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.

Anxiety & Irresponsibility

I have concluded that I have internalized that fear and anxiety are the responsible response to almost everything. Life continues to happen. Things get finished. Everything is ok. But I feel irresponsible if I don't make sure that appropriately freak out in the midst of it all. People talk about how worrying doesn't help anything... is that true? Over the past 2 weeks, I had 5 assignments total, 3 of them quite sizeable and then I got sick and felt awful for about 3 days... I tried to make good relational decisions which at one point meant helping a friend instead of doing homework. This is when the anxiety kicked into overdrive, I was sick, behind on school, and between the two saw no way of things getting done. I wanted to die. I hate missing deadlines. I am horrified at the thought of tossing away marks on the classes that cost $1500. I was frustrated because I felt unsupported in my crisis. This is when anxiety begins to become angry and demanding. Amy usually feels the brunt of this. I emailed a prof and got a 4 day extension on one assignment due to my sickness and successfully finished everything on time. It is not that it was easy, getting everything done included 2 all nighters. But it did all happen and my life did not end despite my desires earlier last week that perhaps that would just best all around. In fact the sickness which felt at the time like condemnation and doom, was precisely what got me an extension and was perhaps, therefore, a blessing...?!?

I struggle, as many people do, to find value and personal worth in something larger and more consistent than my work. This is made worse by the fact that even my work (theology student/artist) is not valued in society and culture. I am sufficiently enculturated that my desire to create alternative community and maintain alternative world-view is incredibly difficult and my imagined alternatives fall squarely into the category of: irresponsible. This of course makes anxiety my bread and butter as I continue defiantly to try and chart a course into unknown waters, which seem doomed for failure and compromise. Unlike pastors or missionaries, academics and artists often pursue their sense of calling with minimal support as the unknown goals of exploring life, meaning and creative potential can be difficult to explain, time consuming, financially unrewarding and often too ambiguous to be convincingly worthwhile to the majority of pragmatic capitalist North America... Oh how I long to have the faith and conviction to live the light and anxiety free life of the sparrow or lily that Jesus has called us too (Matt. 6:25-28). 

Do not worry about tomorrow... But we tell our kids and grads to make 5 years plans... Do not worry about tomorrow... but we tell people to plan ahead... Do not worry about tomorrow... but we spend vast amounts of time and money on financial planning and retirement savings... Don't worry about tomorrow... but don't be stupid...

So, to my anxiety laden friends and and society: How do we live light and worry free lives? How do we escape the endless task of self justification and sufficiency? If the answer is Jesus why does there seem so little support in the church for this freedom from worry? Why does it in fact seem that the church is perhaps the most worried, anxious hand wringing institution of society? What is wrong with us?

Turning 27...

Late last year, I was at a Sarah Slean concert and she assured the audience that 27 is a great year, but that you pay for it in year 28 and 29. When one is 27, adulthood has definitively set in and there is no escaping it, although perhaps it is the last year in which denial is quite socially acceptable. I find it difficult, as I believe we all do, to not compare myself to those around me in a variety of spheres and contexts. Some of my more famous fellow 1985 babies include: Lily Allen, Fefe Dobson, Zac Hanson, Kiera Knightly, Lady Sovereign, Frankie Muniz, Ashley Tisdale, T-Pain, and Madeline Zima. Other superstars like Miss Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga) are a year younger. While we could have a lively discussion regarding the degree of adulthood these celebrities have achieved, certainly their success and cultural influence is spectacular. Friends of mine own houses and are having babies... My parents had finished school, bought a house, and found the job my Dad continues to work at, given birth to me and were pregnant with my sister. These are examples of those who while less globally influential are discernably settled, rooted. I, however, seem to be stuck in the midst of the same existential crisis I have been in for the past at least 10 years, except 10 years ago I was more optimistic regarding the future. At 27, I am feeling both the desire and terror of settling... I am feeling distinctly exhausted with the uncertainty and transience of many peoples early and mid twenties.

Please let me be the first to be cynical regarding my own cynical out look. From any other perspective but my own, my own pathos is near inexplicable. I am married, I have travelled the world, I am currently enrolled in grad school and I have concession style popcorn machine, I live in Vancouver; life, by any reasonable external standard, is fantastic. Despite the often uncertain and unexpected series of events that have been the last decade of my life, they have been far from dull, uneventful or unproductive. However, from a young age I have had my eyes set on a world stage, and rather than making progress I find myself living everyday with angsty teenage uncertainty regarding what I want to be when I grow up. And here we are and I still don't really know or am too afraid to say or am afraid that the ongoing ambiguity determines me a failure regardless, doomed to be blown by the wind.

My eternally embarrassing confession of competing in figure skating up to the age of 16 never ceases to cause me discomfort. It is in this context of competition, my eyes always directed to national and international success, that I spent some of my most formative years. The height of my success was not a gold medal but qualifying for nationals (perhaps you can hear my disappointment). Anyway, I retired at 16 in order to more fully devote myself to school and art. My ambition for a world stage did not disappear, it merely shifted toward film and television. I have now spent 6+ years formally pursuing spirituality and theological education. But my vision/desire for global impact remains undeterred. On a side note, 4 years ago I recognized in myself a great longing to escape. This is mostly expressed in not wanting to live in North America. Despite and because of this I seem to have confined myself to the very context I both love and loathe, Vancouver.

