most reverential corner of the room, are three pictures. On the left, a montage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos; in the middle is a portrait of Malcolm X; and on the right is a picture of Jesus with His disciples at the last supper. Yep, Jesus and His disciples are black in my picture. I bring this up because there is a new movie coming out.

"Color of the Cross" tells a traditional story, focusing on the last 48 hours of Christ's life as told in the Gospels. In this version, though, race contributes to his persecution. It is the first representation in the history of American cinema of Jesus as a black man.

It is the first depiction of Jesus as black in American cinema (though Blair Underwood played a returned Christ in The Second Coming (1992)), however, in a display of irony, it was the South African film “Son of Man” that first depicted Christ as black. By portraying Jesus as a black African, Dornford-May hopes to sharpen the political context of the gospels, when Israel was under Roman occupation, and challenge Western perceptions of Christ as meek, mild and European.

``We have to accept that Christ has been hijacked a bit - he's gone very blond haired and blue-eyed,'' he said. ``The important thing about the message of Christ was that it is universal. It doesn't matter what he looked like.''

Oh, my naive friend. It does indeed matter what He looked like ... at least to some. I can already hear the cries of protest now. “Jesus wasn’t black, he was Jewish.” It’s the same charge I always heard whenever someone came across my “black Jesus.” Ironically, the last person to put that to me carried around a picture of Jesus in his wallet. And he wasn’t very Semitic looking.

We live in a race conscious and race polarized society and image is important. It has shaped how we see each other. I still have a copy of Birth of a Nation on DVD, to remember how black people were depicted and thought of. People quickly become historical-cultural experts when confronted by the image of Jesus being anything other than European. Though, as I remember my Bible stories, Moses was adopted by Pharoah’s daughter as her own. Oh wait, here come the “the Egyptians weren’t black” folks.

Ultimately, you know, I have no problem with people having a version of Jesus hanging on their walls to better humanize them, a vision they can better relate to. (This is far from having an idol, all those who wish to parse my words for any violation of the second commandment). However, before the inevitable blogs start saying “he wasn’t black, he was Jewish,” be sure you check around your house and your church for all of those blonde haired, blue-eyed pictures and fight the same “he wasn’t white” battles. Then talk to me about how the image of Christ has been hi-jacked and how the mentality that led to hi-jacking that image might have been transmitted to the Gospel message that we preached.


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God Still Uses Davids

The story of David and Bathsheba is still on my mind. Even as I thought about the nature of David and Nathan’s relationship, I’m left wondering “can a ‘fallen’ leader be restored?” Reading the story of the Bible, one can’t say with any consistency that one moral failing and you’re out as a leader (memo to David, Moses, Abraham) - but we can see where their failings have cost them. Plus, you can certainly say that one moral falling with no repentance and they’re out.

Part of why I have a great deal of empathy for the fallen Davids of the world is because part of me figures it’s only a matter of time until I fall. I’m not going to live out of fear, I simply try to stay well aware of my weaknesses and because I know it could just as easily be me in that situation, I hope it keeps me from climbing into a haughty judgment seat. Also, leaders only fall so far because they’ve been placed to high in the first place. Some of this is understandable, after all, leaders are to be held to a higher standard (like it or not, the stricter standards for leaders includes no drunk, no thieves, no womanizers - did I mention my empathy?). However, leaders aren’t to be placed on a pedestal (nor altar, as some people are prone to do with some of their leaders), because leaders are still human.

So what’s a leader to do once s/he has fallen?

There is a process. Wallowing in your guilt is just as stifling as not facing your sin. Face what you’ve done and repent, then realize that at some point you’re done repenting. You bear the consequences, whatever they may be, and move on. As we study the leader, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we are on the outside. Repentance is an internal matter, between the leader and God. We aren’t in a position to judge the nature of their heart. As much as we may want to see them “act” repentant, it’s a fine line between wanting a demonstration of contrition and the appearance of people wanting to keep making the leader pay/remind them about their sin. (Thus, the inevitable defensive posture that says “I’m sorry if you don’t think I’ve repented enough.”)

The trickier question is “can a fallen leader be restored?”

This has to be done on an individual basis. The journey back to leadership has to be a careful process. I know that I would want to talk through things with that person. Know the details of how they got to where they are, how have they been changed, how long ago things happened, how long their processing time was, and if they are repentant.

I keep coming back to the processing time because there is a lot to process in terms of how they fell into sin and, ultimately, how are they not going to repeat their mistakes. They probably have many issues to deal with. They are full of self-doubt (maybe self-loathing). Most fall into sexual sin because they need someone to affirm them desperately: “You’re doing something worthwhile,” “I value you,” “You are needed.” The words are important and needed to be heard, but sometimes they can be taken too much to heart. I won’t lie, some of these “fallen” leaders could just be scumbags, but I have trouble believing that too many of them are in the ministry for that reason. The bottom line is that I’m going to want to know where their head is at in terms of how they see themselves.

Our mission as Christians means that we join in God’s work of restoration, a ministry of reconciliation. As we think through the criteria of what makes a good leader, certainly their gifts are still in place. They have certainly trained a good deal of their life for their vocation and in few other occupations can one failing cast you from your career track for good. However, again, that is the price of leadership. Trust destroyed is rarely regained. Maybe the challenge to us is in rethinking how we view and do leadership. For example, does being a good preacher make one a good leader or qualify someone for a leadership position?

Maybe we need to move to a shared leadership model, a leadership team or decentralized leadership as opposed to centralized control. With a leadership team you have differently gifted leaders that can balance each other out. Everyone has flatsides, character defects. Leadership teams lessens, hides, or minimizes the flatsides. The flat sides may even play off one another because areas where one is flat are shaped by those who are specialized in those areas, thus creating a “prism” of leadership.

A group can help hold that leader accountable, help him work through the various issues: boundaries, self-esteem, insecurities, developing discipline, what their life is like, and questions that have to be answered. No one has to or should go through these times alone. For that matter, in a leadership team, if a leader falls, the rest of the leaders can pick up the slack and continue.

Ironically, the more personality driven a ministry is, the more potentially lethal a fallen leader can be, both for the ministry and for the leader. Personality can over-ride responsibility. The leaders fall can devastate their followers and just as bad, those (remaining) followers will be more eager to put him back in the position of leadership - without that leader necessarily taking the time to work through their issues.

God can still use Davids, but there must be a slowness, restraint and caution, before they can be restored. Leaders don’t get the option of opting out of use, though, because of the nature and higher accountability of leadership, it might not necessarily be a leadership role. Yes, frankly, they may have to adjust to a new role. Either way, to paraphrase the great philosopher, Steve Harvey, don’t trip ... God ain’t through with you yet.


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New Icons

I’m once again looking for an image make-over. This time of my message board/LiveJournal icon. I’m still trying to make up my mind. These are my current icons (the middle one reminds me of my eldest son). I'm looking for something that conveys the joy that is me, not quite













but something close to it. Anyway, here’s where I’m at (thanks Alkilyu at The Other Dark Place):












But I just thought I’d point out that some people are just plain wrong:












My new INtake column is up. “What Happened to Halloween?”


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Fright Night Jamz/Horror Lovers Chat -- TONIGHT

Just a reminder! Tonight's RAWSISTAZ chat features horror and supernatural authors, some of whom are my favorites, and probably yours too. Come on out and join us as we host our Fright Night Jamz Party. TONIGHT!

Who: Gregory Townes, Lexi Davis, TL Gardner, Maurice Braddus, Brandon Massey & L. A. Banks
What: Fright Night Jamz Party/Online chat with RAWSISTAZ Literary Group
Where: http://www.rawsistaz.com/chat.html
When: Tonight (Tues/Oct 24 at 9PM EST / 8PM CST)
Why: Why not??



