Share This Link

"Share" and "Like" this link and you will be put into a draw and possibly win something... Really???

I see this all the time. And what I think when I see it is that someone has been bought and then sold all of their friends for the possibility of winning some bauble...

Oh, I am sure that some people genuinely like whatever it is they have forced onto my newsfeed, and some people genuinely liked it but only came out of the closet with the possibility of a treat. Some people only care about the prize, and some people like me, will refuse to like whatever it is as soon as you start treating me and my relationships as commodities that can be bought and sold for advertising, regardless of whether we like it or not.

This of course puts me in conundrum, because I am working on starting a business in videography... And as such I am forced to wrestle into practicality the ethics of advertising and marketing and sales in general. The problem is basically that I loathe these fields from the very centre of my being and would literally be more comfortable being a criminal defence lawyer than working in advertising. So perhaps I will begin studying for the LSAT...

I know that to level a critique against advertising is easy and demands something more... I also know that many small local companies are doing good work and working hard within the system we have inherited. I just happen to hate the system and I know this means I need to not merely be critical but propose an alternative style or approach. I think what I want is a more genuine approach that doesn't appeal to people's self interest and rest its presuppositions of utilitarian moral theory. Part of the reason advertising particularly relational advertising works is because people trust their friends - they want to trust their friends... and it is actually relationally damaging to take the perspective I have because in my cynicism I run the risk of interpreting peoples actions very negatively, which may or may not be fair. This ironically betrays that my position also hold utilitarian moral theory as a presupposition and therefore finds it difficult to believe that people "liking" links or pages for prizes has anything other than self interest in mind and therefore find it offensive.

This then is what I am trying to escape: utilitarian moral theory. I want to move toward gift language, gift economics... I think that Radiohead moves in the right direction with the "gift" of their album "In Rainbows" inaugurating "pay what you want." I think this moves humanity in a good direction which expects and values trust and relationship over greed and self interest. Radiohead and others have proven this model is not insane or entirely untenable.

I have a friend who asked me what I thought about trying to apply this model to a manufacturing situation. I said I thought it would be difficult... North Americans don't like flexible pricing or haggling over products. Furthermore, we have been trained to think in utilitarian terms and so to do things differently one must simultaneously risk losses and present "pay what you want" in terms that push people out their utilitarian thinking patterns...  For independently wealthy and famous creators of digital media with online channels of distribution these are of course not really risks or challenges at all. For anyone operating in material production and on a smaller scale the risks, of course, increase exponentially. I am sorry that I discouraged my friend rather than trying to imagine with him how to not just pitch his product but a different way of thinking about and doing business.

We write on this blog as a gift. We have created art and video as gift. How do we re-imagine our lives and jobs and businesses genuinely as gift? How do we recenter our live around trust rather than fear?

Gift Economics. Give.

Where Am I From?

In one sense this is a simple question. I am from the lower mainland of BC - The Greater Vancouver Regional District. I was born in Surrey and have lived in the general vicinity of Vancouver my whole life except for a brief 3 month semester in Paisley, Scotland.

However, in another sense I find it difficult to answer the question. I am from my parents. Where are my parents from? This is another difficult question. My Dad was born in Vancouver but didn't grow up here. My Mom's family was from Victoria but she grew up out east. My dad's Parents have lived everywhere and move as if it were a hobby. My mom's parents are dead. But if my Grandma were alive she would be the one person who had history in BC, who was born and grew up here. Mostly it feels as if my family is really from both nowhere and everywhere and only very slightly from here.

There are two places that I feel connection to by memory. First, the house I grew up in on Applehill Crescent. Second, My grandparents house on 56th Ave, although not so much the house as the property: a half acre lot filled with trees and treasures my Opa had collected. They sold the property a couple of years ago and with it cut loose the last tethers of my childhood to the places I grew up.

I have been trying to escape Vancouver for 7 years. The farthest I really got was Abbotsford. People in Abbotsford are rooted in a way that I had not really experienced before. Families have been there, going to the same church for 3 or 4 generations. For them, Abbotsford is home in a way that for my family doesn't exist.

Do I have a home?

To a certain degree I, perhaps, feel most at home on the road. Travelling.

I watched a show called "The Riches" about a family of Irish American gypsies that are grifters by trade until they wind up stealing some identities and settling down in the biggest "con" of all - living the American dream. It is an amazing series that didn't survive the writers strike and as such ends on a cliffhanger. They struggle as a family to stay put. I struggle to stay put. I struggle to settle. Apparently its in my blood.

I am often uncertain if I am running away from something or toward something... and how to tell the difference.

While I grew up here, my Dad couldn't shake his travelling roots entirely and so vacations were almost always adventures to new places. I didn't understand people that went to the same place year after year... It seemed so incredibly dull.

But now as I think about it again there is a depth of connection that occurs, is created, is built - a relationship between person and land that develops over time. A relationship... I recognize in others and recognize the absence of it in myself.

I have no land. I have no home.

Amy's family is more settled than mine. My sister's husband's family is very rooted locally. I think this is perhaps part of the reason my parents gravitate toward them. Land exerts a certain gravity even relationally.