Ambition is considered both a vice and virtue in modern society. I have mixed feelings about my own ambitions. Oh I could call them "hopes and dreams" and that would be far more acceptable but realistically it is the same. My desire to engage an audience is, perhaps, innate to my identity. There is not a time in my life that I can remember when some aspect of my time was not directed to this end in some fashion. And yet my young desire to perform and entertain has shifted to a desire to express and communicate. This blog succeeds in quenching some of that need. However, blogs and internet communication are often unsatisfying outlets, as they can feel like performing Shakespeare in the dark. Can anyone hear you? or see you? Does anyone care what about what you are doing or trying to do? These fears are somewhat alleviated here by group authorship...

My question, which perpetuates my own frustration and dissatisfaction is not: Do you care? or Can you see me? but, What am I doing? According to Dorothy Sayers I might be classified as an artist all energy and no idea... Although in reality I am exhausted and rarely energetic. I move amongst my own shadows of doubt looking for something... Perhaps we will have a child and I will find focus, perhaps I will be given an opportunity which will crystallize things, perhaps I will meet someone who will make things clear... But after 10 years of pursuing God for these things, learning to think, and discerning in community,  it is my conviction that we must learn to live in the shadowy reality of our own subjectivity. I must continue to step into the darkness by faith, because all is darkness. It is my hope to walk while holding hands with those I love. It is the deep torture of my soul to be weighed down with the call to speak and simultaneously deep uncertainty about what to say, or perhaps my uncertainty is a mask for inability to commit to a subject or perspective...

So I am most curious regarding your thoughts of ambition as a subject and its role in the Christian life...
How common is my sense of dissatisfaction? I perceive, perhaps wrongly, that many other people are much more content within life's mundane routines and much more capable of finding joy in the doldrums of the grind...
Is existential discomfort good or bad? Some might say that comfort and lack of personal tension should be considered a bad sign. 
Is the my decision thus far to confine myself to a context (e.g. Vancouver) that I do not particularly like, in order to attempt to work out my loathing of North America, reasonable or does it make more sense to run off somewhere and hopefully shatter my naive and romantic illusions regarding other parts of the world? This seems a common experience of many people.
Is my restlessness genetic, merely skipping a generation, and now simply expressed in the anxiety of my postmodern generation?
I apologize for what, perhaps, is far too personal a post for the public nature of this setting. 

Relationship Advice from Alfred Hitchcock - The Birds

This is the conclusion to this series:
Part 1 - Rear Window
Part 2 - Vertigo
Part 3 - The Birds

The movie The Birds (1963) presents, what in many ways is typical of a great Hitchcock film, a brilliant relationship study set against a backdrop of extraordinary, horrific, and deadly events. The film begins with Melanie Daniels in a pet shop. This starts with a short game of foiled deception with Mitch, centering on the topic of lovebirds and thus immediately suggesting the the subtext of a possible love relationship. During this encounter, they are held in frame together through a series of over-the-shoulder reverses that immediately begin to create a sense of connection. Finally, with the escape of a canary, which Mitch catches and then refers to as Melanie Daniels as he returns it to its cage, the relational subtext is fully confirmed. In the final verbal confrontation in this sequence, Mitch's shot also contains Melanie, signaling his desire and intent to catch her. The reverse of Melanie frames her alone, suggesting her freedom and authentic outrage at Mitch.

This defeat leads to Melanie attempting to pull one over on him by bringing him the two love birds he claimed he wanted. Thus, in the world of the film, their relationship is sealed. Melanie drives up to find Mitch in Bodega and tracks down Annie Hayworth to confirm Mitch's sister's name for whom the birds are for. Annie appears in a red sweater, already marked for death, and is helpful if perhaps aloof and judicious. Melanie enters into the Brenner house successfully, delivering the surprise love birds. This intrusion foreshadows the birds' later invasions of the house. Melanie escapes back across the bay and as she approaches the dock, and is greeted by Mitch, who has raced around the bay to meet her, a sea gull swoops down hitting her head. This is the first of the mysterious and terrifying bird attacks. While no direct explanation is given, at this point it appears to be a manifestation of Annie Hayworth's conscious or subconscious jealousy. The gift of the love bird, which is tantamount to a relational proposal, is an explicit intrusion and cannot be tolerated. However, it may be in response to the both physical and relational invasion of the Brenner house. Mitch then questions her presence and accuses her of liking him. She feigns to have disinterest and the pretext of having been old college friends with Annie and coming up for a visit with her. It is at this moment that Mitch's mother enters. Perhaps to increase the Oedipal tension, she looks strikingly like an older version of Melanie. The rest of the conversation that occurs with Mitch is framed with his mother and Melanie framed alone with occasional reverses to Mrs. Brenner, spelling out visually for the audience exactly what the relational dynamics are. The blocking of the scene before dinner with Mrs. Brenner on the telephone is also masterful. While Mitch and Melanie are able to share the background space briefly, when they finally settle into the room, Melanie sits on one the couch framed to the left of Mrs. Brenner and Mitch stands by the fireplace to the right. Mrs. Brenner stand talking on the telephone in the foreground as a wall between them. However, before the phone call is over, Mitch moves across the room again and, sitting down, is now framed with Melanie.

Mrs. Brenner is Mitch's domineering mother, a figure not uncommon to Hitchcock films. Most notably, Psycho (1960) alludes to this sort of figure, as well as Marnie and Notorious, both to a lesser degree. Slajov Zizek argues that the birds represent a foreign dimension that literally tears apart reality. In this sense, he suggests that they are manifestations of the the mother' raw, incestuous energy attempting to prevent the sexual relationship between her son and Melanie.1 It should be noted that throughout, Melanie is wearing a green skirt suit, highlighting her positively. In contrast, Mrs. Brenner's bedroom is that repeated yellow. This seems to signal the aggressive subtext of jealousy, mistrust, and aggression below the relatively benign conversation, which sends Melanie off to the school where she encounters a large group of crows, aptly named a murder of crows.

