My Gift To You

I have three gifts to give on this Christmas morning.

But first, a statement of the obvious:

I'm a writer.

I wrote my first screenplay when I was 21, at the end of my senior year in college. I'd taken some film and video production classes, I owned a camcorder, and I figured I'd just round up my family & friends as cast & crew and just shoot it.

No lights. No editing equipment. No budget for food or craft services or costumes. No rehearsals or stunt coordination.

Ah, to be young and naive.

Anyway, it never happened, largely because I think the guy I most wanted to play the lead probably believed I cast him because he was too similar to the unsympathetic character he'd be playing (which is, of course, why I wanted him), so he turned it down. Could never get these non actors and non film crew to be totally motivated to labor for me for free.

But, after the production sort of fell apart, I started to look at the script a bit closer, and something about it just didn't seem quite..... real.

I realized that I didn't really know enough about acting to truly evaluate whether my script was good material for someone to create a good performance. Thus began my introduction to acting as a student at the 12 Miles West Theater company in Montclair, New Jersey's Luna Stage under the tutelage of my dear coach and thespian extraordinaire Jackie Knox.

Funny - as I'm writing this and looking for the links, I see all the changes that have happened in the last 11 years since I first walked into that little black box theater. Jackie left the company, started a family, & moved them and her acting studio down to my alma mater, Old Nassau. 12 Miles West lost their lease and is looking for a permanent home, temporarily housed in Madison, NJ. Luna Stage has become its own company, with its own classes. And I, of course, have moved to the City of Angels.

11 years.

One of my little cousins just celebrated her 10th birthday last week. She didn't even exist when I took my first acting class. Tonight, she was passing out her own Christmas cards and wrapping gifts for her relatives. A whole little person with her own agenda.

11 years.

During that class, I had the opportunity to read Sanford Meisner on Acting, by the great American "Method" coach. And, aside from the various techniques and methods described, there was one passage in that book that fundamentally altered my life. To paraphrase, Meisner said that the key to any art is understanding that it takes 10 years of doing it, constantly, to become a master.

10 years.

Up to that point, I'd lived my life in these neat little 4 year increments. 4 years of high school. 4 years of college. I was in the middle of what would eventually be 4 years as an IT consultant during the internet boom that coincided with an on-again, off-again long distance relationship that finally went nuclear after 4 years.

10 years just seemed like an outrageously long time at the time.

And yet, in the ensuing decade, life has happened.

And what is art, if it is not about life?

I recently saw a Flamenco show at El Cid in Los Angeles, and, while all three dancers were fantastically skilled, there was a weight to the older woman, a profoundness, a substance to her performance that her younger, faster, more agile counterpart lacked.

She was real.

She was

MORE

Before that, I saw this music video


Somewhere around the 2:45 mark in that video, Beyonce starts a dance routine that literally had me rocking back on my hips with my mouth open saying "I want to WRITE like THAT!!!"

Before that, as I was about to start the umpteenth re-write of the project I mentioned in this post, I recruited my significant other at the time, who is an incredibly accomplished (I mean, Award-winning) actress to help me do a little read-through of the script. I knew it was good, but, just like my 1st screenplay back in the day, I knew it was missing something.

So, before we read it through, she sat for a moment and, for lack of a better term, CHANNELED THE SPIRIT of my central antagonist.

Let me repeat that: she CHANNELED THE SPIRIT of my central antagonist.

I mean, literally, for a few moments, she became him.

I've been working on this particular script since 8 days before 9/11, but, that day, I actually met the villain of my movie, face to face, in my living room.

And I'm not afraid to say, that scared the piss out of me.

And, afterwards, she told me that things like that are part of the reason she took a break from acting, because letting someone like that get inside you begins to take its toll after a while.

Now, I'm sure I know what some of you are thinking. And if you can't go there with me on this particular Macroscope post, trust me, I understand. There was a time not long ago when even I wouldn't have read past this paragraph, so don't sweat it if you're not prepared for where I'm going with this. To paraphrase Jesus, "The Word is only intended for those who can hear, and those who can't...it was never intended for them in the first place."

Of course, those who know me know that probably my favorite Bible verse is the first verse of the first chapter of The Gospel according to John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In other words, God is a writer.

Not only is God a writer, but God is also The Story.

And The Story was already there from the very beginning.

Just like Alan Moore and Warren Ellis seem to be suggesting in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier and Planetary, respectively, the stories we tell already exist before we ever put pad to pen. If we want them to be MORE, we have to align ourselves with what they truly want to be.

When I wrote my first screenplay while in film school, I'd had it outlined and structured down to the Nth detail. But when I actually started writing it, something happened. As I like to say now, when I write, there's a point at which a threshold is crossed and, even though my flesh & blood body are still sitting at a keyboard, and then going to the dinner table and then maybe watering my front lawn, I am now, at that moment, actually INSIDE the story. So, by the time I came up for air and delivered my first draft, not only was is an outrageous 153 pages long, but the final 30 pages has nothing to do with my original outline at all. The story jumps off of the path I'd laid for it and literally snowboards down the side of a mountain into an area of my own soul that I didn't even know existed.

At the time, I told my writing group that I really don't know how that happened. I mean, it's almost as if I'd taken a nap and someone else had written the final act of the film.

Today, I often find myself advising my other writing friends to stop fighting with the story. It's a fully formed thing with its own agenda. And, just like I advised one of my aunts who's stressing out because her child's future may not be what she had planned, your babies have their own path. You just have to relax and be there to help illuminate it for them.

