Tree of Life

  "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see." - Winston Churchill

     Movies don't have to be designed to entertain, and that's what makes Tree of Life stand out. It's simply not entertaining; and it's incredible. Watch Captain America and then watch Tree of Life like I did, and you'll get the two opposite ends of the spectrum in modern filmmaking.

     Captain America was a WWII (I think) super hero movie with a science-fictional American Flag flying out front and some incredible special effects as bunting on the front porch. But it was fun. A Jewish professor makes a super-human patriot to fight a creepy red-faced guy with weapons fit for Star Trek. The hero sort-of dies, ending up in present day face to face with Mace Windu wearing an eye-patch. It made little sense to me, but the plot was predictable, the dialogue was as rich as a potato chip, the good guy got the girl, and wonderfully digital explosions were as frequent as prairie dogs in Nebraska. 

     This is what audiences want. Something that looks awesome and has enough feel-good quality to keep them in their seat for an hour and a half. Movies have much more potential. Film is a sorely unexplored medium in today's theological public sphere. Sure there may always be a subliminal (or liminal) agenda of some sort in all movies, but when personal interpretations can't skirt or avoid certain intentions of the writer or director themselves, there is a new level of idea sharing that takes place on a massive cultural scale. 

     Tree of Life is a movie that asks questions. It's a movie that leaves questions unanswered, but has closure and even a sprinkling of redemption. The film is an artistic presentation of the struggle between the way of nature and the way of grace. Jack, a man who'd name is mentioned only in passing, is a aging businessman in the present day, swimming through the fog of memory, resentment toward God, and questions left unanswered. Though he never directly speaks, and if he does, it is strangely inconsequential and intentionally muted, we feel the sterility of his soul through the dull frostiness of his home, office, and the wasteland of his thoughts. At the beginning of the film, we learn that Jack's brother, who remains unnamed, died at age 19. Jack is seen to light a small memorial candle in a small blue bowl before he leaves his home for his job in the city. Though not immediately apparent, I think that the two paths through life are represented artistically through the use of color. The darker, warm colors are often paired with the severity and selfishness of nature, while softer, cool colors are paired with grace. The candle in the blue container speaks to the proposition that the way of nature and the way of grace may not be mutually exclusive. 

     As Jack journeys through his memories of innocence, childhood, and adolescence, we see the representation of color as idea often presented through the environments, the light, and even the clothing in the story. Jack's childhood is torn between his fear of their father and the gentleness of his mother. At an early age, Jack is divided between hate, grief, and a desire to do good. Jack, as a boy, is emotionally tormented, and he struggles to find balance, but his questions to God remain unanswered. Jack's clothing continues to vary between warm and cool colors, while his parents' attires generally remain indicative of their initial paths in life. A stunning use of jump cuts and minimal dialogue paired with vivid composition and lighting ads to the juxtaposition of worldview. 

     Amid his recollections of his childhood, the adult Jack's mind flies to the beginning of time. In arguably the most incredible half hour of cosmic film since the IMAX Hubble Telescope movie, Jack attempts to find meaning in the creation of the universe. Apparently most of this sequence was created by pouring milk through funnels and troughs, filming it at an extremely fast frame-rate. Never before has spilt milk been so epic. Complex pairing of color in the cosmic expanses gives way to an injured dinosaur, lying on the pebbles of a green stream bed. In the first act of earthly grace, a predator dinosaur spares the life of the injured one. This is quite a testament to the innate quality of grace. The movie implies that the world was not created to run under the way of nature. The earth was created by grace and for grace, but the flame of sin kindled the selfish, self-consuming way of nature. 

     As a young teenager, Jack is given a chance to easily kill his father, but spares him. Gradually, Jack's father realizes his mistakes in his life and in his family and he begins to abandon the selfish way of nature.