Fright Night Jamz Party

Featuring Horror & Supernatural Authors

Gregory Townes, Author of The Tribe, www.gregorytownes.com

Lexi Davis, Author of Pretty Evil and The After Wife (Mar 2007) - www.LexiDavis.com

TL Gardner, Author of The Demon Hunter Series - http://www.demonhunterseries.com

Maurice Broaddus, Author of "Black Frontiers" in Voices from the Other Side - www.mauricebroaddus.com

Brandon Massey, Author of The Other Brother & Vicious (releases TODAY) - www.brandonmassey.com

L.A. Banks, Author of The Vampire Huntress Series - www.vampire-huntress.com


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Questioning

Now, I’ve also come to realize that once you’ve deconstructed a lot of the ways things have been done, you have to start (re-)building something.

There comes a point when some folks question just to be questioning. I don’t know if it is because they think it makes them look especially deep/insightful or simply need an excuse to complain and do in the guise of “questioning;” but I get the sense that they not truly seeking answers. It strikes me as intellectual navel gazing at best or an excuse not to progress at worst. It’s like they are stuck in a groove, an intellectual rut. Pretty soon a lot of their ideas start to sound like mush.

One of the things that has struck me recently is that Christ became more enigmatic with those who were arrogant or who were certain about what they knew or who simply weren’t getting it. So he began telling parables. It was almost like he was saying “you ain’t trying to sort nothing out, so you’re getting stories.” (This is how Jesus talks in my head. He also sounds a little like Chris Rock.)

Anyway, it’s like this process that one has to go through as they shift from one paradigm to another. Once you’ve laid waste to a lot of your foundational ideas, you have to have some sort of mooring. I think how this happens has a lot to do with how we are leaving our old way of thinking. People tend to enter into new worldviews one of two ways: proactively (by catching and embrace a new vision) or reactively (because of some poor experience with their traditional paradigm - in other words, they are mad about something).

Which means that teachers and leaders have to think through what it means to train and equip people. Some folks simply need time to heal and recover from their old paradigms. I know plenty of folks who wanted to work in new contexts but, because of where they were, were put into traditional contexts and then found themselves battered and bruised. Also, along the same lines when the system we have for how we are used to seeing the world crumbles, it takes a while to recover as well as build a new way of thinking.

You’ve got to have people who will speak truth into your life, but those people need to understand that making mistakes is part of what learning is about. The goal is not to make someone mistake free, but provide cues and guidelines to help them think for themselves. For those trapped in a miasma of questions, at some point you have to wake up and act in faith.

Well, maybe the “questioning” and the complaining is a natural part of the process as the seeker is letting the venom out of their soul as they undergo the painful process of switching paradigms. Honestly, I think we underestimate the power of times of silence. Time to let the dust settle in our lives. Time to be still and know that He is God. Maybe in the silence we can find some answers.


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Acceptance

This Jesus guy keeps making my life complicated.

Seriously. Once again I find myself meditating on the idea of what it means to “Love each other as you love yourself.” I realize that “I love me some me” (I don’t know why this holiday never caught on) and that only increases how much I’m to love others. How much does that suck? It’s like the path to wholeness is found by balancing one’s innate love for one’s self (and yes, it isinnate. Our self-love can take a variety of forms, some twisted and some ... obvious) by turning that love outward.

Christianity was mean to be a lifestyle, one meant to distinguish us from the world. One of its hallmarks should be a sense of community. I know the word gets tossed around a lot, but when people talk about their church experiences, a lot of it boils down to the sense of community (or lack thereof) that they feel.

Community has to make you feel safe and wanted. If you’re going to talk about Christ and love, if you’re going to hang a sign on the door saying “church”, if you are going to label yourself a “Christian,” then when people encounter you, they better experience the love that should characterize you. It’s easy to love people who love you, who are like you, and who you get along with. Many of our relationships, including and especially our dating ones, tend to be an extension of your Self, your ego - they are like altar’s to ourselves.

It’s harder to love those who have quirks, who are weird, or who aren’t real likeable. It’s a true test to love your enemies. Yet it is here that is the measure of our faith, of who and what we say we’re about. Acceptance is tough. It is difficult to embrace everything as a gift. Actually, I think we confuse acceptance with a lot of things that it doesn’t do. You can’t rejection someone (or an idea) and accept it at the same time. You’d think that would be an obvious thing to state, yet look at how “hate the sin and love the sinner” practically works itself out. Indifference, resignation, or partial/begruding acceptance is not acceptance. It might be “not caring” but that’s not the same as acceptance. Nor is acceptance approval. I think that is a key hang up that people have. That if I “accept” a person or their worldview that’s the same as (tacit) approval of it.

I believe that acceptance begins with a thankful embrace of my Self (not in a “swim in Lake Me” sort of way, but in “recognizing who I am and why I am here” sort of way), my Circumstances, and my Neighbor. Acceptance comes from a place of love, of realizing that we all have purposes and meaning and then living it out.

Told you this Jesus guy was making my life complicated.


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Slither Redux

The movie Slither comes out today on DVD. Here's my review that came out when the movie was released for which I got this note from the director:

I truly loved your interpretation of Slither, with the gospel included. You really aren't so far off of where I was coming from. Thanks!

Best, james gunn

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To Freak or Not to Freak

Teenagers call it "freaking," a style of dance made popular on MTV. Educators call it simulated sex and say it has no place at school dances. This clash between outraged adults and sexualized teens is being played out at homecoming dances, winter formals and proms across the nation, most recently at Aliso Niguel High School in Orange County, Calif.

Freaking has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, propelled by the mainstreaming of rap music and the sultry images in hip-hop videos. Critics say its unquestionably carnal positions -- girl bent at the waist, boy thrusting behind her -- go far beyond previous generations' bumping and grinding.

Do you remember basement parties? I mean old school basement parties. Lights turned down low, you off in the corner with your special someone, Marvin Gaye playing in the background. Holding them close. Grooving. There was something special about that and not just in a nostalgic, “when I was your age” sort of way. I realize that this mindset goes against the grain of our hyper-sexualized culture, but I think we’ve lost something when we’re reduced both art and sex to dry humping on a dancefloor.

We’ve lost the sensual mystery of less is more. We’ve lost any sense of modesty that we can be beautiful and be more than sex objects. We’ve lost the notion that modesty protects and inspires allure. Since I think there is a propriety to dress, especially considering that how we dress affects how we carry ourselves and what our priorities are, I believe it as much when it comes to dancing.

Part of this is because I come at this from the worldview of an artist. Dance is a form of creative expression. Whole stories could be told in the movements of people’s bodies; passions felt and expressed, like in the movie Rize which documented the dance form, Krumping. For the dancers, Krumping takes on a transcendent purpose, becoming a way of life vital to who they are. At its core is the need to keep things real, placing itself in direct opposition to the bling-bling/commercial mentality of today’s hip-hop culture. The dancers want the moral foundation, the realness of things of substance. They want to matter. And I guess that’s the rub: sex doesn’t matter.

Yet singleness boils down to the discipline of chastity: abstinence before marriage, fidelity within marriage. If you are disciplined when you are single, it makes it easier when you are married. Let’s not boil chastity down to “don’t have sex”. Chastity is about the pursuit of purity. Chastity is the commitment to have sex in its proper place (different from celibacy which is lifelong abstinence, swearing off sex). Chastity is a discipline and we aren’t big on teaching our children discipline, then we act shock when we produce undisciplined adults. As far as we’re concerned, we’re human, it’s a natural drive and who is anyone to say what’s wrong or right. It’s easier to give in to the idea that we (teenagers and the rest of us) are all doing it anyway and try to curb the worst expressions of it. That’s where we are as a society: reduced to our basest instincts with no desire for anything better.

This is yet another piece of evidence in the case that I’m too old to club. Maybe I’m just out of step with everyone.


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Friday Night Date Place - Loneliness*

Probably the number one thing single people struggle with is loneliness (followed closely by discontent). Loneliness is that emotional pain we experience when we are not connecting to others in the way we want to be. Loneliness is painful because intimacy is a need and with a lack of intimacy, we are left with feelings of disconnectedness, being left out, and alienated. In fact, you could define loneliness as a lack, or even the opposite of, intimacy.