So, as I began to embark on the final round of re-writes on this film before we try to put it in front of a camera next year, I realized that, for this script in particular, even though I'd spent much time inside the story, I'd never really tried to actually live inside the main character. And that was the missing piece. As John Travolta said in the teaser trailer for "Face/Off": I must become him.

I tried it, and suddenly, I saw the film in a whole new light. It's like, the spine of the story had always been there on the page, I'd just been too blind pursuing my own agenda to see what it really wanted to be.

But, then, to start re-writing, I also had to do what my ex had done - I had to be inside the villain for a time, too. I had to make him just as real and as human.

It was a meditation.

And, after breathing through it and turning inward, when I'd let myself personally experience the horrors that made that character into a monster.... when I finished the mediation, I was aware that my face was sore.

Because my mouth had been open in a silent scream the entire time and I hadn't even realized it.

I'm not even going to get into the story about how a Tarot card told me that THIS was the script I had to write at this moment. :-)

As I was having lunch with a friend who's a network exec, I told her that I finally understood that storytelling and writing at the highest level, the one that actually moves hearts and touches souls, is actually an exercise in magic.

It's why so many people in Hollywood who pay the bills don't understand, and, consequently, don't respect writing. They know it's necessary, but it's not something you can really break down and measure and computate. To them, it's witchcraft. Literally.

So, my first gift is for every writer out there, and it's little piece of self-knowledge: If you are a writer, and you ascribe to the highest that our art has to offer, you are a magician. Like Merlin. Plain and simple.

And even if King Arthur didn't understand what Merlin did, he damn well knew he couldn't rule without him, which is why Merlin ALWAYS had a preferred seat near the King at the Round Table.

AMPTP, take note. The writers are the ones who make it all possible. The motion picture industry as we know it today simply would not exist without writers. The debt that everyone who makes their fortunes in filmmaking owes to writing can NEVER, EVER be fully repaid.

But I'm willing to bet that the WGA will gladly put the producers on some sort of installment plan. :-)

My second gift is for everyone, and it's this: If you have ever told a story to another soul, even if it was as simple as calling your sister and complaining about your day at work, then you, too, are also a writer.

Raw & lacking formal training? Perhaps. And not necessarily in the sense of a paid script doctor or bestselling novelist. But you are a writer, nonetheless. And all rights and privileges as described above apply.

So write.

Tell your story. Who cares if it's not in iambic pentameter? So what if it's just about how much your mother-in-law is driving you mad? Nothing, literally nothing, is more important than opening your soul and sharing it to let the sun shine in. I know some say "It won't change things if I say it". And my response is, you have no idea how much your life can change by simply expressing what's in your heart. How could you if you've never done it?

And my final gift is a hand-me-down, but maybe the best one I've ever gotten. And this is for all the writers (i.e. everybody)

When my previously mentioned ex was still just the cute but strange girl in the cubicle next door, she once told me that she could tell that I believed that the screenplay I was working on was going to save my life. And, as much as I wanted to deny it, she was right. "THIS script will be the one that sells and brings me money, accolades, respect, success, love, and eternal happiness." All in that order.

And she pointed out that, because I was so fixated on the script, I was neglecting my life in the process. And, again, she was right - I was broke, overweight, and dying in a dead-end job at the time.

But, as the scripture says "The Word IS God".

In other words, you ARE The Story.

And the story is only a reflection of you.

So, before you put all of your energy into writing that screenplay, or that song, or getting that part, or that promotion, or that bonus, or that car, or that house, or that man, or that kiss, or that new pair of shoes.... before you devote your entire focus to all of these things outside of yourself, take care of yourself first.

Write your life.

Literally.

Write down what you want to happen in your life. If it's your dream date, write down how it all plays out perfectly. If it's the launch of your business, write down how easily and smoothly and beautifully and successfully it occurs. If it's selling your screenplay, write down and describe the moment when you get the call, what the check looks like when you're holding it in your hand.

If you're a member of the Writers Guild of America, fire up that copy of Final Draft and write a scene where YOU, the screenwriter, are the main character, and you are getting residual checks for iTunes downloads of your show that are phatter and richer than you ever dreamed possible.

(In fact, maybe the folks over at UnitedHollywood should put up a wiki or something where the WGA rank & file can log on and write down their positive strike resolution fantasies, i.e. the ones where you get a shitload of money & respect, not the ones where you draw & quarter Nick Counter, because, after all, it's not about him, it's about YOU, so stop giving him all of your power. He's like Freddie in the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Stop giving him the power to be your Bogeyman and he'll become irrelevant. Just a suggestion).

And when you've written these beautiful scenes, read them to yourselves as many times as you can. And feel good just imagining.

"Wouldn't it be nice if this were really happening exactly the way I wrote it?"

All of that good energy has got to go somewhere.

In short, this Christmas, practice some magic on yourselves.

After all, this is the season of miracles.

This is my gift to you all.

Now I can go to bed. :-)

Ho, ho, ho.

The Spirit of The Age

A few months back, one of my myspace friends brought to my attention a pair of online feature length films - "America: Freedom to Fascism" and "Zeitgeist".

Now, as some of you know, I've pulled back a lot from my "Dean for America" days, in terms of my political activism and such, but I'm a sucker for a good documentary and I always obey instructions from beautiful women (ladies, take note, but don't abuse! :-)), so I checked them out.