Within the film itself, it is suggested that the birds are a plague and a sign of the apocalypse. Furthermore, P. Adams Sitney has noted that the names Melanie (in Greek) and Daniels (in Hebrew) have the combined meaning “the blackness of God's judgment.” 2 The birds provide a terrifying sense of “The Other” ominously watching, often from above, referencing again the theme of voyeurism. Thus, the trademark high angle anxiety shot, which are used to spectacular effect in this film find their fulfillment in The Birds. Hitchcock's Catholicism obviously allows for the possibility for this to be interpreted as God. During the attack in the town, people identify the attacks as beginning with Melanie and thus accuse her effectively of being Jonah. However, Hitchcock has clearly taken pains to identify Melanie with the birds, beginning with the opening scene and including a reference to her breaking a window, which the birds then do in the movie. Thus we must understand the birds as generally manifesting in physical symbolism, the destruction of reality that Melanie represents for Mrs. Brenner as well as Mrs. Brenner's response. The echoes of Psycho support this dual representation, as the stuffed birds in Norman's office represent both his mother, whom he has killed and effectively stuffed, as well as the aptly named Miss Crane, whom he is about to kill and whom he compares to a bird. The final moments of horror in The Birds are those of Melanie again entering the mother's bedroom, only to find it filled with birds. What follows is best described as a crucifixion scene as Melanie receives innumerable wounds as well as the distinct emphasis on the piercing of her outstretched hand. She appears to die due to these attacks. However, Mitch and his mother rescue her and she is revived. Whether it is that God is satisfied with Melanie's sacrifice, or nearly the dead girl snaps the mother's super ego out of its jealous rage, Melanie is finally allowed to be integrated into the family as is noted by the shared hand squeeze with Mrs. Brenner, shown in a close cut in, before they all drive off to the hospital. Mrs. Brenner has come to accept that she is not going to be abandoned and embraces Melanie as a new daughter, being able also to be the mother that Melanie never had. As the new family escapes taking along the love birds that started it all, Mitch and Melanie's love and fidelity throughout the film is highlighted. Thus with relationships established and resolved, there is a happy ending that was not possible in Vertigo, or Psycho.

Hitchcock placed a great deal of priority on relational dynamics in his films. By examining his body of work, we see clearly that people cannot succeed or, at least not well, on their own. The trap of independence is one that men are particularly susceptible to as is clearly shown in Vertigo and also addressed in Rear Window. It is the strong, independent women such as Midge, Lisa, and Melanie that Hitchcock truly honours, perhaps because this is how he viewed his wife and the amazing partnership they shared in their work. Ultimately, it is the truth of these relationships that allow us to weather life's storms. Hitchcock reminds us that life is short and fleeting, with death lurking in every corner and on the end of every telephone call. However, it is precisely our insecurity which must energize us to commit deeply to that love relationship now, rather than waiting for the perfectly “compatible” person or for financial circumstances to create a false sense of security (a la Psycho). It is the outrageous grace of the love relationship in Spellbound (1945) that vindicates an innocent man and convicts the guilty. If only more characters were so faithful, perhaps less people would wind up in the awful predicaments they do. However, our voyeuristic appetites and creativity would be sadly disappointed by such a turn of events.

1Sophie Fiennes, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, Documentary, 2009.

2Kent Jones et al., The Hidden God, First Edition. (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2003), 249.

Relationship Advice from Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo

Again it is probably sensible to have watched at least Vertigo before reading this analysis...

Part 1 - Rear Window
Part 2 - Vertigo
Part 3 - The Birds

Vertigo examines relationships in a much more complicated sense, both directly and indirectly, as seen in Rear Window. Also similarly to Rear Window, the protagonist, Scottie, is an injured man, whose cane suggests the subtext of impotence. He is introduced with the female counterpart, Midge, in the second scene. However, it becomes clear that despite the clear sexual potential and also history to the relationship, it is, at present, an arrangement of convenient companionship rather than faithful partnership. Hitchcock keeps the two framed separately for almost the entire scene, except for a brief moment when Scottie pokes a bra on Midge's desk with his cane – one that she is designing advertising for. Midge's desire for a relationship is made clear by her comment that there is only man for her, indicating Scottie. Midges distress regarding their relationship is highlighted in Hitchcock's typical high angle shot, indicating the anxiety of the person or situation, and cued by Scottie's comment, “We were engaged once. Weren't we?” This trademark high angle anxiety shot is found in Hitchcock's films as far back as The Lodger (1927). In fact, much of “Hitch”'s visual brilliance as well as his innovation was born out of the fact that his career was developed in the era of silent film making, forcing him to learn to tell the story primarily visually and value this ability of cinema. According to Hitchcock, this sense of visual cinema was mostly lost with advent of sound to, “photographs of people talking,” and effectively transformed cinema into theatre.1