“Intimacy refers to the baring of your soul to another person. Therefore it requires a high degree of openness and vulnerability ... it is best described as a process of discovery, an ongoing self-revelation that continues to reinforce the bonding between two or more people ... Intimacy occurs when two people delight in each other in an atmosphere of security based on mutuality, reciprocity, and total trust.” –Carolyn Koons, Single Adult Passages.

True intimacy is often elusive. Let’s face it, we have this need, this void, for intimacy that our culture has taught us to fill with all sorts of things that fall short of truly filling it. Money. Marriage. Sex. Parenthood. Success. Food. (Don’t tell me you haven’t tried to fill the pain of a break up with a cheeseburger or some ice cream. Or both.) All because the desire to know and be known is a universal desire, one hard-wired into us.

However, none of these cures work for two reasons: 1) no one person or group or thing can satisfy our deepest needs because we are all limited; and 2) only a relationship with God can bring complete wholeness. Even a relationship with God and a resultant life of godliness does not completely remove loneliness.

And loneliness is not good.

“...I noticed Adam and Eve didn’t meet right away. Moses said God knew Adam was lonely or incomplete or however you want to say it, but God did not create Eve directly after He stated Adam was lonely. This struck me as funny because a lot of times when I think about life before the Fall, I don’t think of people going around lonely. But that thought also comforted me because I realized loneliness in my own life doesn’t mean I am a complete screw up, rather that God made me this way. You always picture the perfect human being as somebody who doesn’t need anybody, like a guy on a horse out in Colorado or whatever. But here is Adam, the only perfect guy in the world, and he is going around wanting to be with somebody else, needing another person to fulfill a certain emptiness in his life. And as I said, when God saw this, He did not create Eve right away. He did not give Adam what he needed immediately. He waited. He told Adam to name the animals.” –Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What

Loneliness is not good, but it can lead to a good end. The feeling can remind us that we need one another. We can deny or embrace loneliness, but there is not way around it, so the best way out is through it. We use it to push ourselves and thus transform it. Our feelings of loneliness should drive us to solitude (times alone with ourselves and God) and the pursuit of intimate friendships.

More next week.



*I bet Rich Vincent thought I wasn’t paying attention in his Sunday School class.


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Bones

We are a procedural junkie nation. We are awash in CSIs, Law & Orders, Without a Traces, Cold Cases, and Criminal Minds. Like reality shows, every time you think there is not another permutation to explore, out pops another one from those fertile Hollywood minds (who turn “monkey succeed, monkey see, monkey do” into their work credo). We are in love with watching people at work, either because we’re fascinated with jobs other than our own or we simply enjoy watching people passionate about their work.

The show is inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and best-selling novelist Kathy Reichs, one of only 50 certified forensic anthropologists in the U.S. - and who also wrote a series of books about her alter-ego, Temperance Brennan. In a nod to something passing as whimsical wit, Bones features a character, Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel), a certified forensic anthropologist, who is also a part-time author who writes books about a forensic anthropologist called... wait for it... Kathy Reichs.

Brennan heads a squad of “squints” - lab folks more comfortable with remains and test tubes than other people. For no one is this more true than Brennan herself. Effectively orphaned at a young age, she grew up in the foster system where she became emotionally closed off. So unable to pick up on the slightest of social cues, from flirting to being aware of her own beauty to other people’s emotions - she, in effect, keeps the audience from relating to her.

Thus we have Seely Booth (David Boreanaz), the former Army sniper turned FBI agent who is her partner. Some may remember Boreanaz from his stints on Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and in the spinoff, Angel. Some may then recall that while he is fully capable of playing the taciturn, dark, and broody role (with the occasional bit of self-deprecating humor), any roles requiring much more emoting puts him somewhere just shy of, say, William Shatner-esque hamming. Thus the central flaw of Bones.

The show revolves about the chemistry between David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel, their banter firmly couched in some latent attraction for one another. Unfortunately, neither lead can act. Bones herself is a fairly one-note character. Unemotional, well, restrained emotions to allow her professional distance, though supposedly “even an empiricist has a heart”; and Boreanaz’s thin acting style becomes readily transparent. The two get by on their charm more than anything else, which right now seems to be working for them.

“... for dust you are and to dust you will return.’” –Genesis 2:19

In the end, we aren’t much more than bones. The fact that we are aware of this is what leads us to explore the meaning, or futility, of this life. It is this self-examination, this pursuit of truth that so often has science at odds with religion, when they are actually more often after the same thing. Finding the patterns of creation, putting together the jigsaw puzzles of life, we are on this journey of questions trying to connect the randomness of life (or seeing the fingerprints of a Creator).

“I thought you found answers in what you believe.” –Temperance

What we are often left with is a sense of story faith. Clinicians like Brennan would take such a collection of stories and label them as myths while others might consider them the story they’ve chosen to form their lives. She, like all of us, have faith, she just places her faith in science. However, even the armor of science can be pierced by the power of story. As she wrestles with the Bible, she concludes that “the lesson I would learn from this myth ... that when it comes to your children, your love has to be absolute. The messenger represents goodness, what you know to be right. Ergo you have to be open to what you know is true.”

Bones: “Faith and hope, right?”
Booth: “Love is good.”

Likeable and fun, formulaic and far-fetched Bones manages to work. Barely. For how long it can walk this precarious edge in anyone’s guess. Whereas Crossing Jordan is like Quincy in a skirt, Bones is like Quincy with a gun. Hmm, a Quincy reference certainly dates me. Um, Bones is like a modern day Nick and Nora. Okay, a Thin Man reference isn’t much better. Anyway, Bones is procedural-lite. It has the trappings of a procedural. The actual crime-solving is practically secondary to the banter of the characters and the gizmos and experiments they get to conduct. All we ask from a procedural is some sense of verisimilitude or at least writers competent enough to be able to spell verisimilitude.


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Childhood Memories

I was listening to Colin Cowherd today and he touched on something that truly resonated with me: Johnny Quest. I miss my childhood cartoons, especially Johnny Quest. I’m not even talking about the obvious sexual tension between Race Bannon and Dr. Quest. I mean the kind of cartoon that wasn’t afraid of killing people. Not today’s brand of “safe” cartoons with their wacky explosions or plane crashes that take pains to show people escaping in parachute.

Not Johnny Quest.

We’re talking gun shots. People going off cliffs. Dozens of innocents waxed by giant spider robots. I had a Johnny Quest marathon and couldn’t stop yelling “AAAIIEE!!!” (the signature cry of someone going over a cliff) for a month.

I know, we’re all about protecting our children. They don’t even make cereal like they used to. What happened to a perfectly good, mouth-rotting cereal like Quisp? For that matter, my sister and I were at a family reunion the other week and we sat in the new and improved safe play ground. No merry go rounds (where we could tie a rope to a bike and really get the thing spinning), no giant swings where you could stand up and leap out, and no monkey bars that made you pay for your lack of coordination by only having concrete underneath you.

Man, those were the days. Don’t come blaming me when the next generation coming up is soft.

Yeah, this was just an excuse to post a link to my latest Intake column, Classic Blunders.


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The Problem of Prosperity

After reading the recent Time article, I can’t help but be left with the thought that if one of God’s top priorities is to shower us with riches, then there are an awful lot of us outside of God’s will. The message has many different names - Word of Faith. Health and Wealth. Name It and Claim It. Prosperity Gospel - but the essence of the teaching is still the same. God wants you to be rich.

“...I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” –John 10:10

Sure it sounds good in the sales pitch: join us and get rich. The truth is more along the lines of accept and follow Christ and you are only going to be making your life harder. Get to be thought of as intellectually simple. Or blind, irrational, and fanatic. And those are on good days. I never got how this teaching got around the story of Job. For that matter, a Christ-like life didn’t end all that well for Christ himself and he most certainly could have named and claimed himself right off the cross.