Now, "America: Freedom to Fascism" is, for the most part, a tax protest film. Again, for long time readers of my other blog, you all know that tax policy is a pet peeve of mine, and not the way that you might expect. Even as someone who's had my own run-ins with the IRS over the years (and thank God THAT'S finally cleared up), I firmly believe that paying fair taxes is, in principle, a fundamentally patriotic act. Citizenship is a privilege, blessing us with all of the things contained in the Bill of Rights and, for those of us fortunate enough to make it, the promise of prosperity in a free market economy. Of course, free markets only work if certain people don't succeed, so it is the responsiblity of those who do succeed, largely at the expense of others, to return a portion of that prosperity to promote, as they say, "the general welfare" - which largely includes things that are in the best interests of everyone in the society, but, more often than not, there's no profit to be gained by doing it so no private entity would ever try to make a business out of it. Things like public assistance, infrastructure maintenance, etc.

In short, America is a club, and your income taxes are your membership fees. And, the higher your club status is, the higher your fees.

And, let's be honest, compared to the rest of the industrialized world, our tax rates are extremely low.

Is the system perfect? Clearly not. There is tremendous inequity in the tax code right now, where labor & wages are taxed at a higher rate than accumulated wealth. And don't even get me started on corporate or farm subsidies. And government funds are perpetually misappropriated by lawmakers for pork barrel spending and the seemingly generational cycle of frivolous wars.

But, the fact of the matter is, all of those issues could be largely corrected by a more informed and engaged electorate who made their representatives act in a more responsible manner with their money.

So, the minute that film opens with a guy actively looking for the law that requires him to pay taxes... well, clearly he and I are coming from different perspectives.

(incidentally, the law he's looking for is The Internal Revenue Code of 1939).

Did I mention that the filmmaker in question, Aaron Russo, had about $2 million in tax liens he owed to the IRS, prior to making this movie?

"Me thinks he doth protest too much"

But I'll get back to Mr. Russo in a minute.

Point being, I kind of slammed that first film, and since I could never seem to find any information about what exactly the other film, "Zeitgeist", was about without actually watching the entire freakin' movie, I kind of let that one go.

Until about three weeks ago, when, as a result of a chance meeting during AFI FEST, I got to go to the closing night gala of the Artivist Film Festival - basically, a festival for films focusing on social & political activism. It was a rockin' good time (especially the reception afterwards, where I was deliberately trying to get a cute girl to give up her dirty secrets in front of her boyfriend during a game of "I Never" - like I said, I'm naughty sometimes. ) - but the big winner of the festival was, you guessed it, "Zeitgeist".

My new friend who helped organize the event said he'd gone to AFI FEST to avoid the protests outside of his own festival, especially since the director of Zeitgeist was allegedly getting death threats.

Curious.

Since they had some free copies, I got a DVD and finally camped out to watch it this weekend.

The 2nd & 3rd sections of Zeitgeist are kissing cousins to "America: Freedom to Fascism" - it's all about 9/11 conspiracy theories and how the Federal Reserve and the Income Tax Code are all a massive scam intended to extract wealth from the population at large to finance the construction of a one-world government that controls the population with implanted electronic trackers.

So, first a comment about 9/11 conspiracy theories: I remember when the whole thing first happened, and one of my friends immediately said that he thought the Federal government had something to do with it. And, at the time, I just rolled my eyes and said, "Come ON, man! Even if you think Bush is a bad president, do you really think he would actively allow the murder of THREE THOUSAND AMERICAN CITIZENS?!?!?"

That was 2001.

As of today, three thousand, eight hundred, and seventy-six American citizens have been killed in Iraq.

Needlessly.

I don't know the details of the physics and the arguments about airplanes and NORAD and missiles and controlled demolitions. Frankly, I don't care.

All I know is, the president has demonstrated that he is a man who will do just about anything that will advance his own agenda.

And a man who will do anything, by definition, is a man who cannot be trusted.

Section 3 of Zeitgeist is interesting, because, in one instance, they site someone who interviewed this guy Nicholas Rockefeller, who's supposed to be part of this international banking cabal, where he basically admits that, yes, we want to enslave the world. And, who was the interviewer? AARON RUSSO, the director of "America: Freedom to Fascism"!

Having said all of that, the idea that the US Treasury actually outsources the creation of our currency to a gi-normous private bank is, to put it mildly, unsettling.

But, the section of Zeitgeist that was far and away more interesting to me was the first, which compares the gospels about Jesus' life to other mythological saviors in other, earlier cultures around the world, all of which seem to draw their essential features from various elements, symbols, and positions in astrology.

Of course, he ends by saying that Jesus is, in fact, yet another hoax constructed by the church and the powers that be to control the masses.

I'm reminded of a time, years ago, when my brother and many of my cousins had a real mad-on about the Book of Revelations and the Anti-Christ and the end of days. It seemed like every time I came home, there was new evidence that some new person was really the Anti-Christ. One time, it was The Pope. Another time, it was Prince Charles. Before that, I think it was Ronald Reagan.

Until, I finally asked my brother, let's pretend that someone could give you irrefutable proof that a given person was the Anti-Christ, and you had an exact date and time for The Rapture. Assuming that you know all of this.

How would your life be different?

You're expending all of this energy trying to uncover this hidden knowledge (or, more specifically, to uncover substantive proof to verify something that you're already convinced is true). How would obtaining this proof change your life?

He didn't have an answer.

And it occurred to me that, for conspiracy theorists, the proof isn't for them. It's for everybody else. They already know the answer, but no one else believes them. So they're trying to find the proof that will make everyone else say "OMG! You were right all along! How could I have been so blind, when you saw it all so clearly?!?!"

In short, they're evangelists.

And, like so many evangelists, they're own faith is completely dependent upon everyone else believing what they believe. Because, of course, they're right.