Thus Vertigo begins with what ought to be a relationship but isn't spelling disastrous results from the very outset. Scottie becomes involved in an investigation regarding a college friend's wife, Madeleine, after rescuing her from San Francisco Bay in what appeared to be an attempted suicide. Hitchcock now show us in reverse the couple that ought not to be. Scottie sits on the couch in a green sweater framed by red curtains signaling a sense of stage. Green used here echoes the green used to highlight Madeleine in her debut at the restaurant. The fact that Scottie is now in green framed by the red curtains suggests both that this scene is the reverse of the other in that this is when Madeleine first sees Scottie. However, it also serves to indicate Madeleine's psychological possession of Scottie. Green is often used by Hitchcock as a colour to indicate something positive. It is with subtle reinforcement such as colour that the audience is aided in liking and identifying with Scottie and Madeleine as well as warned of their fate. The camera pans and dollies across the room revealing Madeliene's clothes hanging across Scottie's cane in the kitchen and Madeleine, now understood to be naked, through a doorway in a bed. Scottie gets up and walk toward the bedroom, stopping and staring at the woman across the threshold. A telephone call draws him into the room. Telephones are a common device used by Hitchcock across a number of his movies. The telephone represents, in a very real way, an intrusion into one's life or equally significant, a manner in which to intrude on others. In this way, the telephone is often used to underscore the insecurity of our lives, perhaps hinting at the fact that death could call at any time2.

Madeleine's bare shoulders further add eroticism into the situation as she hides herself under a yellow blanket. Yellow has only been seen significantly in Midge's apartment, thus there is the subtext of Madeleine being where Midge ought to be. Yellow is also usually an aggressive colour in Hitchcock films, as most clearly displayed in Marnie(1964). Mark Rutland, while on his and Marnie's honeymoon, clothed in a housecoat of an identical yellow, is frustrated by Marnie's pathological inability to consummate their marriage. He and Marnie, who is clothed in a green dressing gown, have a strained conversation in the front room after which he storms after her into the bedroom becoming verbally aggressive and tears her nightgown off, in the most sexually violent moment of the film, an act which he immediately regrets and apologizes for. Thus we should be alerted and concerned by the yellow colour of the blanket, which also confirms the violation already suggested by the drying clothes. Furthermore, when Madeleine enters the front room in a red dressing gown, it echos the red restaurant in which Scottie first saw her, highlighting the passion he feels for her but also marking her for death. Again, going back to Marnie  and her pathological fear of red because of its psychological connection to murder, is key here. Also the red carpet in Frenzy (1972), running down the stairwell of Rusk's apartment, is significant. It is seen just after he and Babs enter to, what the audience is certain via a dialogue cue, will be her doom. The slow camera moves away from the closed door and down the stairwell, highlighting the red carpet, suggesting a waterfall of blood, and serving to underline the audience's horrified awareness of the present rape and murder in a long string of rapes and murders that have taken place in the room above. Vertigo's use of colour remains consistent within this framework and thus Scottie's presentation of two yellow pillows for Madeleine should be understood to maintain the subtext regarding Midge as well as perhaps foreshadowing his responsibility for Madeleine's death. In the course of Vertigo we discover that Madeleine is not actually Madeleine but rather Judy, an aid in a deception so as to make the murder of the real Madeleine, by her husband, look like a suicide.

The death of Madeleine at the Mission, in spite of Scottie's futile attempt to cure her psychosis, plunges him into a catatonic state. It is in the hospital that we have one of the final moments for redemption slip away as Midge is unable to coax him out, acknowledges his ongoing love for Madeleine, and leaves the hospital. She is unable to save Scottie in the way that Lisa is able to save Jeffries in Rear Window. Her exit of the hospital marks her last appearance of the film. When he emerges from the hospital he is alone, a point consistently emphasized by the camera framing throughout the film. He blunders once again down the trail of his torrid affair with Madeleine only to discover Judy, in front of the flower shop, wearing a green outfit, matching that of the flower shop's cart and definitively drawing the connection between her and Madeleine.

Scottie discovers Judy by accident and is unaware of the truth and sets about recreating her into Madeleine. The final moment where their doom is sealed is Judy's renewed resolve to restart their relationship in reversed deception in order to make their love true, in contrast to her initial intention to reveal the truth. There is significant echoes between this process of transformation and that which occurs in Rebecca (1940) and Scottie's makeover of Judy – both explore the desire for transformative deception in a lover. In Rebecca, it is the perception that transformation is desired that is, in reality, false. Whereas, in Vertigo, the desire is real and instead it is the unanticipated truth of the deception which reveals its own horror. Furthermore, what in Rebecca is more or less dressing up, Vertigo reverses into a slow erotic undressing.3 The scene after Scottie and Judy first have dinner, when Scottie proposes another meeting as he drops her off in her apartment, demonstrates further Hitchcock's genius at being able to tell the story through image. The scene is lit in low key and Judy disappears into the shadows early in the scene. Scottie stands lit, proposing a 'non sexual' relationship to her dark, haunting silhouette, as he lusts with necrophilia for the ghost she reminds him of. She remains hidden in the shadows of her own secrecy and love for Scottie. She, Judy, loves Scottie, but Scottie loves the non-existent shadow called Madeleine, whom Judy pretended to be. This division of person is perfectly captured in the shot of Judy sitting looking out the window away from Scottie, her face cut perfectly in half by shadow. Scottie sees her only in shadow but longs for greenish lit side of her which evokes Madeleine. When, later, Judy exits from the green light fully reversed back into Madeleine she stands finally naked before Scottie for his necrophilliac fantasy.