I thought this kind of stuff had gone the way of the televangelist, discredited and distrusted. How often to we have to re-learn the lesson that when you start mixing in money to any situation, it will eventually bring out our worst. Some churches do a tither’s confession, having people confess not tithing what they should to the church. This “God will bless you if you give Him what is His first” smacks of a type of spiritual investment scheme reminiscent of the ancient Catholic scam of indulgence.

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” --1 Timothy 6:10

Aspects of our modern culture have insinuated themselves 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?”

Of course money is tied to liberation. However the liberation theology required doesn’t match up with the individualism and materialism and narcissism of the prosperity message. Partly, it is a point of pride, an embrace of the values of “the world” and culture, namely, a sort of “collective individualism”. What I mean by this is that the individual churches want to make names for themselves, want to be able to do what they want, when they want, how they want, and most importantly, on their terms. While they are out building bigger structures in their name, our rich churches spend too little time pursuing social justice and fighting poverty here and now.

Money itself is neither good nor evil. The “love of money,” the part of the verse that is often forgotten when quoting this verse, is where the problems come in. Most pastors are afraid to talk about money. When you see a pastor’s lips move on the topic of money, all you can picture is his heavily made up wife holding the collection plate, and they know it. It’s a lot harder to instruct people on how we are to find our riches, our prosperity, our happiness in knowing God and enjoying Him, then living accordingly.

I believe in giving, but I don’t believe in tithes and don’t think you can make a good biblical argument for it. I’ve seen a few “Manage your Money God’s Way” classes and I’ve always left thinking: look, take a financial management class - sprinkling verses in the margins aren’t going to help me develop a budget any better. Both boil down to our hearts and an attitude of generosity: If I’m not giving or doing have a charitable spirit with my $2, I’m going to be no better with my $2M. Giving is a heart thing and money only makes you more of what you already are. Which is why we need to come to understand tithing as a process of spiritual formation.

Giving is something we do not only to support the work of the church, but also as a way of organizing even the financial parts of our lives around life with God. I see giving as a form of worship. Acknowledging that all that we have comes from God, so we set aside a portion. Sure, there are bills that have to get paid, but more importantly, we are called not only to receive, but also to give. One of the things we talk about is not having the values of this world; one such value being this consumer-mentality that our culture is driven by. Tithing reminds us to re-prioritize our spending habits. When we think about God and giving first, it helps breaks those chains, forming in us less the need to consume, and more the need to participate and bless others.

“Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’” –Luke 18:25

Actually, I have no real conclusion. I’m still praying for God to test me with wealth.


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“It’s Up to Us”

The fallout from the Pacers shooting up a strip club continue to reverberate. For those who don’t know, four members of the Indiana Pacers were involved in an altercation with other patrons at a Westside Indianapolis strip club ... Stephen Jackson told police that he was punched in the face and then hit by a car when the fight moved outside Club Rio.

Carl Brizzi, in a bit of a tussle in this year’s re-election campaign, has already been taking some heat over the recent homicide high. Now comes a politician’s dream come true: high profile (read: distracting) case with bigger headlines and ... (watch out now) tons of free publicity.

Some are suggesting he will use this opportunity for political gain by bringing the hammer down on an unpopular, unwanted Pacer player. The Pacers have had a preseason publicity campaign, knowing that they are facing a disenfranchised fan base (and worse, possible empty seats), with television ads and billboards featuring players and the "It's up to us" slogan. Actually, some say this Pacer is a black cloud and should have long had a hammer dropped on him by someone long before now.

Enter Carl Brizzi.

Prosecutor Carl Brizzi says that Jackson, with 35 people in the club's parking lot, fired several shots from his handgun in the air. Those bullets had to land somewhere. Brizzi says there also are inconsistencies in Jackson's story about being punched in the mouth, at first cited as one of the factors that led to the shooting.

I heard Carl Brizzi say on the Bob and Tom show that he took the celebrity part out of the equation and made his decisions from there. He wouldn’t come down harder because Steve Jackson because he was a celebrity, but he wouldn’t do anything less because he was one also. Let me tell you, he’s a sincere sounding politician, but he’s still a politician doing what politicians do best. Getting upset with him for politicizing current events for his own gain is like being mad at a thundercloud for raining - it is simply doing what it does.

Is he thinking about the politics as he moves forward? Of course he is. At the very least he has stuck his moistened finger in the air and is aware of the direction the wind is blowing. You know what that makes him? An aware politician. However, do you know who I’m not worried about being treated unfairly in a legal bind? A rich, celebrity athlete.

Honestly, be purchasing tickets for a sports franchise that has lost its sense of integrity and character, things held dear by Hoosiers and a big part of what makes us “us”; or voting for politicians we’re either tired of seeing and/or wanting to give someone new a shot at things, it really is “up to us.”


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Friday Night Date Place - Platitudes

Be they family, friends, or folks at church, singles often have to suffer through the slings and arrows of well-intentioned though insensitive, intrusive, and commentary that was rarely asked for. “By the time I was your age ...”(a personal favorite of my mom’s), “Trust God to meet all your needs,” “Stop looking and the right one will show up,” “God is Sovereign,” “God is teaching you patience,” “You need to learn contentment,” “Why aren’t you married yet?” (complete with slightly disapproving or pitying tone), “Concentrate on being the right spouse,” “God is your spouse” (which reminds me of the book of a myspace friend: “If God is My Husband, Why is My Bed so Cold?). With answer like these, I hope I don’t face any real tragedies. Well intentioned or not, cliches are not enough.

The questions never stop, by the way, they only change: If you are dating, you get asked “when are you getting married?” If you are married, you get asked “when are you having kids?” As an aside, I was only ever asked this one and a half times. The first time I was asked this, I announced to the crowd of interested friends, family, and fellow church attendees, which page of the Kama Sutra me and my new bride was working on. The “half” time I was asked happened when my friend was asked this question. Now, she was sitting right next to me - and had actually just found out she was pregnant - but was asked by someone she barely knew. So I asked if I could answer the question for her. She gave me the nod. So I went on a several minute harangue about their heartache of trying and trying to get pregnant with no success. And how every time the question is asked, it was like the wound being re-opened. But otherwise, thanks for asking.

It’s a function of how the church and society generally treats singles: like they are modern day lepers, a conditioned that has to be suffered through as they make their way to the Promised Land that is marriage. After all, singles can’t be whole unto themselves, they can’t be experience the fullness of life without a spouse, or, heaven forfend, children. There is a mentality within our society, a cultural mindset within the church, such that they see singleness as a problem to be fixed, a condition to be endured, mostly stemming from the fact that they have made family into an idol.

There are nuggets of truth within the comments of our well-meaning family, however, they are often like band-aids put on the gaping wounds of pain that singles often wrestle with. As if singles haven’t thought about why they are alone, why they hurt so much, why no one has deemed them “worthy” enough to ask to spend the rest of their lives with them (and don’t get me started on that “marriage is a prize of life” mentality). These commentators don’t realize how hurtful or downright insulting they are being.

Singleness has its own blessings and joys as well as frustrations and pain. I understand where the platitudes tend to come from. They see their single loved one in pain, unfulfilled, discontent and want to offer some consoling words. However, like with any kind of pain, maybe it’s better to be silent and simply come along side those in pain and be with them.


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Chris Meloni

Am I the only one who has trouble seeing him read to kids on Noggin?

After watching him on Oz and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, I keep waiting for him to go all intense and throw a kid against a wall.

I’m just saying.

My INtake column is on blog gossip. If you want, you can get warmed up for it here.

Yep. Nothing today folks. Move along.


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Personal Rejection Letters*

Don’t for a second think that submitting stories to your friends is somehow easier. Sadly, it can be more difficult, because then rejections become a lot more trickier. Why? Because now the rejection is personal. If we have to have a rejection letter, we want something personalized, something with comments that lets us know that the editor actually read the story. However, rejection letters from friends ... they better bleed with grief from having to reject us.