But, in the end, it's an empty pursuit.

Whether Jesus was an actual, flesh & blood historical figure or not (and, in the end, does it really matter? Just like those brothers who are trying to argue that Jesus had to be of African descent because Revelations 1:16 said he had "feet like unto fine brass".... while ignoring the rest of the description in verses that said he had "eyes as a flame of fire" and "His voice as the sound of many waters And He had in His right hand seven stars: and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword" - sometimes, I wonder how much religious intolerance and argument could be eliminated if we just made a class called "Reading and Interpreting Poetry" a graduation requirement in every school in America so people can recognize a fucking figure of speech when they see it? But I digress....)

Whether he was historical or not, one of my favorite quotes from Jesus is (and I'm seriously paraphrasing) "The Word is intended for those who can hear it. And those who cannot, it was never intended for them in the first place".

So many of us spend so much time trying to convince everyone else that we're right. We advocate and plead and build flowcharts and make 2 hour movies that we give away for free on the internet or blow an entire day writing incredibly elaborate blog postings on the desperate hope that someone, ANYONE, will listen to us and believe.

Imagine what our lives would be like if we redirected all of that effort back into ourselves. How much more powerful we could be. How transformed we would be. How inspirational our very presence would be.

Our very lives could say more, and move more people, than any film ever could.

I told my brother, as far as you're concerned, irrespective of the signs, for you, the end times are the day you die. So, rather than expending all of this energy, like Prince said:

Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby!

And, at that point, when you REALLY know who you are, and what you're capable of, who gives a fuck about the fucking Illuminati or the Tax Code or Building 7?

And that's what I love about the very end of Zeitgeist - because, in the midst of all of this awful evidence, the filmmaker offers a moment of inspiration, to recognize our true selves, our true divinity, with a quote from Carl Sagan where he says that the concepts of division are fading away to a sense of a universal whole, and that a single organism at war with itself cannot survive.

I think the Zeitgeist guy is on to something bigger than even he may realize. And when he understands that, when he speaks to the Nicholas Rockefellers of the world, at that very instant, Rockefeller is listening to God, at the same time that the Zeitgeist guy is speaking to God....

...when he understands THAT fact...

Well, let's just say, I want to see THAT movie.

And, when I get to the point where I look at George W. Bush giving a speech, and I know that, in that instant, God is watching God talking to God....

Let's just say, I'll have a different kind of blog post to make that day. :-)

p.s. Thanks, songstress.

The Road to Hell

So, as the child of a fairly religious Protestant Christian household, I get alot of prayers & prayer requests in my e-mail. The prayer requests will always get a moment of quiet blessing from me. But I almost always ignore and/or delete the praise chain letters.

You know, the ones that scream "If you REALLY loved Jesus, you'd forward me to every person you know a thousand times over, you jack-legged backslider!!!!"

A friend once asked me why is God so quiet when all of the bad things in the world seem to be screaming on my news and in the world all of the time.

And I told her that the bad things scream because God is a given.

God doesn't need to shout.

God is.

I had a dream once where I was writing math & physics equations on a blackboard in a classroom (yeah, I know, despite the curly locks and designer clothes, I'll always be an engineer at heart), and the equations were all about proving the theories of quantum computing.

For the non-scientific among you, here's a quick primer:
Everything you see on your regular computer is the result of the combination of millions upon millions of tiny bits of information stored in it's memory as either the number zero or the number one. Those 0's and 1's are there because the basic transistors that form the computer's memory register either the presence or the absence of a single electron.

Well, electrons are everywhere. The transistor itself contains trillions of electrons. You and I are both composed of trillions upon trillions of electrons (among other tiny things). As is the steering wheel of your car or that slice of bacon you had for breakfast this morning.

So, if these tiny, clunky transistors inside of your Dell or your MacBook are capable of all of these amazing things, simply by processing a few million electrons, what would you call something that could process all of the electrons in the universe?

You, me, this computer monitor you're looking at, the chair you're sitting in, the shoes you're wearing - we are all part of a vast and unfathomable intelligence that is constantly.... thinking? Comprehending?

Or maybe just being.

It just is.

And that, my friends, is God.

God is.

Or, as He told Moses, "I am".

That is all.

Which means everytime you grab a doorknob, you're grabbing God.
Everytime you hear a leaf blower outside your window, you're hearing God.
Everytime you have dinner, you're tasting God.
Everytime you splash on cologne, you're smelling God.
Everytime you make love, you're touching God.

Everytime you look in the mirror, you're seeing God.

And everytime you look someone else in the eye, God is seeing you.

God is.

So, if God just..... is, doesn't it stand to reason that you can NEVER, EVER be separated from God?

And, if that is also the case, doesn't it also mean that sin, the state of separation from God, simply does not exist?

Sin is an illusion.

Or, more appropriately, a delusion.

Because, you see, from the moment we're born, we feel separate. When your very first conscious experience is that of being violently thrust out of your mother's womb into a cold, blinding world, every single thought you've ever had since then has been shaped by that moment.

Being expelled. Then cut off. Literally.

And hence, we have "original sin".

James O. Barr wrote in "The Crow" that "Mother" is the name for "God" in the lips of every child.

But, oddly enough, once you understand the physics behind the metaphysics, it's obvious that there simply is no such thing as "sin" as we Christians tend to think of it.

God just is. And, if God is, than everything that is, is God.

You are God.

You cannot be separate from yourself.
You cannot be separate from God. God's presence is perpetual. His embrace is eternal and reaches you no matter where you go or who you are or what you do.