The film concludes with the horrifying repetition of the earlier death scene. Scottie has once again transformed Judy into Madeleine and Madeleine will once again fall to her death, only this time Scottie, in the midst of the madness of his psychotic obsession, has become Gavin Elstor. Scottie, while not wanting to be alone and lamenting his availability in the opening scene, is also unable to admit dependance or need for a woman. Because of this, he is blind to Midge's consistent assistance, clarity and love, unable to stand her independence, he instead drowns in his own obsessive desire for the illusion of love, power, and control presented to him in Madeleine. An illusion, which when revealed, results in a fit of erotic rivalry4, ultimately causing Judy's death, albeit indirectly. Interestingly, this theme of illusion, deception and artifice, while worked out most often in relationships, has also a definitive reflexive nature that casts judgment on both the desire to and watching of films as well as the creation of them.

It is this exploration of the desire to be deceived that I continue to find most haunting. In what ways do I reject reality around me and pursue illusion and delusion toward my own and others destruction? In what ways do I construct those around me into false personae, related to my own neurosis? In what ways do I allow myself to be constructed by the neurotic fantasies of others?

1François Truffaut, Hitchcock, Rev. ed., 1st Touchstone ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), 61.
2Dial M for Murder
3Truffaut, Hitchcock, 244.
4Jones et al., The Hidden God, 256.

Gender Roles: A response by Dan Renton

My best guess on God’s heart on this issue:
Here’s what I feel is the proper response to this. It’s who God is and how he functions that determines this issue for me.

The Trinity
Regarding the Trinity, Scripture teaches that God is three separate persons, each person is fully God, and yet there is only one God. God does not express himself as three separate persons, at three separate times. He can express himself as three separate persons at the same time. They are one. They are different, do different things, yet are equal. The Father is begotten of no one and is the eternal Father the Lord Jesus Christ who is the author of our salvation. Jesus Christ is the son of Father. He is fully God and fully human and the second member of the Trinity.

His Character
I believe that God’s character tells us that God is advocating for us. God is not a God who inflicts evil, sickness and suffering for some sick sadistic enjoyment. He is here to give us a life to the full. He has plans to give us a hope and future. It is God’s kindness and goodness to us that lead us back into right relationship with him. I believe that God is for us and therefore we shouldn’t worry about who or what can stand against us. While it is true God loves his own glory, I believe His glory leads to our good and therefore an examination of God’s character revels to us that we can trust God because He is good!

God is Love. God’s love means that He has a strong intimate and affectionate devotion first to His name and to His creation. God loves himself. God loves his creation. He saved us for many reasons, to show his justice, for his name sake, but he also saved us because he delighted in us. I’m of the opinion that everything about God stems from God’s love of his name and his people. God’s anger, jealously, wrath, justice, even Hell itself is an expression of God’s great love for us.

This love of God means that God eternally gives himself for others. This love for us is unselfish. God self initiated this love for us. It was not motivated by our prior love for him (for he loved us even when we where his enemies) nor was it moved by anything superior we have done. His love is not motivated by a desire to get something from us. If He needs something, He’ll do it himself. He simply loves. God’s love is the epitome of genuine intimate affection and devotion. The greatest display of that love was when God chose not to consider equality with himself something to be grasped but lowered himself and made himself nothing taking on the nature of servant and made in human likeness became obedient to death in the place of humanity.

God’ love for his name and for his people cause him have an intense feeling of displeasure that stems from wrongdoing against Him and those He loves. This is otherwise known as anger. God is slow to anger, so when he is angry it must be something worth getting angry about.

He is perfectly within his right to be wrathful and angry. When a wife is crying because her husband spent hours looking at adult material instead of her, God is angered because of his love for her and He is grieved at the pain that sin is causing. When a socially isolated person comes to God’s house and is treated with disrespect, God is angered because of He loves the outcast. When God sees a child that covered their ears to drown out his father's physical abuse of his mother, God is angered because he loves this child. When people do acts of sin in God’s name, God is angered because He loves his name and desires people to trust Him.

God’s Love means that He is righteous and just. God always does that which is correct and free from error in relation to what he has degreed ethical and moral. God always acts in a way that is appropriate for the, condition, occasion and purpose. Love demands justice. You cannot have a loving God withou having a just and righteous God, because a correct and fair response communicates a measure of concern, affection and devotion for His name and His people. No response from God, would communicate God's lack of interest in the cause of the victim. Therefore when God condemns humanity, He is perfectly loving and fair in doing so.
Even though God is perfectly fair and just in his dealings with us, God has chosen to act favorably upon us. God has chosen not to stay angry forever. God is a God that is full of grace. God deals with us not on the basis of what we deserve - God is simply gracious to us because He is. God’s love for us is not based on our skill. Yet Egalitarianism claims that we are not equal unless we do the same things, but God himself did not function that way and yet all members are equal. The Holy Spirit did not die for me yet he is equal. Consider what Paul says on the issue:

Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.


Do you know what it says here? Right from the outset value is not determined by our function or job in the church but some how the Complementary position is shunned because it says men and women are equal but have different roles to play, just like the hand and eye do. It’s kind of weird to me to say your value isn’t determined by what job you do in a genderless topic like gifts but as soon as a penis or vagina is involved all of sudden our value is determined by what we can do - even though the Bible says the opposite. What ever happened to there is no Greek or Jew, slave or free, we are one in Christ? Seems like we do judge how important we are on what we do… Weird, and a bit of a logical fallacy, It’s okay here for the this reason but not okay here for the same reason, weird.

Any doctrine we come up with Egalitarian or otherwise must best reflect these things so that our worth is not based on what we do. The trinity and spiritual gifts show us the differing roles do not equal value.
It must be God's image and his character since God made us in image.

Here’s also what I know
● God created men and women… so women are good!
● God Created men and women in his imagine so that must mean God created women to reflect his image in a different way then in men. This also means that there is something in women that God values different than he does in men. The same is true in reverse.