I have read of editors losing friendships over having to reject some of their friends. This continues to baffle me: it’s not like we don’t understand the business. You can’t just sit around publishing your friends because, well, you accumulate a lot of friends. And your name is the one on the line if you publish crap.

I try to follow the same rules with friends that I do with other editors. Be professional. Don’t respond to the rejection unless it is to say something along the lines of “thank you for your time and consideration.” Okay, with friends, since most already feel bad for having to reject their friends, my job is to make them feel worse (I’m still getting over the grief caused to me and my family by one Mr. James Moore. My family is still in mourning, Jim. Mourning!). However, some “friends” delight in rejecting you.

Which brings me to Chesya.

Yeah, someone’s given her the title editor of the Red Light District Anthology (thanks a lot, Cat). Oh there’s nothing worse than having to submit to Chesya. I take that back. There’s nothing worse than ME having to submit to Chesya. One, there is the phrase “submit to Chesya.” She gets on her “dance, monkey, dance” high horse. Apparently this means she has the right of first refusal on all of my stories. Which, of course, have to prove their worth for her diva-ness to bother reading.

In other words, my submission might as well include the sign: "If you can reach the knife in my back, please return it to Chesya - doubtless she'll want to use it on her other friends, too"

Yeah, I could solve all of this by not submitting, but I am planning on submitting to almost dare her to reject me. Cause Lord help her if she rejects my story and I sell it to a larger market. Sure it might not be professional to talk about markets you’re planning to submit to, but ... hang on, the phone’s ringing. Caller ID says it’s Chesya. Shocker, it’s been almost 15 minutes since she last called me. (She’s kind of like Candyman: mention her name three times and she just sort of appears).

Hello ... no, you can’t reject me before I even submit a story. That rule only applies to nobody writers. Of course I’m somebody. Bye.
As you know, I’d never do anything to make Chesya’s life more difficult. So, in no particular order, a few things for all of you prospective writers to keep in mind when submitting stories to this anthology:

Be sure to refer to her as your “chocolate muse” in your cover letter. Be sure to sum up your story in the cover letter. She LOVES that. Be sure your cover letter is half as long as your story. Be sure to list your every credit. Be doubly sure to include every non-paying market you’ve ever tossed off a story to.
Daggone. The phone is ringing again.

Hello? Hey, Cat. Yeah I saw your guidelines posted. Yeah, I know it’s your anthology, too. No, I wouldn’t dream of making your life more difficult. Yeah, I ... uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, I saw Mamatas’ guidelines. Me as a lusty pirate? Okay.




























Whatever. Never let it be said that I don’t cooperate with editors. What’s a little less dignity when I have a story to submit.

Anyway, I’m off to open up my trunk of buried stories and dust off what I’m sure was an old classic. Even if there isn’t a prostitute in it, no worries. I can stick a ho in anything. That’s another tip from your Uncle Maurice - Chesya loves those stories, too.

*This blog started off with such good intentions.


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To Mega-Church or Not to Mega-Church

I’ve been told that a big church can do everything a small church can, but a small church can’t do everything a big church can. Now, don’t get me wrong, this could simply be case of a large church trying to justify its excesses backing into a small church’s overly defensive posture, but I thought this was a topic worth re-visiting from a different angle.

Honestly, I don’t think mega-churches set out to be mega-churches. Their ballooned size caught them off guard, unprepared, and it required a shift in how they did things. All of a sudden they had to shift into maintenance mode, running the church like a corporation. In a lot of ways, it is a function of size. Too often churches find themselves divided out by ethnicity, class, and mentality, developing an internal culture of like-mindedness. This entrenched culture often acts as a barrier to innovation as it becomes a safeguard for “the way things are done.”

Not all mega-churches are good at being mega-churches, frankly, just like not all small churches are good at being small churches. It’s easy to criticize these large churches. Too often, mega-churches don’t make use of the space they have, underutilizing their buildings and property. To often the pastoral role is reduced to speaker/charismatic personality. It also becomes too easy for people to drift in and out of each other's lives because they're busy all of the time. Everyone's busy all of the time, between church stuff, work stuff, and family stuff ... family that doesn't include the "family" of God. But let’s be straight, you can hide just as much in a small church if you are determined to hide and you can make connections is a large church if you are determined to make connections. It comes back to what you think the philosophy of church should be.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” –Matthew 28:19-20

Some churches see their purpose as evangelism, using the method of dissemination of information as their primary tool. Their service revolves around the main speaker. It is a method but it shouldn’t be the primary mode that churches operate in. At this point, the closest comparison for their model becomes school, which might be an element of what it means to be a church, but not the primary identity of what it means to be a church. You may get a lot of knowledge, but how much community does head knowledge foster?

To pull stats out of the air for the sake of creating a mental picture of the situation I am talking about, often 80% of the people show up for the show, not interested in their own growth, not advancing the kingdom. And the church pours 90% of its resources into accommodating them. Basically, it makes little sense for churches to pour so much of its resources into putting on a great show on Sunday. The church becomes defined by activities, maintaining institution, and maintaining bureaucracy, while the leaders are too busy administrating to be discipling anyone.

Which brings us to another way that churches could define their mission, with their purpose being discipleship. Robert Webber called discipleship “a long obedience in the same direction.” My friend Robert Caldwell defines it as “life-on-life relationships that are authentic, transparent, and transformative.”

Churches, large or small can be aimed inward, finding their purpose-driven selves by using their gifts in the church for the church or they can aim outward, using their gifts to serve others, either in existing ministries that the church offers or to even create a new ministry that utilizes the talents and gifts that they possess. Before we start judging each other, large church or small, getting too defensive, we need to make sure our own house is straight. Rather than puff ourselves up with self-righteousness, we need to remember that we’re one church. Some are bigger congregations, some smaller, some are house churches, and some niche ministries. Deep ecclesiology means respecting all church traditions, respecting that no one type or congregation can do all things for all people. Like Paul, becoming all things to all people.

Jesus instituted the church. Jesus participated in congregational worship. Put another way, Miroslav Volf, in a moment of personal reflection, he communicated the paradox of a broken church. He said, “I am not a Christian because of the church, but because of the gospel. However, it was only through the broken church that I received the gospel. Because of the gospel, I participate in the church.”


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Context 19 Report

My initial guess, because I rarely let facts get in the way of my opinion, was that Context would be an older con (by older, I mean the participants, not the guests. The guests are ageless.) It was my impression that Context was a con whose attendance was waning and they brought in Gary Braunbeck to usher in a horror track to reinvigorate the con, this being the second year of that experiment. Not much of a party convention (okay, admittedly, I traveled with some folks from my messageboard, so we had a room party every night), however, I fear that I might have misjudged smaller cons, this con in particular.

My basic rule of thumb on conventions is that you have to choose cons based on guests, opportunity potential, and whatever goals you have marked out for a successful con. Special Guest Gary Braunbeck and Lucy Snyder asked me to consider attending and I can refuse them nothing. I knew some of my other friends would be there like Matt and Deena Warner or Horror Guest of Honor, Tim Waggoner. I knew that I wanted to get a chance to meet Tobias Buckell talk to Editor Guest of Honor, Ellen Datlow and get a real chance to pick their brains.

It’s at this point that I’m reminded of how rabbis taught the Torah and the idea of a yoke. A rabbi would have his interpretation, the accepted teachings or his yoke, of the Torah and if he was to take on a student, that student that student would be accepting his teacher’s yoke (thus Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:29-30 for people to “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”). The great thing about smaller cons is that you can really have the time to take on the yoke of a good teacher.

For example, I sat around discussing the craft of writing with Catherynne M. Valente (in and of itself and enviable delight) when Special Guest Mike Resnick walks over and decides to talk about the business of writing to us. For almost an hour, we heard about the ins and outs of the business, how to prepare for cons, how to maximize the revenue streams from your work. After a while, I had to drop my cool facade and just grab my notepad and start taking notes.