That's love. True love.
And it's unconditional.

So, if God's love is unconditional, then, logically speaking, there's nothing you can do that will stop God from loving you.

God loves Hitler.

God loves Bin Laden.

God loves your abuser.

God loves your rapist.

God loves the person who murdered your child.

One of the books rejected by the Council of Nicea for inclusion in what we now know as the Holy Bible was the Gospel of Mary of Magdela. And, in the tiny bit of it that was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, it gives a fascinating account of Jesus, when he visits his disciplines (one of whom is, apparently, Mary) after his resurrection. And in it, point blank, Jesus says "There Is No Sin, but it is YOU who make sin".

It's a state of mind.

In the URL of the title above, you'll find a link to NPR's weekly profile show, "The American Life". And, in an episode entitled "Heretics", they talk about Rev. Carlton Pearson, a prominent and successful pastor and former rising star in the evangelical Christian community who suddenly had an epiphany, based in, of all things, logic.

If God's love is unconditional, than there cannot be a Hell, and, therefore, everyone is already saved.

But, apparently, many Christians seem to need Hell. It helps them sleep at night to know that, even if the law of man never catches up with a Hitler or a Bin Laden or a rapist or a murderer, that the justice of God will ultimately catch up with them. I've lost count of how many Christians I've heard say that, if there was no Hell, everyone would be free to do whatever they want, and there would be untold atrocities committed in their wake.

As if untold atrocities don't already occur every single second of every day in every city on earth. And, honestly, I'm always forced to wonder, just what kind of atrocities do these "Christians" really wish they could do if they ever thought for a second that God the Punisher wasn't looking?

Instead of trying to keep up appearances for God's ever vigilant eye, shouldn't these very same Christians be working on their own hearts & minds, seeking a path to truly lift the darkness from their souls, rather than simply papering over holes in their morality with a nice Sunday suit and a Bible in an embroidered cover?

It seems to me that the centerpiece of faith for SO many believers out there is fear.

We always hear about "God Fearing Men", as if that were something to aspire to. That I'm somehow more virtuous because I don't knock over liquor stores or kick old ladies down stairs for fear of retribution from a giant, cosmic avenger.

In that universe of faith, the Old Testament God that people seem to cling to so dearly, in comparison to the Devil, sounds like the very definition of "the lesser of two evils". We hold onto that deity like the abused child clings to the cuff of a drunken man in a white tank-top.

So people sing hymns and say praises loud enough for a fickle, vain God to hear on the off chance that he'll find favor with us, his poor, unworthy subjects. It sounds like that episode in the Twilight Zone, where the boy who could do anything wished away the whole world, except for his parents and the people in the town around him, so they could sit at his feet and watch videos of dinosaur fights all day.

No wonder so many people endure indignity and suffering, ignoring, as Howard Dean says, their own political self interest and voting for the self-proclaimed Party of God. If they don't, in their minds, they just might end up in Hell, and they'd better not leave any stone unturned.

Delusion.

And Fear.

A theology based in those things can only be one of subjugation, not salvation. And it serves no one but the person who preaches it, as if he or she were the only person who could speak definitively on God's behalf.

I choose to love God. Not fear Him.

And, by loving God, I love myself, and every single other person I ever meet. And vice versa.

Carlton Pearson was branded a heretic and, for all intents and purposes, excommunicated from his church.

I suppose, given everything I've had to say here today, some might think of me as a heretic as well.

Personally, I just think my eyes are open.

Words Made Flesh

The link in the title above is an interview at Salon.com - but more about that in a minute.

About a year ago, my agent asked me to put together a bio of myself that he could include with my written materials whenever he sent it around to any prospective producers, executives, etc. Realizing that this bio was yet another opportunity to show off my acrobatic skills with the English language, I really relished the opportunity to have a little fun at my own expense, with phrases like:

"Realizing that slavery was still technically illegal in the United States, He left the technology industry and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his life-long dream of filmmaking."

After all, this was being distributed to illustrate that I am, in fact, an artist. Attitude plus information was the name of the game.

The last line in my bio reads:

"He considers himself a Christian, so he’s learning not to look down on religious fundamentalists."

The two books I have the earliest memories of as a child are a picture book about the life of Abraham Lincoln, and a Children's Bible. It had all the Cecil B. DeMille-ready sections of the Old Testament, plus the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, & the Last Supper. I always wondered why my huge, white Children's Bible, with the big letters and colorful pictures, had so many fewer chapters than the regular Bible Mom & Dad had. It was missing the gory details of the Crucifixtion, the Acts of the Apostles, all of Paul's letters, and the Book of Revelations.

I recall, several years ago, Louis Farrakhan made a highly publicized stop-over here in the City of Angels, giving a sermon in, of all places, the Staples Center. I caught a small portion of what he had to say on TV, and this part always stuck with me.

Farrakhan spoke of both the kinship and the distinctions between the various religions sired by Abraham. As the literal meaning of the term "Islam" implies, Muslims such as himself are called to submit to the will of God. Jews, on the other hand, are the chosen people of God, and, as such, have both specific rights and priviledges as God's favorites. However, in Farrakhan's mind, Christians have, in many ways, the most difficult calling, because their faith calls them to strive to actually be LIKE Christ, who was, according to our faith, God incarnate as a man.

I spent virtually all of my formative years as an active participant in our local church, to which, I will give all the credit to my mother. Mom sang on the choir, she taught Sunday School, she served on the various administrative boards, etc. So, it should surprise no one that I sang on the Children's choir, regularly attended ALL Sunday School functions, served as both a junior usher and an acolyte (the Protestant equivalent of an altar boy, for my Catholic friends out there).