And that is BEFORE THE FALL. If this is not true, why didn’t God not create two women? He could have done that... So there must be something unique in both. This is also the reason I think marriage should be between men and women because if it is same sex, you don’t get the full image of God and marriage was meant to reflect the image of God. I think this is fair of me to argue because we also argue that murder is wrong because we were made in the image of God, at least that’s what God said to Noah after the Flood.

● I also know that the Bible says, “This is both bones and bones and flesh of my flesh… for this reason a man shall leave his parents and be one”
● The whole Biblical idea is that we work as one. Just like God, each member unique and yet one. Egalitarianism only focuses on the one but dismisses the uniqueness in the name of equality therefore in my mind it does not best represent the oneness and uniqueness of God.
● Men were leaders. By that definition they provided, they produced they protected, for whatever area of life there were in. God held Adam more responsible than Eve for the fall. It was to Adam that God demanded an accounting, it was to Adam that God cursed all humanity and creation.
● Women lead and taught in the Bible – Like Esther. Women taught in the new NT. Women were prophets
● Elders were mostly men
● Paul taught Prisicilla who taught Apollos
● Men must serve there wives
● Women must submit to their husbands
● Women served as deacons
● The Bible does say that men should be the primary leaders in at least two passages in the NT both of which have been dismissed as cultural.

I don’t agree with this 1) If it were true I doubt very much that should culture ever return today to this situation Egalitarians would be ready to give up the “right” to preach. This goes against God’s character since GoD did not consider equality with himself something to hold on to. So I cannot support a culture even a Christian one that would find it difficult to give up rights, even for the greater good. I don’t think the heresy argument is enough, since there is no clear statement that women were actually teaching false doctrines. 1 Tim 5:13 mentions women gossiping but does not mention false doctrine. I know we mentioned what was going on in the city of the time but to me even if we were correct it is still not strong enough. I could use that reasoning to justify everything, “ When Peter was writing to children to obey parents it was because kids were disobeying the parents in that city. Now we are well behaved kids, so kids don’t need to obey their parents” See what I mean? I know this statement is ridiculous yet we use it for this women in ministry thing because its such controversial issue. We can’t justify what we believe because we want to avoid being hurt. Some may object because they said women were not educated enough.I find the argument weak especially when it comes to Priscilla... “....... Paul was writing to Ephesus, which was the home church of Priscilla. It was in this very church that she knew the Scripture well and taught Apollos. She probably learned it from Paul himself. Although they later went to Rome, we find her back in Ephesus at the end of Paul’s life. Therefore it is likely that they were in Ephesus in 65 AD about the time Paul wrote 1 Timothy. Yet Paul does not even allow well educated Priscilla or any other women at Ephesus to teach men in the public Assembly of the church. In order to establish the order of creation God established between men and women” (Grudem 939)

The best model - the best guess I have on God’s heart:
We therefore need a model that shows equality and diversity as one. We need a model were the image of God of women and men is celebrated because it's different, not the same. The Trinity is the best model equality and diversity celebrated. Uniformity is a no. We need a model that expresess both the male and female images of God - for men this would mean we need model where men can protect, fight for and produce for the church just as God is fighting for us, protecting us, and providing for us. Egalitarianism is insufficient because it does not define the uniqueness of the image of God in both sexes.


God created men and women in his own image so they must be seen as equal worth. The fact they were created differently means we must celebrate the differences and find ways in church to put men and women in places they excel at. Like I said earlier, as a youth pastor with no kid's I’m not the best to teach Dad’s how to deal with the terrible twos. Godliness is the defining line between who can lead and who can’t, not a vagina - not a penis. If the woman was more mature than me, I would submit to her leadership.

That said we see throughout the Bible that God still holds men more accountable in the areas of producing, protecting, and providing therefore we need to put men in places within the church where they can do that. That means eldership. Men should lead if a) they are godly 2) there is a need

Under the authority of a godly men we should allow godly women to preach and teach.
What are you afraid of?
“Wait a minute, that still makes me subject to men therefore not an equal.” Umm Yes and no. Yes in that you have to submit to someone (but really we all do), no in that you are not equal. Jesus submitted to the Father and YET he was equal. Are you greater in Jesus in this way? And plus when you let guys lead in this way, you take guys natural tendency to do this out of the video game world... Where marketers exploit this trait to sell games, and bring it in the church. Is there a chance that women can be oppressed? Yes, but only when men live outside submitting their lives to Jesus. When men lead godly lives the result is protecting women, giving them a safe church to lead in, providing them the means and ability to serve, and producing godly men and women. Wouldn’t you just love to work in a place like that without having to worry about protecting yourself? That’s the Biblical ideal. That’s why I don’t think you can blame abuse on the doctrine because when you articulate it like this men must encourage and bless women. So when its not being followed, its not the doctrine, it’s the individual, warping something that was meant to protect women into something that can hurt them. Label this whatever you want, it’s not Egalitarianism, because men still lead primarily, but it doesn’t suppress women either. So I will label it moderate Complementarianism... or maybe its better just to call it the view that attempts to try to get at the heart of the issue.

Why not?

As of tomorrow, we enter the last month of 2011. A year marked by the motto "why not?" as established last new years in New York. A trip which was made possible by the phrase it was to inspire. It has been a year of travel, transition, creativity, and new endeavours.  Do a super intense internship? Why not? Be homeless for the summer? Why not? Embrace unemployment? Why not? Start a blog? Why not? Write a book? Why not? Shoot a painting? Why not? Start Grad School? Why Not? Move to Vancouver? Why not? Occupy Everywhere? Why not? Stay up all night doing home work? Why not?