I had the chance to sit for over an hour with Ellen Datlow and Guest of Honor Maureen McHugh in one sitting and Ellen Datlow and Paula Guran in another. Again, people I have seen at World Horror Conventions or World Fantasy Conventions–and will see again–but never for more than a few minutes. The information gained sitting at the feet of people with so much knowledge about the industry is worth the price of admission any day.

Plus, if I haven't already, I’m about to cross the line of this just being a name dropping post. So, moving on ...

Peek behind the curtain and you could see the frayed bits of disorganization (thus Matt Warner’s bio under “other good folk” as being a “SF/fantasy fan” - which will be how I’ll refer to him from now on), but you could say that about most conventions. Likewise, the panels were hit and miss. I was on the “What is Horror?” panel, arriving at the con just in time to have Catherynne ask “aren’t you supposed to be on a panel right now?” While it was the only panel I had to do, I ended up talking at the “Author’s Blogs” panel anyway (give a man a blog and he thinks he’s an expert) - who cares, the panel served cheese cake. The Race and Ethnicity panel bordered on the surreal: a white audience asking a white panel about black characters and the reaction of black readers.

I liked the approach Context took to their religious panel. This is a common (Sunday) panel topic, but it usually ends up being either folks trying to convert one another or the lone religious representative defending his faith against its sins. So I usually skip them. However, this was a design your own religion panel which was kind of fun.

Context 19 was a great con, which I had prejudged to have lower expectations about. Luckily, I went anyway and met all of my goals and met all the people I wanted to, none of whom disappointed. In addition to those great folks, I got a chance to meet the delightful Gary and Nancy Frank (this differs from name-dropping. This is the random shout out). If the con wasn’t already a success by this point, it ended with a group of us attending a cookout at Gary Braunbeck and Lucy Snyder’s house. I will never underestimate a small con again.


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College Athletics on the Dole

Take this blog with a grain of salt, because I know just enough about sports to keep my guy card in good standing. College football is always better when Notre Dame is doing well. Some teams doing well are just good for their respective sports. The Yankees in baseball. The Lakers in basketball. Notre Dame, among others, in college football. Teams with a legacy, a history of winning. College sports is big business and where there’s big business there is big money and where there’s big money, the government wants its cut.

Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee sent an eight-page letter to NCAA president Myles Brand, asking pointed questions on why college sports should continue to be exempt from taxes.

The thing about college sports teams is that they are the public face of the university. So much of the university pride, the school spirit if you will, is tied to the performance of the team. It’s analogous to a city and their pro franchises. Because of all of the dollars heading to all of the largest teams, the government sees money that it can’t get a hold of and wants its cut - all in the name of getting schools to improve the academic plight of student-athletes.

In other words, it’s for the children. They’re our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.

I’m not going to lie, the idea of this idealistic student-athlete is a myth that even I don’t have the faith to believe in. We want the experience to teach them about life, leadership, being a team player. More often, however, athletic programs develop narcissism in their coddled athletes like it was a class they automatically got an A in without having to attend. Let’s be honest here: Division I football and basketball programs are little more than farm leagues for professional teams.

Should so much money be poured into it via tax free status (or for that matter, actively subsidized by taxpayers in the case of government funded universities)? No, especially in the case of a Division I program who is more than self-sustaining. TV deals, corporate sponsors, an actively contributing alumni - the football program is the horse that pulls the athletic department cart. As far as I’m concerned, athletic departments should be completely separate from the university budget and completely subsidized by those interests, but that’s just me. There are more programs out there than the Division A schools, schools who struggle. The bigger societal question we have to ask is are we sacrificing college athletes–who aren’t academically challenged and most of whom won’t go pro–in order for colleges to get pools of money? But that’s not my issue at the moment.

If there’s money perceived to be had, the government has no shame about going after it, Republican or Democrat, altruistic justifications aside. Little better than mafia dons with a protection racket, the ends justifying the means, going after non-profit hospitals, credit unions, and now colleges. They’ll be coming after mega-churches and their tax exempt status too. However, sometimes you need the threat of a stick when the carrot ain’t working. And the Federal government in their business is quite the stick in the NCAA’s behind. In the meantime, go Irish!


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Friday Night Date Place - Miss Independent

Ladies, have you ever gotten that vibe from certain men? You know, you’re casually chit-chatting with him, mentioning your career, your home, your full life and suddenly he gets ... cool. You can’t quite put your finger on when you lost his interest, you only know that the date is essentially over, you’re just waiting to get back home. If you’re lucky, you might hear through the grapevine that you were too independent for his tastes. Too independent. I’ve heard this complaint from women far too often, this tale of men finding them too independent. I’m only going to say this once: his insecurities are not your problem. This is the same sort of guy who becomes uneasy because he believes that if a woman initiates a relationship by asking the guy out first, it sets a pattern that interferes with the man’s ability to lead.

How long were you supposed to wait for Prince Needs to Get Over Himself? How attractive would you be at 30+, living with your folks, unemployed, with no hobbies or friends with the only thing to pass for adult conversation being “I’ve been waiting for you”?

Check please.

Strong women scare some guys. The real question is would you want this guy? These men want someone who needs them - not too much, they don’t want someone clingy. They want someone to make them feel important. They want to be the knight in shining armor, which is fine, but apparently every good knight has to have a damsel in distress.

Just so we have this straight, if you have gotten a job, pay you bills, are confident, are self-assured, and are ambitious men are going to find you intimidating. That’s a risk you run. Intimidating? Maybe. Attractive? Definitely. The cruel reality that these “men” are dancing around is that independent women require stronger guys. If I live in my mom’s basement, drifting through life, going from scrub job to scrub job, then, yeah, independent women are a threat to my male sense of self.

And I’ll say this, a lot of the time our evangelical churches inadvertently perpetuate this. Men and women have defined roles, it was part of the created order, so the teaching goes; however, the church then does a lousy job of teaching what those roles are until we’re left with “men lead, women obey.” Creating this mindset of subservient women as an ideal which flies in the face of the Proverbs 31 woman, who wasn’t some passive damsel in need of rescuing.

If you want to play king, get a servant, not a queen.

Independent women becoming intimidating because they are filling roles we men know (or at least are expected) to fulfill. Bread winner. Hunter-gatherer. Leader. These are tasks we understand and we have trouble relating to women in other ways. We forgot that part of being a man, of being a provider and protector is providing emotional security. Being needed is too crucial to our self-esteem.

But you know what? If I want to be respected, I’d rather be respected by a strong independent woman who doesn’t need me. That’s respect I’ve truly earned.


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Night Stalker - A Review

“Looking for answers to questions I’m only learning how to ask. About things adults dismiss. But children are right to fear shapes that lurk in the darkness. Nightmares that intrude from another realm. Forces that spring not from the imagination, but live amongst us. Unseen. These forces have taken something from me.” Carl Kolchak, the Night Stalker

There is a new wave of genre shows coming to television this fall: Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural, Surface, Invasion, Threshold. Night Stalker is the latest entry. The original series, Kolchak: the Night Stalker was a show that greatly influenced the creation of the X-Files (Frank Spotnitz of the X-Files has come full circle and is a writer and executive producer for the show). Though it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the original short-lived series (Kolchak: The Night Stalker, 1974-1975), I still have fond memories of the show (and it has been, coincidently, released on DVD).

Night Stalker follows the story of crime reporter, Carl Kolchak (Stuart Townsend) newly hired to the L.A. paper, The Beacon, and paired with “senior” crime reporter, Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union). Together, they investigate mysterious deaths and strange happenings, which may be related to the death of Kolchak’s wife. A death that a member of the FBI still considers Kolchak having a hand in. Though it did provide an “origin” for Kolchak, the show gave no explanations and little to say that there’s an on-going mystery to be solved beyond some vague conspiracy against him. Even with the back story, you don’t feel like you can identify with him or any of the characters. I’m waiting for something approaching chemistry to develop between Kolchak and Reed, besides a pale imitation of her Scully to Kolchak’s Mulder..