     As an adult, we can still see Jack's tormented and whitewashed soul. The warm and cool colors of life have faded into the steel and glass of the company elevator. Jack returns to his thoughts, and is guided to the end of time where the earth remains a barren wasteland after the death of the sun. On a sandbar, Jack is given a vision of eternity. People from his childhood are walking through the sand on the beach, reminiscent of C.S. Lewis's "further up, and further in" of the Narnian paradise. Jack meets his both of his brothers, still presented in their childhood age. In a previous scene, Jack as an adult is seen with Jack as a child in a desert alcove. Perhaps Jack as an adult has parted ways with the Jack of his childhood. Perhaps the adult Jack has given up the way of nature and embraced the way of grace along with his mother, his changed father, and his young brothers.

     As jack leaves his office building, he looks around and smiles.

     The film ends with a wavering orange flame. Perhaps a stinging reminder of the fallen world we live in. 

Simplicity

"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit, and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?" - Albert Einstein

     Einstein couldn't exactly be called the master of simplicity. A few sentences of General Relativity is enough to give you a migraine for a week. But it is an innate quality of the human psyche to desire order and clarity, even though the fallen state of matter tends toward chaos. Maybe this an aspect of the eternal tug-of-war between light and darkness; between good and evil. I think the notion of simplicity resides on a number of psychological and spiritual planes. Perhaps it lives in the single beam of light shining through a crack in a dusty barn, or the minimalist composition of a tree on a winter horizon. It can exist in a deep sigh or in the closing of the eyes. It can exist in a day of hard, fulfilling work and in the trill of a piccolo in a symphony. Perhaps it lives only in memories, or in the pages of a book. It can reside in the wind, rolling through the hills, and the whinny of a horse in the early morning. But what is chaos? Chaos can be seen in the crawl of congested traffic or in the adrenaline-affected thoughts of a terrorist. Most obviously, it's the state of my room's floor right now, or a day of nonstop, unfulfilling activity. 

     Lay the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle into their box and then shake the box. The puzzle will not put itself together. The same is true of Legos. Shaking a box of Legos in hope that they will build an airplane is an obvious waste of time. It takes a conscious and motivated mind to create order and wholeness from chaos. The chaotic state of the world is the unfortunate reality of sin. A world largely without holiness is a world without order; a world largely devoid of simplicity. 

    Simplicity is not just a fact of certain events or instances. It is not limited to austerity or to rest. Simplicity is an outlook. In a world full of nonsensical numbers and the endless pursuit of meaning, Einstein found simplicity in a bowl of fruit and a violin. We have the ability to consciously observe and appreciate things in their simplest forms. Maybe it's the steam off of a cup of tea, the laugh of a child, or the satisfaction in a completed task. We should endeavor, not to deny reality or over-simplify to black and white, but to recognize the beauty of the simple things in life.

Oranges and Elephants

"Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action." - William Shakespeare     

     No word in the English dictionary rhymes with "orange." "Orange," therefore, is a special word. On a half-intensional quest for interestingness, I did a little etymological search on the word "orange" in the Oxford English Dictionary. If the OED were an ordinary, bound dictionary, its thickness might rival the height of the Empire State Building. Fortunately for me, the online school where I take a couple of my classes has a privileged access to the online dictionary database. Convert a book the size of the Empire State Building into bandwidth, and you suddenly realize why everyone else on the cafe wifi just lost internet access.

     But I digress. Suffice to say that "orange" had quite the etymological history, much to my satisfaction. The word comes from the original Sanskrit phrase, "naga ranga." The phrase literally means "fatal indigestion for elephants." The origins go way back to the Biblical story of the Fall. The Malaysian peoples of ancient times had created a story based on Genesis, but with an elephantine twist of their own. Allegedly, it was the elephant, not the human, that stumbled upon a beautiful, fruit-laden tree in this Malay story. Tempted by the fruit on what happened to be an orange tree, the elephant committed the first sin of gluttony and ate them all. Then, on the spot, the overindulged elephant exploded. Dozens of years later, a man stumbled upon the fossilized remains of the exploded elephant, and found many orange trees growing in what had been the elephant's stomach. "Naga ranga!" the man cried. "What fatal indigestion for elephants!" The phrase was eventually translated into English as "orange" via Persian, Arabic, regional Italian, Portuguese, Middle French, and Anglo Norman.

