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.