Review of Black Swan, by Darren Aronofsky; also Something for Consideration Regarding Public School Teachers

My main man when it comes to movie reviews is Bill Gibron. Back around the time that the internet first came to be there was a website called filmcritic.com. I discovered him there, I think. Anyhow, I have always appreciated his reviews and found them to be helpful in deciding whether or not to shell out the big bucks for a movie ticket. Over time I have noticed that he has had a particular love affair with Darren Aronofsky. Because of my esteem of Mr. Gibron, I have desperately sought the same love affair, but never quite saw the “genius” that Mr. Gibron did. I really enjoyed Mr. Aronofsky’s films, I just didn’t fall in love with the man like Mr. Gibron seemed to. All that has changed.

H- just began to learn Peter Tchaikovsky’s epic Swan Lake theme on the piano. It is a force of nature even when played with just one note at a time. In any case, this event taken together with a real desire to give Mr. Gibron’s passion one more go led to me viewing Black Swan for a second time. This time around I finally see the genius. Black Swan is the story of a ballet dancer who is trying to be the best as would be indicated by her dancing the role of the swan queen in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in some hot shot’s revision of Swan Lake. So it’s a movie about a revision of a very famous ballet that includes themes of sacrifice and pressure to perform etc. But it’s not! It, Black Swan itself, is the revision of Swan Lake for movie-going audiences! And that’s why Mr. Aronofsky is a genius and deserves our attention. He cuts through all our defenses and serves up Tchaikovsky’s timeless story in a new way that forces us to reckon with all of our notions of love and happiness and truth and sacrifice. It’s an amazing film. Watch it. Watch it again.

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Perhaps some of you think I am too hard on public school teachers. Here’s something to consider. A public school teacher with an amazing (if any divorce blog can attain such a title) blog mentioned that she finds herself teaching “frustration management” to her students. At this point, I would like to call my roughneck friends to the discussion. You see, when I was working in the oil fields, there was work to be done. Manly work. And yes, I mean that in the gender specific way. Work that men and only men can accomplish. For instance, every time we finished drilling a well, we had to move the rig to a new well. One of the things that this move required was the tightening of nuts onto bolts. The nuts were about the size of a woman’s fist, and the bolts were just over a foot long. The way we tightened these nuts was by swinging a sledge hammer as hard as we possibly could against a hammer wrench which was placed around the nut. Out of a twelve hour shift, how many minutes do you think we were given to not swinging the sledge hammer in favor of discussing how to deal with how frustrating the task was?

Do not hear me say that learning is not frustrating. And remember that I am the one who quit being a “teacher” because I refused to buy into the “be the change” mantra that schools with poor performing students chant. Instead, hear me calling public school teachers to realize that they are making the weather that they are complaining about. No other group–no other group–who controls their destiny does it in such a poor fashion as public school teachers. That’s what frustrates me (and I think most non-public educators).

By way of example, guess which specialty runs the Air Force? Pilots. Guess what pilots do for each other in the Air Force? Take care of each other. They ensure the flying is safe and smart and everyone is compensated well. Public school teachers, on the other hand, cite chapter and verse about all the limitations and massive time requirements etc. that they have to operate within and never once consider that just like Air Force pilots they are the one’s who write the book. Spending time teaching kids how to deal with the fact that learning takes effort? That cannot but be a disservice to the child–and I think teachers know that. So stop doing it. Kids need to learn to hit the hammer wrench as hard as they can and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment after the task is completed and completed well. And the only way to learn this is for teachers to tell the kids that the nuts must be tightened by a sledge hammer. As it stands, the only thing kids are learning is that the nuts don’t need to be tightened. Maybe teachers agree.

A Note On Public School Teachers

Long-time readers know of my, how shall I put it, no-love-lost relationship with public school teachers. Yes. That’s a fair way to describe the romance. Of course, it is a difficult thing to critique people who do thankless jobs. However, because teachers are adults and I know what being an adult feels like, I won’t hesitate to critique them.

This morning I went to help the kindergartners read. They each have a reading folder which contains an appropriate skill-level book and a sheet of paper on which data is recorded, data like book title, date, skill level, and the like. To give feedback to the teacher or next volunteer, there are three boxes to choose from which describe the contest between student and book: Just Right, Too Easy, Too Hard.

(New readers: My daughter is in the class.)