     For one of only a few English words without rhymes, "Orange's" etymology is certainly one-of-a-kind as well. Also one-of-a-kind, is my appreciation for crazy stuff like this. I was going to draw a picture of an exploding elephant to complement this post, but I thought better of it. You're welcome.

Thanks to the OED and westegg.com/etymology

On the Brink

"I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has all ready taken place" -Winston Churchill

     Every generation since the first century CE has entertained the thought that they were the last. Every generation, and specifically those of the Jewish and Christian faiths have prepared themselves for the possibility that they would live to see the realization of the abstract concept we call the end of the world. Granted, I haven't lived for very long, and I don't have much to compare the past few years to, but I am highly skeptical that I am the last generation. I could be totally wrong, but I suspect that things will get a whole lot worse before there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

     However, this past week, the world experienced yet another birth pain that will lay the foundation for the prophesy of Revelation 13:16-17. The verses say, "Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name." On September 19, Google released what they are calling "the next big shift" in payment. Google Wallet is a mobile device application that uses near field communication to allow you to pay for almost everything by only tapping a button on your device screen. It's scary. "In the past few thousand years," says the website, "the way we pay has changed just three times--from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards. Now we're on the brink of the next big shift." 

     I'm not saying that I think Google is going to turn evil, but I think that the world has just seen the baby steps of a changing way of commerce; one that has the potential to fulfill the prophesy of Revelation 13. "This is just the beginning..." says the website. What happens when it becomes normal for electronic devices to be implanted in your head or wrist?

     Coincidentally, Google made this announcement the week before Yom Teruah, the Hebraic feast that looks forward to the return of the Messiah. In English, it is called the Feast of Trumpets, and it is the first of the three Hebrew fall feasts that commemorate future events. We may not be the last generation, but we are certainly close, and we have the chance to prepare each year for the coming days of trial and joy.

     And the ironic part is that I'm writing this post on a Google hosted blog platform...

Chickens

"Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral." - Frank Lloyd Wright

    It started as a science experiment. My online biology/statistics class required an end-of-the-year project that accounted for 20% of the final grade. Unfortunately, building a chemical laser did not fit under the "biology" requirement for the project, and I had to settle for something a bit less interesting. My mom had gotten several laying chickens the past year, but ended up ditching them at a friend's house while their coop remained trapped on graph paper. To kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended), I thought it would be a grand idea to use baby chicks in my science experiment, and, consequently, create an incentive to get the chicken coop finished. This little idea cost my dad quite a few billable hours, scrambling to build a coop and hen house. 

     We have twelve, black, Australorp chickens who, as their name implies, hail all the way from the outback. Apparently, they are supposed to hold up well in bad weather and and lay one egg a day. After almost five months of waiting, we've only gotten one breakfast out of our hens. This Thursday. They were scrambled eggs. And very tasty at that. But honestly, raising our own chickens has been no cheaper than buying eggs from the store. Fortunately, there is a significant entertainment value that has kept our hens out of the frying pan. The birds have brains that are no larger than fingernails, and it is much like having a flock of clowns wandering around the farm every day. If separated from the collective, a hen will squawk around in circles before galloping across the yard flapping its wings, or go sticking its head in a corner. 

     Much like chickens, we as humans can act irrationally when we are disoriented or confused. Unfortunately, sticking our heads in corners doesn't really solve anything. We have to live confidently and fruitfully, pleasing our master with acts of kindness and gifts toward our fellow man. Even so, we know that our egg production, or lack of, won't determine our suitability for the frying pan. We serve a loving, gracious, and patient God who, though he appreciates our fruit, gives us salvation only through his son, Jesus, Yeshua.