At his funeral this past Christmas, I learned that my mother's father commuted the 2 hour drive every Sunday from Baltimore City to his traditional family church on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay in rural Dorchester County to attend morning service, and personally took it upon himself to raise the money necessary to keep the church open long after it's membership had shrunk below the size that could actually support it. "They can't close it as long as I'm alive", he was heard to say.

The church runs very deep in my family.

And, as a child, I devoured all of these concepts of personal ethics. I took the Golden Rule so deeply to heart, once, at summer camp, I insisted that another kid punch me in the stomach to make amends after I'd accidentally winged him in the temple with the zipper of my jacket.

I have an ex who is an ordained AME minister. She once called me "a good little Methodist" - something President Bush & I have in common, at least, in terms of denominational affiliations. She elaborated that, in her mind, Methodists are distinctive from other Christians from their devotion to their concept of grace. And she defined grace in this way: If mercy is giving someone something that they don't deserve, then grace is NOT giving someone EXACTLY what they deserve.

But, ever since I left home to go to college, I've never really had a regular church that I could call my own.

Part of that is laziness. I mean, do I REALLY need to get up at 9AM to put on a three piece suit on a Sunday morning to ensure my eternal salvation? Is God, the Creator of All Things, the Alpha and the Omega, REALLY as petty as my 6th grade homeroom teacher?

But the other part of it is recognition. Having spent a lifetime in the church, I know all the tricks and cliches. I can recite the Nicean Creed, The Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, all by heart. Most of the metaphors and figures of speech most pastors use in their sermons are so rote, so repetitious, so mechanical, so stinking artificial, I can smell them a mile away before they even read it off of their prepared texts.

Back when I was dating my clergy ex-girlfriend, we went to alot of churches here in L.A., and, I've got to say, there are alot of guys in alot of pulpits around here (and in all the other towns I've lived in) who are tremendous entertainers.

But having a great singing voice and being able to tell a handful of Jesus-centric jokes is NOT the same thing as speaking The Word.

One of my favorite Bible verses is Verse 1, Chapter 1 in the Gospel According to John:

"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word WAS God."

We all know The Word when we hear it. Sometimes, it's coming through the voice in the pulpit, like my good friend down in Annapolis. Sometimes, it's on a silver screen, in the most unlikely of films. Or a song. Or a book. Or the mutterings of a homeless man on the Santa Monica pier. Or something whispered in an ear by a loved one.

The point is, once I heard The Word, and experienced it, I had absolutely no interest in wasting fours of my Sunday morning sweating in a three piece suit listening to some dude PRETENDING to speak it.

I once told my Mom that there are three kinds of clergy:

1. those who are actually "called"
2. those who want to be rock stars
3. and those are desperately trying to fix the colossal messes in their lives by getting as close to God as possible

And, while I find that the first tend to be very few and far between, ultimately, they're not the point.

The clergy aren't the point. And neither is the church.

I once floated the idea among people on my old e-mail list about selling all those old church cathedrals and just having prayer/Bible study in our living rooms, and people literally looked at me like I'd grown an extra head.

(or, dare I say, a third eye?)

I honestly stopped looking for a church home because, in the end, I decided I didn't need it. Yes, it's great to have a common place & companions for worship, but, ultimately, I thought the whole point of the Protestant reformation was that you didn't need another person in order to commune with the divine.

If sin is a state of separation from God, and God is in all things, including ourselves, then isn't the notion of an intermediary between yourself and God the very definition of sin?

I've been reading "No God But God: the Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam" by Reza Aslan, and he makes the point about how, so often, in many different religions, including both Islam AND Christianity, the churches and institutions that are created by the followers of prophets are very often the antithesis of everything that the prophets themselves actually represented.

In many cases, I think we imprison ourselves in the forms and rituals and institutions we've constructed around The Word, so much so that we begin to think that the church IS The Word.

But it's not.

The Word is spoken every single day. But it's not shouted from a rooftop or screamed through a megaphone.

The voice that speaks The Word is small.

And still.

And sometimes, that's all I need to be to hear it.

Which brings me to this article in Salon, from a former nun who's now written a book that looks at the so-called "Axial Age" - a period in history when the foundations over virtually ALL the world's religions were founded. And, oddly enough, all these different religious traditions, from Aristotle to Confucius to Buddha to Zoroaster and his philosophical decendents, Jesus and Mohammed, all seem to be saying the same thing.

The Word can be written in many different alphabets & syllables. But the sound is still the same.

Check out her article - it's long, but WELL worth the read.

I, for one, have added her book to my Amazon wish list.

Review: The Passion of the Christ

I saw Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" about a month ago. I started writing this post the day after and, well, as you can imagine, it started to get a little out of control.

So, let me take a step back.

Mel Gibson's father Hutton is a complete loon. The man has gone on record denying the existence of the Holocaust, and Mel refuses to rebuke him. Gibson himself belongs to a branch of Catholicism that rejects the reforms of the second Vatican council, one of which is the Holy See's official statement refuting the idea that Jews should be held accountable for Jesus's death. By his own account, he is not a good person.

Media accounts of the near-Fangoria level of violence in The Passion really made me reluctant to see it, let alone pay $14 at the Arclight for the privilege. I saw pictures of devote churchgoers, who probably won't see another movie from godless Hollywood all year round, walking out of theatres in tears. I worried with my friends that many of these folks aren't particularly media-saavy and will have a hard time keeping in mind that this is simply a movie, a distinctly interpreted exercise told through the prism of Mel Gibson's mind, and not a documentary about Christ's final moments.