Anyhow, the teacher is setting me up at my spot just outside the classroom and she actually told me, instructed me, to not mark any “Too Easy”. (Pause for effect.) How could she possibly know the future?

More than that, she emphasized heavily that everything should be positive feedback and that I wasn’t to use the word “no” or say “that’s not right”. More than that, she gave me the okay to give the student the difficult word rather than have them sound it out.

If my daughter was overly shy and unkempt and occasionally had bruises that she hurriedly covered up and could not ruh-ruh-ruh-ree-add, then maybe I could see the need to talk to me about the nature of teaching the skill of reading–maybe.

Oh and another thing. One little girl was pouting because her dad’s finger accidentally touched her cheek as he got her out of the car. After sending the little girl to the nurse to get some ice, the same teacher looked at me knowingly and said, “Sometimes all it takes is a hug and a little ice.” All it takes for what? What exactly is the predicted/anticipated/desired future for indulging that kind of behavior? If you’re less than fifty and have kids I blame you. It’s probably against some policy somewhere to tell a 5 year old human-in-training, “Stop crying. You’re not hurt. Move along” because either you or parents you knew complained that a teacher with your child’s best interest in mind was being a meany.

Three Random Thoughts

It’s true, I’m a confirmed bachelor. But you’re not going to ask me to stop dreaming, are you? Well, as you can imagine, delivering pizzas in the 21st century involves a lot of time interacting with a GPS. Last night these two worlds combined. If I ever re-engage in the battle for love, I think I want a woman who will give me the same relationship that I have with my GPS. I do what she tells me, but I choose where we’re going.

Before work, I was eating and I cannot eat by myself without watching something on the internet these days. I ended up watching Jordan vs. Lebron youtube videos. I’m not sure what exactly triggered the following thought, but if I had to guess, I think it is all the young guys at work. I was thinking about what it was like to watch MJ play every season and besides the fact that no basketball player will ever capture kids’ attention in the same way due to the amount of social meeja distractions, there is something more. I grew up on movies which had Rocky Balboa giving all his strength, all his power, and all his love to win championships. Real life had MJ winning and winning and winning. It’s difficult to say who was more influential to me, but a great life lesson was contained in the fact that both lived by the same ethic. Who do kids have today?

When I first began a search for a church home just over a year ago, I noticed that many churches I visited had an older congregation. The churches that had younger congregations clearly catered to them. They had power-point, beautiful praise teams, and a very professional feel–no mistakes. The church I chose, thought I didn’t know it at the time, has something like 100 members who have been members for 50 years or more. And there aren’t many members my age that attend regularly. But I have come to love my church more and more and here’s why. What type of Christians do you think go to same church for 50 years? Scratch that. Let’s try, what type of Christians do not go to the same church for 50 years? 50 years? I can’t even conceptualize that behavior. Yet, after getting to know my church’s members a little better over the past year, I want my walk with God to be more like theirs. Talk about living faithfulness. Christianity is not about church, folks. It’s about God–God about whom the psalmist wrote Thou faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. 50 year relationship? I’m in. Are you?

Oh. And a fourth. You know how sometimes you are texting someone and it’s not going well so you admit that there was a “text fail”? Yeah. It’s time I confess to the world that I am a text fail. Proceed at your own risk.

Psalm cxix. 90

Sermon #1

Kidding. Well, sort of kidding. I gave the following speech for my number ten speech in the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual a couple years ago. A fellow member, in her evaluation, mentioned I should think about becoming a pastor. Naturally, I shrugged off the suggestion. That moment is fairly laughable these days.

In any case, I watched it the other day and kind of inspired myself. So I thought I’d share. It’s ten minutes, so it isn’t short. But it’s worth it. (Even on mute. 😉 )

Click here.

 

Concerning Prayer – Part 1

How does one pray? That was my starting point. I wasn’t concerned with silent prayer, but an out loud prayer which I had resolved to perform by myself in my apartment. I hadn’t prayed out loud for over a decade, but had decided that I wanted to break the streak. I was going to pray an honest-to-goodness heartfelt prayer–no matter how weird the physical manifestation of this desire felt.

“Should I sit? Should I stand? If sitting, can I be reclined?” I wondered. None of those options felt natural. “Ah, kneeling,” I remembered. “I could kneel. Yes, that seems universal. I will kneel at my bedside in a classically American nighttime pose of prayer,” I determined.