The show lacks a certain spark, though not for lack of trying. In the updating of the show, they haven’t done much besides upgrade the cars and the technology. Night Stalker follows the monster of the week formula done so often in the X-Files. Its chaotic direction style, meant to enhance the creepiness and excitement, only muddled the action. The show takes itself so seriously, retaining none of the original’s humor. Stuart Townsend’s Carl Kolchak seems awfully young and can’t quite convey the sense of world weariness that Kolchak should be exuding. That wouldn’t have been as big a deal for me, if they hadn’t have digitally inserted Darren McGavin, into a background scene in the newsroom.

“You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.” Psalm 91:5-6 (New International Version)

Fear, doubt, broken relationships, suffering, horror, death (some of these words highlighted in Kolchak’s voice overs); we’ve learn to live with these symptoms of a fallen world. We know that something’s is wrong with creation, but we’ve learned to pretend that it’s not there. As a crime victim told Perri Reed, “there are no answers. People get desperate for an explanation. Sometimes they believe the unbelievable.”

Some questions have no answers, or at least answers that we’d be satisfied with. Wondering why evil exists or why bad things happen to good people; these are things that each of us has to wrestle with for ourselves. It’s what marks the journey of faith because some things have to be experienced, not taught.

Night Stalker, like the X-Files, is about faith and the pursuit of the truth. Faith in things that go bump in the night, in principalities, unseen forces, and that there is some reason behind them all. It speaks to our feeling that something terrible is happening. For Kolchak, strange deaths and mysterious circumstances fit together like pieces in a grand puzzle that he doesn’t understand yet. The show examines the darkness that haunts our world, and stalks us, explaining how we are all like Kolchak, “a man drawn to a story that so closely mirrors his own.”


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Preparing to Classic

I have a philosophical question for my fellow horror writers: if you hold a writer’s convention in a dry county, say, World Horror in 2008, are writer’s expected to go?

I can only afford to go to a few conventions a year, so 2008 looks like “Hello, NECON!!!”

By the way, yes, I have heard the calls and gotten the e-mails and the myspace messages. I haven’t forgotten about Friday Night Date Place. It comes back starting this Friday.

In the meantime, this week’s Intake column is up. “Preparing to Classic!”

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Left Behind the Video Game

Wage a war of apocalyptic proportions in LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces - a real-time strategy game based upon the best-selling LEFT BEHIND book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil, commanding Tribulation Forces or the Global Community Peacekeepers, and uncover the truth about the worldwide disappearances!

-Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

-Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

-Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.

-Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City .

-Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!

Yes, I know I’m late on this topic (thanks, gRegor!), but hey, at least you can go play the demo. Some days I don’t even have to offer commentary. It’s Grand Theft Auto Evangelism: you get your choice of convert the heathens or killing them. "You can be the Christians blowing away the infidels, and if that doesn't hit your hot button, you can be the Antichrist blowing away all the Christians."

Once again, here’s what we are left with in terms of “being in the world but not of the world”: the “Christian” theology of purpose-driven art has taught us that we can’t cuss and we can’t show any naked people, but violence is a-okay. I know there have been role-playing game systems developed, I guess to evangelize the D&D, dressing up as elves crowd. I was going to make a joke about making a Joshua game, where you get to smite all of the men, women, children, and livestock of the Canaanites, until I ran across this. What’s next? Vice City: Sodom and Gomorrah?

Sing with me: “ And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love.”

*BLAM!*


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On Family - An Interview

So a friend of mine needed to interview me for her anthropology class project. Whatever. Waste not want not. Here’s the interview:

Secret Interviewing Friend: Although the first one is just asking what you define your culture, and how is your religion integrated into that. What you define as your culture.

Maurice: Culture for me is a multi-layered thing. I have my black culture, the
rich cultural heritage of being African-American. As part and parcel
of this culture, we have a sense of history, art, stories, practices,
and traditions that form us. I have my national cultures that inform
me and my family also. As a product of a cross-cultural family, and
having dual citizenship, I have a heritage that is Jamaican, American,
and British. And then I have the culture that most immediately
defines me, that of being a Broaddus. I have always maintained that
my marriage would have been an inter-cultural marriage, regardless of
the race of my wife, because the Broaddus culture (with its mixed
cultural bag) is distinct enough that anyone would have to adapt to
us.

Religion is interwoven within the culture, part of my cultural fabric.
My own spiritual journey has taken me though many religious
traditions, both Christian (from fundamentalist background to tapping
into the historic black church to the emergent church) and not (from
far Eastern practices to Islam) - all of which inform where I am
spiritually. My religion shapes how we live our lives, its values and
practices shaping how we arrange and live our lives.

Secret Interviewing Friend: When I say the word "family", what's your first reaction? What does that mean for you, and how do you think your "mixed cultural bag", as it were, influences that? How does your involvement in "emergent Christian" culture influence that?

Maurice: My first reaction? Yay!/Ugh.

Family for me is blood and spirit. When growing up, I had a step sister and a half sister and we adopted our cousin to be raised along side us as a sibling. My parents instilled the mantra “we don’t have steps”. Either they were my sisters or they were nothing. So they were my sisters. I never refer to them as anything other than my sisters. Just like we are big on extended family. First, because when my father grew up, he didn’t have friends. His cousins were his friends, so friends were synonymous with family. Second, my mother was one of 13, so the older siblings were raised by aunts or uncles and then later raised the younger ones. It was nothing for three generations to be living under one roof.

So that translated into how I view family. I have biological family and I have “spiritual” family, but I make no distinctions between the two. For example, I have several people who are like adopted children (though I loathe to be called dad by them since they only remind me how old I’m getting). I have people who are like brothers and sisters to me. My boys are taught to refer to our close friends as “aunt” and “uncle”. We have a friends/family wall of photos. It is a visual reminder that our family is large and varied. It tells the story of our lives, the people who have been a part of our lives, and every time we walk by, we are reminded of the people whom are our loved ones. And of just how blessed we have been.

My faith gives spiritual weight to what we were already doing. In addition, it helped us look at the church as a type of extended family. So, we have the family we’re born into and the family we choose. That doesn’t make them any less family, for good (yay!) or ill (ugh!).

Secret Interviewing Friend: You've talked a lot about a man that you consider "like a father" to you. Can you tell me a little about how that relationship came about? How did the two of you meet? What is it that drew you to him as a father figure? Does he view "extended family" (spiritual and biological) in the same way you do or does he make a differentiation between you and his biological kids? (if any of this is, at any time, too personal, feel free to opt out of answering)

Maurice: What personal? I blogged about it. He "adopted" me and two other guys who would become my friends/brothers. Once we left the roost, he adopted two brothers "for real."

Secret Interviewing Friend: I don't think you ever did tell me exactly where you met him.

Maurice: Church. Eagle Creek Grace Brethren. Same place I met my future wife.

Secret Interviewing Friend: Really??

Maurice: Yup

Secret Interviewing Friend: Is that where your family went?

Maurice: It's where me and my siblings went.

Secret Interviewing Friend: What got you and your siblings going to church without your parents?

Maurice: They made us go. They didn't go to church, my dad still doesn't.

Secret Interviewing Friend: That's a little ironic. You mean they sent you guys off to church but they didn't want to?

Maurice: exactly.

Secret Interviewing Friend: Do/did your parents know about your relationship with your adopted dad, and how does it affect them?

Maurice: Yes and no, respectively. My parents love him. My dad did offer to sell me to him (offered him a good deal, too. Well, not that good a deal: my dad wanted to dump me before the college bills started coming in). He was my Sunday School teacher. When me and my folks moved, we quit going to church for about a year. Then I called my adopted dad who offered to pick us up every Sunday. and did for a year or so. He was in the hospital when I had my surgery. When I got married, it was him that came back and had the "man-to-man" talk with me about marriage. And when my firstborn hit the scene, it was he that had the man-to-man talk with me about fatherhood.