In the course of these adventures I have discovered many excellent responses to our courageous question which launched us daringly into many new, difficult, challenging, and rewarding circumstances... However, as I begin to reflect on a year that has been filled with extremes and as I anticipate rest, renewal and rejoicing over the Christmas season, I am moved almost immediately to nostalgia. It has been a year of life shared deeply, with deep friends. Beginning as we slept 3 or 4 to a bed stumbling on top of each other in a tiny apartment in New York, an experience I'm we were sure had deepened or destroyed our relationships, to graduation, to Israel, to unemployment, from artistic endeavours, new jobs, to weddings, to new schools... memories have congealed into a glassy rose coloured past to be reminisced over as we return to favourite restaurants, share a cigar, and in either slurred or perfectly enunciated speech share the deep love and respect we hold for each other. Friendship is about life lived together and that is something that has happened significantly and deeply this year.

The questions to be answered in the coming month is what will next years motto be? How do our relationships transition as life moves us to different place? Will there be the new friends that we will journey, laugh and cry with, and how will they change us?

I anticipate this Christmas season as being celebratory with with old friends and new, with family, with wine, with food and champagne...

May we celebrate both the glory and misery of our lives, holding hands and cuddled together,
with shouting, laughter and tears,
with kisses and hugs,
with both hope and sorrow, grieving and joy...
May there always be pizza...
May water turn into wine...
May death give way to new life...
May life be lived together...
Amen.

Halloween

I read an article called "Is the Reformation really over?" - Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT). This was a series of conferences which worked to create dialogue between the two groups, to establish common ground and also learn from differences. The outrage over the first conference and subsequently published document was such that people resigned, people removed their signature and a public debate was held within evangelical circles. Of the two sides: those opposed entered the discussion with demand/desire/expectation that those who had participated would fully recant. All I could think about when I read that was of the various reformers hauled before church courts and authorities and demanded to recant. I was bemused to discover that "we" have become the oppressive establishment ready to place those who do not fall within our lines or boxes on trial and to "excommunicate" those we disagree with (a la John Piper to Rob Bell via twitter). Something has gone terribly wrong...

On this day Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to Wittenburg. The Reformation fractured the church into a thousand pieces which we hope that God will pick up... Out of the reformation came the unchallengable priority of right belief. Our communities are defined by confessions. Is a confession the best way to define Christian community? In contrast the Catholic and Orthodox churches would define community through participation in the sacraments and liturgy... I think I like this idea better because what we believe changes so much during our lifetime and I don't want to switch communities every time I am uncertain about a piece of the confession.

Out on a limb...

Last week I went apple picking with my mum. There was an apple tree behind the community centre and my mum recruited me to go up and pick the apple which were perfectly ripe and very delicious. I have always liked climbing trees and throughout my life I have made my mum nervous on many occasions as I placed myself in precarious situations. However, last week she was egging me on... "There is lot just out and up a bit farther," she said. And so I found myself probably the farthest out on a limb I think I have ever been. I was careful, I was cautious but I also pushed myself to the very limit because that was the place I needed to be to get the good apples.

The line between madness and genius is thin. The line between success and failure is thin. The line between life and death is thin. The thing I find interesting is that we are notoriously bad and knowing where the line is... We are notoriously bad at evaluation in general. The drummer before Ringo Starr, quit the Beatles because he thought they were no good. Way too many people go on American Idol and think they are great. We try and evaluate results but which results are relevant? Einstein had early speech difficulties, Van Gogh had no success while alive. Our understanding of the present and the stories that history will tell are often different...

At the entrance to the temple at Delphi it said in Greek, "Know thyself." "Who am I?" is one of the ancient philosophical conundrums... The task to know one's self is exceedingly difficult as there is certainly no agreed upon method. Furthermore it is not a question to be answered by a single individual given we are relational beings, our identity is wrapped up in much beyond our own individual psyche. We like to talk about self esteem, and bad self esteem as someone who doesn't know them self. However, "bad" is a judgement we make from the outside based on our perceptions. We are likely to disagree just a strongly with an unrepentant serial killer who has really "good" self esteem.

The line between confidence and arrogance is thin. My father in law says that it is the difference between seeking impress rather than express. And yet I am sure we can all resonate with the experience of knowing someone who liked to express themselves just a little bit too much... I know people who seem to be very comfortable with who they are and they are very "real" but what this looks like is often abrasive or uncomfortable. They are either oblivious or disinterested how there self expression impacts those around them. People deal with it. I put up with it. I find myself often a combination of frustrated and jealous of these people. Frustrated because they can be like a grenade; jealous because they can get away saying and doing things that I cannot, with an earnestness that I would have to fake.

Expectations may well be the death of you...

I find myself farther and father out on the limb of life. My ability to evaluate whether the branch can hold me or not is negligible. Although past experience tells me that I'm ok. But of course past experience tells me I'm ok because one is ok until one is not, one is alive until one is dead, the branch is holding you until it snaps. Will it snap? or will you get a delicious apple?

How much risk is acceptable? How do you determine risk? How do you psychologically manage to get in your car every day knowing the statistics of traffic fatalities: 32, 708 people died in the US last year in a traffic accident.

You And I, by Gaga – My reading of this text

Brilliance, as always. Maybe I am not critical enough of Gaga but I am always astounded at her level of insight into life, her creativity, and musical genius. Her latest video “You And I”, released on Tuesday, is no exception.