Leaning over, my elbows resting on the bed, I closed my eyes. My mind traversed all the greetings I could recall from all Christian prayers I had ever heard. “Dear God”, “Father”, “Our Father”, “God”, “Heavenly Father”, “Jesus”, “My Lord”, and a few others passed between my ears silently. But none came out.

Naturally, I was embarrassed by this speechlessness. It is a rare thing. I tried to rationalize and told myself, “Don’t sweat it. You’re praying the Lord’s Prayer in Greek when you read your homework. That should count.” But it doesn’t count. When I do that, I’m working on pronunciation, not speaking from the heart. Then I became a skeptic and thought, “This is bullshit anyhow. There’s no God. That’s why you can’t get yourself to address one.” But that felt more like a lie than counting the Greek thing did. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t address God, Almighty God, the Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth out loud because I didn’t feel worthy of an audience with Him.

In seminary, as in most formal education, some classes have the word “survey” in the title. “Survey of (whatever).” Well, as I was kneeling there speechless, I surveyed my life and concluded that for the last 12 years or so I had been in the muck, in the mire, and been offending God. Physically, I would describe the feeling that overcame me as I concluded this as that of my heart imploding. Shoulders collapsing forward together. However slight the offense began some years ago, it culminated in my last job. I wasn’t (don’t) feeling guilty about nipples or alcohol or partying–that’s an entirely separate discussion. My feeling of unworthiness stemmed from the fact that that job fully highlighted that I had been living without purpose. Or for the wrong purpose (fame or money) which is the same thing. Here I am, a created being brimming with potential, and I have been living most of my adult life without regard for my Creator. And now it’s been so long that I feel like the gulf between us is too great. The worst part is that I know the end of the story and yet I still feel this way.

In any case, you’re going to get another post in a couple hours which contains a link to a speech I gave a couple years ago. It’s about 10 minutes long, but the audience in the room seemed to think it was alright, so you might too. More to come concerning prayer.

While I’m On The Subject of Jesus…

As I mentioned a few posts back, for most of my adult life pizza delivery always has received a nod as lucrative part-time work. As I recently developed a need for part-time work, I decided to test the theory. A shop nearby had a sign in the window, so I applied, got the job, and can formally report the rumors are true. It’s good money per hour. The trouble is Americans are trained to view dinnertime as only a three-ish hour window. That said, my new goal is to train you all to think dinnertime is all day. Wish me luck.

Only slightly changing gears, I found myself adding some pepperoni to a sandwich yesterday at home, and I realized that if I were giving the Sermon on the Mount, or perhaps it’s safer to say, if Jesus was here today and gave that sermon, he could easily have substituted the word “pepperoni” for “salt” when he declared, “You are the salt of the earth,” without losing much theological ground. Just sayin’. I can’t think of the last time I added salt to anything. But my fridge hasn’t been without a red Hormel pepperoni bag in over a year. Sandwiches, salads, burgers, and of course pizza just wouldn’t be the same without pepperoni. White gold was soooo yesterday. Red gold is where it’s at. Can I get an amen?

I wonder if it would improve waffles. Anyone able to report?

By the way, did you know that Oprah eats dinner every meal? It’s true! I swear it!

Why Did You Pay Me?

Prayer, the fairly abstract concept that sometimes seems little more than wishful thinking, has been making headlines of late. Over the last year, I have surely had a robust internal prayer life, if I use a more liberal definition of the word. But I haven’t prayed a prayer out loud in some time. I remember I prayed out loud a couple years ago, but I’m ashamed to admit the circumstances, so I will not. But before that prayer, it was a good decade of not praying out loud; a good decade had passed of not putting my voice to the task of addressing Almighty God.

As one can imagine, I have come to the conclusion that this pattern needs to change and that I want it to change. So last night, I set out for myself the goal of praying out loud.

Before we get to the result, I have something to ask of you. I want to know something from you. I know, I know. I ask a lot of you. Many of you have shared that you don’t read any of my Christian posts, I am certain I have lost many of you in my posts of wanton rage–what is commonly referred to as venting–and I know I lost your confidence in my posts which revealed that I have misrepresented myself in the blogosphere in order to gain customers (a failed endeavor, btw). But I still have a question:

Why did you pay me when I was in the Air Force?