A very large and vocal part of me did not want to see this movie. In fact, a large part of me even resented the existence of this movie. But I felt like I had to see it. I can't NOT talk about it, and I can't talk about it without seeing it.

Of course, it helped that I had a friend with free passes to the Magic Johnson Theatre at Crenshaw Plaza.

My initial reaction?

That was a great movie.



Surprised?

I am a Christian. Born and raised as a Protestant - United Methodist to be exact. I consider myself pretty faithful. I pray daily. I try to read the Bible daily. I tithe. On the other hand, I haven't regularly attended church since high school. I like to say that I haven't found a church that moves me yet. The ones that I have seen, either back at Princeton, or in my old home in Montclair, New Jersey, or, most recently, here in Los Angeles, always seem so contrived. After spending all of my formative years at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church back in Baltimore, I've probably heard just about every cliche` and overused Christian phrase on the planet. I can instantly tell when a minister is simply going through the motions and when he's actually speaking "The Word".

For those of you who may not be completely up on the Bible, one of the most interesting scriptures to me is the Gospel according to John, Chapter 1, Verse 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

What's interesting to me is that, way back in the book of Genesis, the first thing God does is speak. And God's speech, the formulation of words, is the original creative act. Everything in existence, everything that IS, spawns from that Word.

Christian theology goes on to tell us that Jesus is, in fact, The Word, made into flesh. The power of God, squeezed into the form of a prehistoric Bob Villa.

I'm a writer. I've written my entire life, in one form or another. But I think I've only recently become truly aware of the power of writing, and of words. Stephen King once said that writing is a form of telepathy - a vehicle by which the author can insert their own thoughts into the heads of others. In Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son, Lex Luthor is able to defeat a Stalinist Man of Steel with a simple phrase, written on a slip of paper, that drives him to the brink of suicide. I wrote a poem to my ex-girlfriend that, when I recite it, even brings other women to tears. The right word from the right person can take you past Heaven.

There's a scene in "The Passion", where Pontius Pilate questions Jesus to determine his guilt, and Jesus tells him "whenever you hear Truth spoken, you hear my voice".

The point is, I know the Word when I hear it. Sometimes it's from the voice in the pulpit of my family's church. Other times, it's the casual comment of a total stranger. It's a song on Hot 92.3. It's the rhyme from a poet in a dank coffee shop. It's the affections breathed into my ear with a kiss at midnight.

Of course, that's the trick with the Word. It can come from anywhere, at any given time. As I struggled over the seemingly decadent lives of so many clergy, a very good friend who happens to be an AME minister told me that being called to preach in no way means that you're a good person.

I'm saying all this to say that, yes, Mel Gibson is an extremely imperfect messenger, but this movie forced me to confront issues with my own faith that I've been dodging for years.

Case in point: I've always tried to conceptualize God and Jesus in almost mathematical terms. For instance, if sin, theologically speaking, is the state of being separated from God, it's impossible for God to understand, and, therefore, absolve sin, without God somehow separating from himself. Which is, essentially, what Jesus is. He's a sliver of God. A slice. A portion of the whole.

But, to me, that's always meant that Jesus was not an ordinary man as we think of it. After all, he can see the future, heal the sick with a touch, walk on water, feed thousands with just a loaf of bread and a pair of fish, turn water into wine, tell demons to hit the bricks, and raise the dead, including himself.

Superman has nothing on this guy.

So, when people talk about how painful and costly the crucifixion is, and they're all so impressed with the sacrifice Jesus made, I always felt like they missed the point. To me, Jesus was not an ordinary man and his entire reason for being here was to die. It wasn't some great sacrifice. It was his mission. And, since he knows the future, he knows he'll succeed. Where's the drama and sacrifice in that?

Ironically enough, my daily Bible reading took me through the Easter story in the week before I saw The Passion, so the story elements were fresh in my mind. I'd forgotten that, according to the Bible, Jesus pleaded so hard with God to find another way, ANY other way, to complete his mission that he sweat blood. I'd forgotten that, as he hung on the cross, Jesus found a moment of abject dispair where he literally screams to the Heavens why has God forsaken him.

These two things helped to highlight for me what is the essential paradox about Jesus - he is the Word Made Flesh, but he still acts like a man. Because that's what he is.

Which changes a great many things. When Jesus does all of his miracles, and then says to his disciples that they can do these things, too, if they only had faith, it makes you wonder about the nature of faith.

I have a very good friend who speaks constantly on manifestation and energy and tapping into the intelligent source of creation. She'd sooner shoot herself than ever actually use the word "God" (which, needless to say, gives me pause), but she is also completely confident in her world view. There isn't a single doubt in her mind.

I really, really hate people who don't have doubts. I want to attack them, to know what gives them the nerve to actually think that they've got it all figured out. But, I've forced myself to realize that my problem isn't with them for their arrogance. It's with myself, because I'm riddled with doubt. I always have another question. I can always conceive of the alternative. In many ways, I think that much of the really harsh criticism of this film from the left, from people like Christopher Higgins, starts in this same place - an utter disdain for the faithful. Mel's issues only make it easier.

But I also realize that you can't really acquire faith. Just like when Morpheus says that no one can ever actually be TOLD what the Matrix is. You have to use building blocks. Use the fact that I have faith that I'll wake up tomorrow morning in my right mind and with all my fingers and toes as a way to expand my faith to bigger things.