How can I be human without land?
Where is my garden?
What land is God leading me to?
Where shall I plant vines?

How do you feel connected or disconnected from land/nature?
Is your life rooted in a particular place?
How do you think that effects you?

Talking to Trees

I made a video for a class at Regent. It wound up being more pictures than video... I have come to think of film and video as a way of creating space - in particular intellectual, emotional and perhaps even spiritual space in which we can consider perspectives and ideas not easily accessible in other settings or through other mediums. It is my hope that this video creates space for you to consider the interconnection and intersections of life - specifically the human relationship the natural world and the paradoxes of life and death in which we exist.

This is good timing as a contribution to Silas's post  about cutbacks to the environmental review process...
Please watch in full screen.

Specifically this was an amazing project through which to be connected to my Grandma. She had previously edited together a series of found poems from Emily Carr's journal, which I reedited into the dialogue/narration of the film. As such it was an opportunity to explore the paradoxes and juxtaposition of life and death within my own family as well as the wider world.

When I was starting this project, I still felt very utilitarian in my approach to nature and the forest. I used the project to give meaning to going for a walk in the woods. Through my semester and also this project my ability to conceive of going on walks with a sense of play, adventure and anticipation of discovery has increased significantly. Where as, a few years ago I didn't understand why Emily Carr painted trees... I am beginning to understand.

Allah and Compassion

Late in March, I spent some time thinking about interfaith dialogue, compassion, and the interaction of Islam and Christianity. A book and a conference directed me in that direction.

I read “Allah: A Christian Response” by Miroslav Volf. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I would not describe it as an easy read because some of his thinking on the trinity becomes quite abstract and he requires significant recall from early sections of the book to prove points in the later sections. Miroslav takes classical Christianity and shows how it is not the antithesis of Islam, but that the two religions can be compatible. In some ways, the conclusions he comes to reminded me of my own writing and thoughts about the interacting of two stories, Stories Pt. 1.

Through reading this book, I was confronted by my own presupposition that Islam, at its root, is a more fundamentalist religion than Christianity. Although Miroslav does not completely deconstruct this, he challenges one to act in charity to other religions. Charity towards their theology and beliefs, a humble approach that forces one to interact with the breadth of other religions, rather than pigeon holing religions and their believers.

Upon completing the book, I was confronted by the awkward fact that I am not as willing to be evangelized by other religions to the same extent I desire to share Christianity. I think this realization is vital. The ability to actually hear from other religions is the ground upon which fruitful conversations can occur.

Do I recommend the book? Yes. Specifically, anyone who is interested in missions, evangelism, or international development work would do well by considering Miroslav’s method for interaction.

The conference I went to was on compassion. It was hosted at Vancouver School of Theology. The keynote address was by Karen Armstrong. To get a feeling of who Karen is, why compassion matters, and what my day looked like watch Karen’s TED talk.

A highlight for me was the breakout group discussion. In my group were 3 VST profs, Muslims, Baha’I, New Age, Buddhists, a Christian who converted to Islam, some Anglicans, and me. It was fantastic. I have gone to Church a number of times in the past year. I have always felt awkward and excluded. Here with a bunch of strangers I was included. We met on the common ground of compassion and had real, open, and honest conversation. Specifically we discussed whether we thought compassion was innate, or something that needs to be taught. Like all great conversations, we did not conclude, but we went away pondering how to act in compassion.

Easter 2.1 - Jesus Christ Superstar

It was only after writing an entire but dissatisfying reflection on a different piece of artistic influence that I realized there was actually only one option. How could I have been so slow to not recognize the piece of art that has easily been most significant in my life. In fact I think it is precisely because it is so embedded into my life and my family's life and perhaps in particular my faith that it can be difficult to step outside of my own life and see it. This can be highlighted in particular by perhaps some of the most blasphemous moments of my own life this past year as I responded with a medium a level of interest and occasional disappointment as Amy and I visited the Holy Sepulchre, Temple Mount, Gethsamne, and Galilee but with rapturous delight and unending excitement as we were able to visit some of the sites that the film of Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar were filmed and also explore geography similar to that of the film.

The film Jesus Christ Superstar, would be what my father point to if asked about his conversion to Christianity. He was a teenager in Holland when the movie came out and he went to see it. The film had a tremendous impact on him, in particular he would cite the absolute gut wrenching anguish and horror of Mary Magdeline during the scene of Jesus flogging. The horror of the scene is, not achieved at all by graphic violence, such as in the Passion, but rather in the emotional reactions of the various characters who are witnesses. This I think highlights a power unique to film that allows the audience to be in a story and intimately connected with characters as if you were standing right next to your best friend, lover or enemy, experiencing their love, anguish, fury, doubt and fear. There is an intimacy that the audience can experience with characters of a film that is to my eye utterly unique, outside of perhaps a small amount of non traditional, very experimental theater.