Obviously, you don’t need to include in your response the pertinent fact that you were required to by law, that you didn’t exactly have a choice. In answering, let me remind you that I was an officer and pilot, special operations at that. In other words, by all accounts, you loved me while I was serving. I’m not asking for evidence of this love or flattery (though human nature will not allow me to parry any attacks), what I want is to know why you paid me?

Was it because you wanted some humans to die and some property to be destroyed and yet you didn’t want to do it yourself? Was it because someone (your parents or grandparents or friends) recommended me? Even now, when I no longer serve, I still have several friends who do serve and we’re all paying them. Why? What good or service did I provide? Did you feel safe because I stood on the wall? Did you purchase a “feeling”? After 9/11 did you want your money back? How about after the Paris attacks and after San Bernadino? Did you “feel” you received equal value for the money you put forth?

Or maybe you’re buying virtue? Is that what I was selling? In the Air Force, the core values are Integrity First, Service Before Self, and Excellence In All We Do. I’m sure the other branches have their own values, some might even be more eloquently stated. Is this what you wanted? Buying a McDouble requires a certain level of integrity, but if the employee made it with the proper ingredients and only the proper ingredients, I don’t think I would inquire as to whether or not he ascribed to an over-arching code of conduct before I decided to purchase the burger. But defending a nation seems to necessarily require a code of conduct that reaches all aspects of a soldier’s life. Is that why you paid me? As reward for or incentive to live virtuously? A “someone has to protect, but not just anyone will do; so we must pay him to be of sound character (whether in reward for behavior already witnessed or as incentive to live up to high standards)” type of monetary exchange?

Tell me. Please. Why did you pay me?

Review of Sicario and The Heart of the Sea

These two movies had piqued my interest when I first heard of them, but the mainstream critical reception was off-putting enough that I hadn’t take the time to view them. Finally I had a minute. The critics are wrong.

If you liked Miami Vice and Zero Dark Thirty, then Sicario is for you. My only real problem with Sicario is that it would be ruined if the cartel horrors it depicts were not based in the historical record, but I am too afraid to confirm that they are to do any fact checking. Depressing stuff.

If you have read Moby Dick, then The Heart of the Sea is for you. This one’s reception is especially baffling. Critics can’t say anything good about it, but as far as ocean voyage movies go it is much better than Master and Commander, which wasn’t bad. I loved Moby Dick and so I can’t say how much of that influences my enjoyment of The Heart of the Sea. What I can say is that if you know that Moby Dick is not about a whale, then you’ll like this movie. Conversely, if you are asking yourself, “Moby Dick isn’t about whale?” right now, skip the movie.

Who Would Have Thunk It?

The fact that it ultimately isn’t surprising is what proves that we all would have predicted it. I just can’t stop thinking about Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigrants. The idea of freedom of religion as one of the greatest achievements mankind has ever bestowed upon itself was so ingrained in me as a child that I cannot help but wonder how the country that guarantees this freedom is now fascinated by a possible presidential candidate who brings into the legal realm religion. And do not get me started on the fact that other candidates are rebuking him via their–I’m sure–personal social meeja accounts. Ooo, scary.

I wrote about this once before, but it seems timely to bring the issue back to the front. In an odd turn of events, I have had the pleasure of attending undergraduate courses in two different decades at two different colleges. Within the liberal arts departments at least, the theme of my two experiences or the ultimate goal of American universities seemed to be Holocaust prevention. Specifically, the history and social science departments spend tremendous time and energy explaining how something as horrific as the Holocaust could even occur in generally civilized society. The Stanford Prison Experiment.  The Milgram Experiment. We’re taught about these social experiments which were conducted after the war ended and even then–in a controlled setting–they had to be administratively stopped because things got so out of hand. Furthermore, to illustrate just how fully these experiments permeate our culture, a movie (not the first) was released earlier this year called, ta da, The Stanford Prison Experiment about the very same thing. The professors teach these lessons under the guise that if only we prove scientifically that people are violence-prone sheep, then people are not violence-prone sheep. To me the experiments have only proven that another holocaust is very possible.