The Passion also made me re-examine the nature of sin. As I've said before, sin is that which separates you from the divine. So, in many ways, we define our own Hell. We all have our own interpretations of what it means to be God-like, and we all have a sense on how close we, individually, meet our own standards. I've always taken the fire images of Hell to be metaphors for the state of constant longing, when you know that you must spend all eternity outside of God's presence.

The Passion paints a different picture of sin, as illustrated through it's depiction of the final fate of Judas Iscariot. As Judas agonizes over his betrayal of Jesus, a pair of kids start to taunt him for being a crazy man. But their taunts become more violent, to the point that they actually snap and bite at him. Their faces contort into grotesque monstrous images. In the end, they form a horde, like a pack of wolves, that drive Judas from the city and into a hangman's noose of his own making. It's as if they were conjured by his own spiritual torment.

I'm reminded of a passage in Genesis, where God tries to warn Cain, as he senses his growing anger and jealousy towards Abel, that, if he does wrong, "Sin crouches at his door, seeking to consume you." Somewhere else in the Bible, Satan is likened to a lion, stalking the Earth, in search of souls to devour. Which must have been what Dante had in mind in his image of the final circle of Hell in the Divide Comedy - Judas, trapped in Satan's mouth, chewed on like Prometheus, but never dying, for all eternity.

It's an interesting contrast to what we see of Jesus in the movie, on his arduous journey to Golgotha, where the crowds and the Roman soldiers continue to whip and kick and beat him, even after he's been lashed to within an inch of his life and forced to carry a giant log up and down city streets. In the very beginning of the film, Satan warns Jesus that no one man can bear the sins of the entire world. if the demon children are a representation of the sins of one man, it gives new meaning to the enormity of the task that is set before the Messiah.

Now, for those of you who aren't Christian or interested in theology, who've managed to stick around all the way down through my missives about this film and my religious faith, my hats' off to you. I'm simply saying all these things to illustrate one point. As a Christian, particularly as a media-savvy, jaded, non-church-going, somewhat secular Christian, this movie had a tremendous amount of meaning for me, and, for that, I'm grateful to Mel for making it. And, as a filmmaker, I applaud the absolute artistry that went into its construction. Since it seems to be on track to be one of the highest grossing films of all time, I'm curious to see if it gets remembered next year at Oscar time.

But, just like I believe that this is a film made by Christians and intended largely for Christians, I don't know that I can adequately gauge how offensive it is to Jews. Personally, I don't think it's particularly anti-Semetic. Yes, some of the main villains are the Jewish high priests, but I didn't get the sense that the film was saying that they were bad because they were Jews and, therefore, all Jews are bad. After all, aren't Jesus and all of his supporters Jewish? Moreover, a point could be made that the film illustrates what the Jewish high priests may have felt was a legitimate greviance with Jesus. After all, they're living under an occupation, and some dude who seems to have his own cult appears out of nowhere, claiming to be God incarnate, and that he's mad at his own priests so he's going to destroy their temple and make himself king of the Jews. Blasphemy & insurrection, all wrapped into one package. It would almost be like what you'd expect most pastors to do if some guy showed up today and claimed to be the second coming. Conservative Christians would be calling for his head on a platter.

On the other hand, I can see how it would be uncomfortable at best for Jews to see guys wearing their religious regalia and acting like Snidley Whiplash. In fact, I have a friend who felt that the depiction of Judas' demon childen tormentors was also an anti-Semetic statement because, presumably, the children were Jews. Or the fact that Satan is seen lurking among the high priests during the scouring.

At the end of the day, I don't think it's anymore helpful for Christians to tell Jews that the movie isn't anti-Semetic than it is for White people to tell Blacks that a movie like "Traffic" isn't racist when it shows Erika Christiansen being used as a sex slave for a Black drug dealer. The issue isn't intent, but, rather, how much these things play into and, perhaps, legitimize existing stereotypes. Ultimately, no one can tell anyone else what they can or cannot be offended by. Whether you intended to offend is irrelevant if offense is actually taken. If Jews say they find the movie offensive, it is, by definition, offensive to Jews. The issue, therefore, creates what one of my friends in academia calls "a teaching moment".

Until this movie came out, I had no appreciation for just how Christian our culture is from the perspective of non-Christians. That, in and of itself, makes its existence worthwhile.
Moreover, now that I have some perspective on it, I can see just how much the fact that I am a Christian colors my profound reaction to that movie. Conversely, I'm now aware how much, if you were not raised in a Christian tradition, that "The Passion" probably appears gratuitously violent and exploitative. In many ways, if you don't know the basics of the Gospels, the movie may not even make any sense.

But these conversations, both with the larger community and within myself, wouldn't even exist if the film did not exist. And for that, despite all the egregious faults of the messenger, I am deeply appreciative of the message.

P.S. - but I'm still angry that, after all the trouble to make it authentic by using Latin and Arameic, they STILL couldn't get a brown-skinned Jesus. "Historically accurate", my ass. I guarantee you Jim Caviezel does NOT have hair like wool or feet of brass. Ya dig?


p.p.s. - and when is somebody going to do a Mary Magdelene movie? This book, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala REALLY has me intrigued.


Apparently there's a forgotten, non-Canonical gospel (one of the Dead Sea Scrolls? not sure) written by Mary herself, where she is actually one of Jesus' apostles and one to whom he revealed some secret knowledge. Needless to say, this didn't make Peter and the boys happy. Was there a bit of Hater-Ade served at the Last Supper?
I must admit, despite my good Christian upbringing, Gnosticism fascinates me. Like looking at the deleted scenes on a DVD.