Secret Interviewing Friend: So in a way it was kind of a deficiency that Mark fulfilled, but it wasn't like your Dad was absentee.

Maurice: Exactly.

Secret Interviewing Friend: I think I'm all out of questions. Do you have any other thoughts on the topic?

Maurice: Family rocks. When they don't suck. Sometimes you have to find your family. Or create one. That's all I got. And I'll probably blog this.


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Medium - A Review

Medium: 1) a person claiming to be in contact with the spirits of the dead
2) to communicate between the dead and the living
3) a mid-season replacement television drama on NBC.

A stylish show at that, one that’s well acted and has witty dialogue. That’s no surprise once you take a look at the show runners: creator Glenn Caron (Moonlighting, Remington Steele); known genre writers like Rene Echevarria (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and executive producer of The 4400) and Moira Dekker (Dark Angel, The Dead Zone). Based on real-life clairvoyant Allison DuBois, Patricia Arquette (not new to genre work, acting in Stigmata and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) wakes from dreams of the future and speaks with the dead on a far too frequent basis. Almost like The Sixth Sense: the Series, except that she’s found a way to let her gift pay the bills. She’s called in to consult with the District Attorney’s (Miguel Sandoval) office.

''I see the truth. It's like a freakin' television show!'' Allison DuBois

One of the things that makes this show different is that the lead character, Allison Dubois, is not always likeable. Almost every scene that takes place in their home has alcohol present, a subtle reminder to a throwaway line from the pilot that she drinks to quiet “the voices”. Her gift crowds her bedroom (the dead are always around her) and thus impacting her marriage, especially her husband, played by Jake Weber: it’s hard to talk to someone who is (or thinks that they are) one step ahead of you.

One of my favorite episodes encapsulates all the things that I like so much about the show. Starring Reed Diamond (from the great Homicide: Life on the Streets), Allison dreams about a man who has come to kidnap her daughter. Upon arriving at her job, she finds the man in the D.A.’s office stepping forward as a “Good Samaritan”. He witnessed a robbery and had come forward to offer his full cooperation. Come to find out that her dream involves what he might become, a horrific serial killer, some ten years down the road. She has to confront true evil, referring to him alternately as the bad Samaritan, the golem, the devil, or simply a monster. One of the more creative depictions on the show has the flashes into the killer’s mind portrayed to a comic book-like illustrated background.

“I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people.” Leviticus 20:6

Of course, the immediate response in terms of finding a spiritual connection might be to dismiss this show as another sign of our culture trying to mainstream the occult. It’s a knee jerk response that’s intellectually simple and accomplishes little in terms of wrestling with people and the art that they produce where they are. Nor am I going to out of hand dismiss such critics.

Now this may fall under the category of Old Testament rules, but the point of the passage remains that consulting practitioners of the occult (mediums and spiritists) was no less a sin that being one. The was a sin because only God was to be consulted (through either a priest or prophet, back in the day). [In terms of context, this also sheds a special light on the story of the time when King Saul--the ruler before King David–knowing the laws that he was under, turned around and consulted a medium (the Witch of Endor) in I Samuel 28.]

Allison DuBois is not a religious person though she recognizes that she has a spiritual gift, given from a higher power. What needs to be remembered is that the Bible, from beginning to end, is a supernatural book where magic is treated as real: from the sorcerers that competed against Moses before Pharaoh to the diviners, magicians, and sorcerers of the Babylonian court to the sorcerer who followed the apostles around trying to bribe them to show him how to do miracles.

The occult, unseen spirits, are serious business, so I understand the need for vigilance. Shows like Medium remind us of their reality. We don’t like to be reminded of the spiritual battles waged around us or we do the other extreme and see the Devil behind every bush. This unseen realm is a mystery to us. However, many critics cross the line from vigilance into hypersensitivity, becoming guilty of fanning the flames of hysteria in order to pursue their own agendas. Before you start casting judgments, the practicing and consulting of mediums was condemned, not the depiction, even as entertainment, of them.

This is an issue that I’m especially sensitive to since I catch similar flak as a horror writer. I’m accused of inviting in evil, playing with supernatural trivial via stories, or making the supernatural alluring or intriguing. It’s one thing to argue that the Harry Potter films and books have the context of make believe or present the occult as allegorical cautionary tales, but there’s nothing allegorical about Medium. She is what she is and doesn’t care if you believe her. There is real evil in the world, real spiritual forces around us, but creating fear-mongering over television, movies, and books is not the source of it.

Medium is stocked with great characters walking through well-written stories. Knowing that the show is based on an actual woman makes the show all the more interesting. It has enough twists and turns, some creepy moments, to be truly engaging. All delivered with a deft hand and generous dashes of humor.


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Surface - A Review

The depths of our oceans, our inner space, is as mysterious and uncharted as the stars, our outer space. If only someone could make an interesting series exploring this idea, capture our imaginations, and provide even a hint of the sinister mysteries that may lie beneath the calm looking surface of the waters. Surface is not that show. It tries valiantly, but pulls up short.

Undoubtably, the buzzword among television executives for this fall season was “invasion” (that and copy Desperate Housewives, Lost, and CSI). No less than three alien invasion shows hit the airwaves this fall: Threshold, Surface, and, furthering the case for a lack of imagination, Invasion. The central conceit of the show is a tricky balancing act to begin with: the premise basically involves the search for sea monsters. A lot of forethought and creativity has to go into such a project to keep it from falling headlong into silly territory, an unending, uneventful search for the Loch Ness Monster.

Dr. Laura Daughtery (Lake Bell, formerly of Boston Legal), babelicious scientist and single mom, is searching for the origin of life. Studying hot vent ecosystems at the oceans depths, she stumbles across a mysterious beast. Bell gives it her all, but only has so much to work with. No one knew what to do with her over at Boston Legal, and here, she doesn’t even have interesting dialogue to work with. She is then drawn into the vortex of vaguely threatening conspiracy types, ostensibly led by Dr. Aleksander Cirko (Rade Serbedzija), in her pursuit to find out what it is that she encountered. There are a couple other subplots to this sea serpent soap opera to keep our interest afloat, but they not worth mentioning unless you need more examples of some of the absurdities to be found in the show.

Created, written and directed by brothers Josh and Jonas Pate, who have done some interesting work (G vs. E) in the past, Surface doesn’t quite work. The chief problem is that this series takes every cliche of horror (actually, this is the “near beer” of horror), tosses them in a blender, then regurgitates them without much fresh spin. From Jaws to Close Encounters of the Third Kind to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, there’s not a Spielberg production that this show isn’t afraid to rip from. It borrows everyone of Spielberg’s notes, starting with his theme of putting ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Luckily, they realize that the buildup is usually better than the payoff, so they keep their monsters shadowy at best. Much like their plotlines: it’s like watching a mystery unfold where you don’t care about the answer.

“Does the uncertainty make you nervous?” Dr. Aleksander Cirko
“The men I work for ... they are addicted to facts. They want to know.” Davis Lee (Ian Anthony Dale)

Yet, there are some questions at work within the series. With the grand debates going on in the country over Intelligent Design vs. evolution, it is easy to make that spiritual connection. One thing that gets overlooked is that science, as well as religion, is about the pursuit of truth. They take differing paths, follow different methods, and focus on different areas of our lives, but they both pursue truth. They are pitted against one another needlessly, since all truth is God’s truth. And with Surface, the mysteries of creation point to a Creator.

“There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number–living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.” Psalm 104:25-26 (New International Version)

Surface plays like a B-movie stretched into a series. Not enough thought was put into crafting this series. The plot holes are laughable. There is not one involving character. This is strictly going through the motions television, more trite than suspenseful. The show is too much surface, not enough depth.


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If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.