The music of Superstar is a staple of my family's house, particularly around Easter. Similarly, the movie has been an Easter tradition since I was around 10 or 12. The profound and witty lyrics, breathtaking landscapes, passionate voices and performance have breathed life and humanity into a story too often presented with stiff sterility. Taking primarily Judas' perspective the movie is filled with doubts and questions. The line “You've begun to matter more than the things you say” is example of the brilliant irony with which profound theology is acknowledged and explored. “Jesus is important” Caiphus pronounces while plotting his crucifixion and also concedes “Jesus is cool.” The question, “Who is Jesus?” central to the gospels echoes through the whole opera, “Who are you? What have you sacrificed?” rings repeatedly through the title song immediately after Pilot questions, “Who is this Jesus? Why is is he different?” Even Jesus passionately questions his own death during his sung prayer in Gethsamne. This posture of doubt and question, obviously deeply influenced by our skeptical culture, is to my eye, in the case of Jesus Christ Superstar, one of earnest humility and genuine question. Irony and wit, cloak such an earnest yearning for truth from the source of the question itself, that Superstar remains spectacularly powerful. The quality of openness is something that I have come to deeply appreciate in art of all kinds. I think that great art is an invitation rather than a command, an invitation to explore both the art and the world.

It is in this openness, in both viewing and creating art that, I believe God's grace and providence can be powerfully witnessed. Jesus Christ Superstar, to the horror of many Christians has no resurrection scene or music. The final music which closes the show is titled “John 19:41,” which reads, “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.” Everyone in the movie gets back on the bus, even the successful suicide Judas, who stares to the cross of the one person left behind. The final shot of the movie is of the remaining cross at sunset. As the shot zooms out to close the film, a figure appears at the bottom left of the screen barely visible and walks across the screen directly in from of the cross followed by a flock of sheep. Director Norman Jewison recounts this Bedouin shepherd as coming out of no where and in no way an intended or directed event but rather a providential moment that left them in tears and thus closes the movie. As a Christian, I experience this as actually perhaps the most powerful and yet understated resurrection scene to occur in the history of cinema. The testimony of Jewison, highlights to me that as we engage creatively, we are not alone, but that the creative God who delights in his creation creates with us. The great directors Stanley Kubrick and also Terrence Malick shoot hours of footage and sometimes hundreds of takes in there desire to capture the unplanned moments of a Bedouin shepherd, a butterfly landing on a finger, or that unintentional bump of another actor. In this way I believe, our art can become prayers.

Feeling expendable

This week I have been dwelling on the feeling of being expendable. The feeling or experience of being unimportant in a relationship. A feeling common to a plastic bag as it is being tossed away.

As I have pondered these feelings in my life, and witnessed similar experiences in those around me, I have begun to see this as a common experience within relationships. Ideally, it would not be a common experience, but it occurs none the less. Of all experiences, the feeling of worthlessness or feeling expendable must rank as one of the most painful emotional experiences. There is a certain lack/absence of feeling that occurs. The same absence does not occur when someone directly insults you, or has the initiative to actively hurt you. The experience of expendability comes with an emotion rooted in not even being worth the others time/energy/acknowledgement to hurt you outright. It does not dignify you or the relationship at all.

Personally, I retreat into myself when these experiences occur. I find an uneasy comfort in isolation. It is turmoil, but at least I cannot leave myself, at least I cannot harm myself in the same way. Yes, I can harm myself, I can perpetuate spirals of anger, depression, and self loathing but I cannot divorce myself in an expendable way. The unity of the self does not allow it.

Now, we are in Passion Week. A time of triumph/subversion of Palm Sunday through the pain and break of relationship of Maundy Thursday, Isolation of Friday, death/ internalization/realization on Saturday, resurrection and doubt on Sunday and Monday.

As I bring my thoughts and feelings of expendability to Passion Week, I see them throughout it.

Here are some of the circumstances and relationships where I perceive emotions of expendability:

The disciples must have felt a growing distance as Jesus retreats into himself throughout last supper. The language grows more confusing. It is a funeral with everyone present. I have never imagined that it was a jubilant celebration like many of the other meals depicted throughout the Gospels.

The disciples get a second dose in the Garden. Jesus rejects disciples as he goes to be alone to pray. The disciples fall into an uncomfortable sleep. They cannot be near their friend; he seems to have no relational need. Rejection, disposal.

Jesus gets an equal dose. He returns repeatedly, as if desiring relational/tangible presence, but he does not ask for continued nearness. To his dismay, his friends are asleep. He feels expendable as if not worthy of their continued watchfulness.

I think Judas had a solid/overwhelming feeling of being a disposable pawn. Jesus tells him to go from the supper. How worthless was their friendship? Jesus does not try to persuade him otherwise. Was it ever worth anything? As he enters the garden, I imagine Judas feeling the relationships snap between him and the other disciples. He is more alone then ever before, even while he is physically surrounded by the soldiers there to arrest Jesus. He finds himself in a place of ultimate rejection. I continue to imagine him spiraling out of control as he watches what takes place next. He has no friends and nowhere in himself to rest. Nowhere but an abyss of self-loathing. He played his part as the pawn, now disposed of, he commits suicide, by the garbage dump, as if his final statement to the world.

Eloi Eloi Lama Sabacthani
My God, My God, Why have you expended me?

I will continue to ponder this as I wait for Sunday. I hope you join me in pondering and waiting.