At a first glance, you might notice…country music? Yup, a brave attempt to cross musical boundaries, I think she accomplishes it successfully. You also might notice that the video is highly sexual, I think there is a Freudian influence in understanding existence through sex, the lack there of sex, and developmental stages of sexual maturity. One will also notice Gaga’s fashion statements. Personally, I like what she has done with the Mugler shoulders, specifically the frilly outfit. But beyond these things I think in this video she is making a more major statement, a statement about relationship.

For those of you who do not follow Gaga religiously there is something you ought to know, as of her latest album, “Born this Way”, she embarked on a narrative of “Pop Culture is our religion”. She tweeted this before the album released and it has been evident in the videos “Born this way” and “Judas”. It is an interesting narrative as this religion has moved from “The fame” (her first album – the creation), to “Fame Monster” (her second album – the deconstruction), and now the recreation in “Born This Way” (her third major album). So whenever she releases a new video I am excited by what she is going to say through it. The video for “You And I” at first confused me as I could not find the tie into the narrative she has been building. Is she taking a break from the discussion of pop culture as our religion? No, I think she has moved on to her Epistles. After watching the video a few more times I think she is moving into virtue as defined relationally and the virtue of relationship, very similar to the movement Paul makes in his Epistles. Thus, I conclude “You And I” is a look into the interpersonal relational aspects of religious existence.

The whole video is quite confusing. Gaga even acknowledges this, "The video is quite complex in the way that the story is told, and it's meant to be slightly linear and slightly twisted and confusing, which is the way that love is." Her Facebook statuses referring to this movie include “Love is a Result. We bare an Unbearable Human Inability: to just be.” and “You must love all + every part of me, as must I, for this complex + incomprehensible force to be true.” Interesting insights into relationship.

Here is my reading of the video. The journey begins with an acknowledgement of the pain and grotesqueness of the journey. Often the “cushy” depiction of Christianity, or any other religion, is misleading. There is pain, angst, emotional bleeding, maybe even physical bleeding, all of which usually find their roots in the others one co-journeys with, because religious experience necessitates relationship with others. This pain is exhibited in abandonment by friends, shortcomings of others, intentional self-serving at the cost of the other, or even cheap answers intended for good that end up being severely painful. Therefore, the opening of Gaga’s video is a blatant acknowledgement of pain caused by being in relationship with others. I find this to be an honest warning about the potential harm one opens himself or herself to when embarking on the journey.

The video also contains an interesting interplay of gender roles (as per normal for Gaga). As she plays both people in the piano scenes, she continues to facilitate a dialogue of sexual identity and journey. This is one of her ongoing conversations within her videos, which all contemporary religions need to discuss in order to be relevant. This is her major discussion in her video “Born this way”, it is because of her willingness to participate in the conversation openly that her religion is growing while timid Christianity continues to wallow in its inability to have the conversation. This journey and conversation is implicitly relational, as we are not defined in isolation but by relationships with others. Religion must be functional, so when Christianity (here I make a big generalization) is too afraid to facilitate the conversation everyone is having the forum is taken elsewhere. These difficult, but necessary, conversations often end up being facilitated by the prophets of the time, who are only later recognized for what they are and the value they have given by facilitating the conversation, in this case, she is a prophetess. A final note on gender and sexuality in this video is the scene where she kisses herself, as it is an interesting statement about self-love, which is central to her religion. This is very similar to Christianity, specifically the statement in the gospels to love others as yourself. Self-love is necessary as it is a precondition to altruism and empathy.

Relationships are inherently full of violence and chaos; this is exhibited in Gaga’s depiction of the love and relationship in this video. The act of binding to another is a destructive event, as it requires some change of self-identity in order to bind to another. Love is also inherently violent and evil (see the Zizek video in Duncan’s “Wandering the Wilderness” post). Gaga captures the violence and destruction inherent in relationships through the violent imagery in this video.

Relationship, however, is worth the violence and chaos. I see this in the video as there is a movement from depictions of being bound to scenes of freedom. These are the Frankenstein scene and the leather-strap dance scene that progress into the mermaid scenes, the arrival of legs, and acceptance of self within relationship; all of which come near the end of the video.

The other aspect of relationships that Gaga tells of is the virtue of flexibility. The video moves from a mechanical nature of relationship (metal prosthetics), which is then contrasted to the mythical nature of relationships (mermaid). I think this shift speaks to the need for structure when entering into relationship but the need for increasing flexibility and creativity to further relationships.

Beyond relationship being explored within the video, this video is a new level of vulnerability for Gaga herself, in her relationship with her little monsters (fans). This occurs as she shows a very “normal” shot of herself at the piano (which is abnormal for Gaga). In doing so, she continues to reinvent and creatively redefine the mother monster relationship building a depth, which is not accomplished by stagnant personas.

The line that probably stands out to a first time watcher is, “There are only three men I will serve my whole life, My Daddy, Nebraska, and Jesus Christ”. This offers a threefold articulation of the relational nature of life. There are family (already existent relationships), friends/coupling/environment – Nebraska (new relationships, discovery – Nebraska most likely is a euphemism for Gaga’s on again, off again relationship with her male partner), and Jesus Christ articulates a spiritual side to relationships that defies objective understanding.

This whole movie then finishes with the final scenes of companionship of two very different individuals. Despite all of the angst, chaos, differences, pain, and struggle, relationship overcomes and there is final companionship that overcomes seemingly insurmountable barriers – mermaid sex.