And this whole discussion illustrates the problem with the progressive/liberal/leftist worldview that dominates academia and therefore society. (Yes, I’m lumping Trump–a republican–in the group.) Philosophically, quantum-something-or-other-ly, and really, there actually only exists the present. So if you do wrong in the present, in hopes of improving the future, then you can’t escape that you are doing wrong. But Trump wants to do wrong by banning Muslims. Only for a short time, though. Until things get better. And the President wants to do wrong by stopping the sale of guns today, not because he has any evidence that this stoppage will stop gun violence today, but because maybe it will curb it in the future. The trouble is that it is wrong to make a legal decision based on religion. The trouble is that it is wrong to disarm a nation. These things are wrong. They were wrong a couple hundred years ago, they are wrong today, and they will be wrong in the future. By wrong, I don’t mean these two notions go against trending political correctness, I mean they are wrong. Just wrong. Google it if you have to. Wrong.

The conservative, on the other hand, strives to do right today. And the conservative recognizes that one measure of righteousness is its practical, predictable consequence of more righteousness. I, as a man who loves his ability to be a Christian without being a martyr, won’t support a man running for government office who wants to use religion as a legal definition because I don’t want to be around when he changes his mind regarding which religions are good and which ones are bad. I, as a veteran (which means I’ve seen first-hand how people with guns are sheep), don’t want the government to be the only one with assault/combat weapons because I can plainly see that if the government has all the guns, then the government has all the guns! My pink body explodes when shot. And given my disdain for authority, guess who gets shot first?

Even the event of the Holocaust itself was based in liberalism/progressivism. Life will be better in the future if we do this action today. How about we try “Life will be better today and in the future if we do this act today”?

Ah, but it doesn’t matter. Many of you (obviously it’s you. I know it’s not me.) love progressives. Obama, Trump, Clinton, the whole lot of them. You and I are very similar in that we don’t care about politics and don’t have time to get involved. Where you and I differ is that you are going to vote for the lesser of two evils. You are going to cast a vote under your name that will have the effect of taking one more step towards our asking, “Who would’ve thunk it?” during whatever atrocity America (that’s you and me) is bound to commit before too long if this dream of a better future holds.

Looking for a call to action? Here it is. Don’t vote for people you don’t want to hold office. That might mean not voting. Or that might mean voting for people who won’t win. Either way, we’re at the point in history where instead of admitting, “I didn’t want to waste my vote so I picked the better of the two,” we can declare, “I didn’t vote for this fool.” Not voting is voting.

Happy New Years people.

Baby Steps – Epilogue

Christian theology has four sources. They are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Even the order of the four sources matters. A difference between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians is the order. Evangelicals in particular, but protestants in general, begin with scripture. The Catholics and Orthodox elevate tradition to an equal footing. But everyone–me, you, everyone–has to reconcile their own reason to include their own life experiences with their theology. (Yes, I’m implying that everyone has a theology even if they won’t admit it.)

Here’s where I’m struggling on an personal level after last semester’s experience. First, what does a Christian do with dumb people? Yeah, yeah, I get it. That’s not the charitable or gentle way to put it, but it works. And there are dumb people. I am talking about actually uneducated, ignorant, un-reflective, and just plain un or mis or ill-informed people. It seems hopeless. And on the other hand, in recognizing dumb people exist, I find great motivation to make sure and educate the shyat out of my daughter. Maybe she’ll reject Christianity along the way, but she is going to at least develop the ability to think so that some day she may possess the ability to draw the Christian conclusion.

Second, my ex-wife is not a believer. While I wasn’t either during the marriage, and while the doctrinal claims of religion weren’t even close to a sore-spot cause of the divorce, I just don’t think I would be divorced had I been married to at least a cultural Christian. It’s been three years, and one self-published pseudo memoir since the divorce. Yet during today’s exchange of the joint-child, I was once again overcome with such a palpable emotion of rage–a rage which has as its only appropriate expression utter and total stillness–that I immediately became ashamed. You there! Jesus loves you! You, over there! Accept Christ’s atoning sacrifice and be saved! Hey, you! Passerbyer! Join me in Christian brotherhood! But her? For all I care she can finish off this life ignorant, aimless, and full of unrealized potential before burning in what I hope is a literal fiery pit of hell for eternity. And the fact that I feel this way is not right. It’s just not right. But it’s how I feel or my experience, nonetheless.

The point is I have a sneaking suspicion you might relate to these two experiences. I have to believe that Christianity has some answers, but I don’t see them today. I share this because I am confident that I am in the process of a transformation. The main reason for my confidence is that I am terrified of the effort that I know it will take to change my perspective.

Anyhow, pray for me.