Art from Elements

"This world is but a canvas to our imagination." -Henry David Thoreau

     I have purposefully avoided bringing up the subject of Lego, for fear that it would dominate every following post. Nonetheless, I couldn't hold out forever, and I present here my somewhat lengthy series of thoughts on the little plastic bricks that have become the center of the toy industry, and a growing art form among teens and adults.
     As kids, I am certain that we all built with Lego at some point in our existence. Lego has a strange appeal that unlocks some unused niche of our creativity. There's a certain quality of Lego that everyone is influenced by, but rarely acknowledged. Lego comes with the assumption of literal endless possibilities. Everyone knows subconsciously that the Lego elements can be used to create, with controlled degrees of realism, anything and everything imaginable. Lego is special that way. It's like being given a bunch of atoms to make molecules. There are never-ending combinations and uses. 

     Though there are many facets to the Lego hobby, like collecting, display, resale, digital design, and others, this little blog post will focus only on the actual creative building and photography. It's far from comprehensive, but it was sure fun to write!

     Though the Lego system makes it possible to accurately create the entire world's contents, keeping your imagination and your ambition realistic when it comes to the quantitative side of Lego can be tricky. (Legos aren't as cheap as atoms in my analogy.) I asked a Legoing friend of mine to describe Lego in one word. Not missing a beat, he replied, "materialistic." Without keeping ambition in check, "never having enough Legos" can truly become the sole (and unnecessary) factor in building discouragement. I have heard it many times. Builders, particularly of a younger age, often have the grandest ideas for large scale dioramas, space ships, or city layouts; only to be crushed, ten minutes into building, when they realize that their number of bricks is only enough to make the diorama's baseplate, the spaceship's bathroom, or the city layout's phone booth. Knowing the physical limit of your brick collection can greatly relieve this roadblock. Settling for smaller builds that still contain significant artistic value can sometimes be just as gratifying as building a large-scale space ship.
     Other times, the imagination and the brick quantity are both copious, but the skill in technique is lacking. Just like any other fine art, there are nuances and unspoken rules when it comes to the artistic side of Lego. By now I know that you're either rolling your eyes or signing me off as an obsessed lunatic that takes this way too seriously, and yes. I am an obsessed lunatic, but when the vast majority of an art form is populated by rainbow-colored nuclear missiles shaped more like square beehives, a certain degree of seriousness is required. Not everything built out of Lego can be considered "art." To most, it is a children's toy and nothing else. To the other small percentage, Lego is an untapped resource of artistic inspiration.
     There are dozens if not hundreds of Lego fan communities on the web that fuel and encourage the hobby. Much like the model train community or the photographic community, the Lego subculture has it's own official magazines, conferences, and vocabulary. This vocabulary, in particular, was one of the first things I got hit by in the Lego community. The easiest ones were "MOC" and "minifigure." MOC stands for, "my own creation," and the minifigure is Lego's human figurine developed in 1979, and featured in most of the official sets since. Other terms were not so easy to figure out. "Greebling" is a wonderful term to describe a detailing technique where an otherwise flat surface is broken up into a complex or mechanical surface to increase visual interest, or increase the sense of scale. The term was actually developed by ILM in the production of Star Wars, where it was referred to as "guts on the outside." One of my favorites, "Grűschteling," is a German word that describes the sound created when dumping, sifting, or sweeping across large quantities of Lego. I love German. "Cheese wedges," "dots," "jumper plates," "Earlings," and "maccers," are all terms for specific Lego elements, and "blearsk," "bley," and "bloun" are all terms for specific Lego colors. Then come the acronyms. These ones were the most startling to me, but they are techniques that have come in handy time and time again. "SNOT" is an acronym standing for "studs not on top." It simply refers to sideways and upside-down building. "SNARL" stands for "studs not at right angles, and "SNIR" stands for "studs not in a row." SNIR building generally refers to building with fractional offsets, opposing faces, twisting, or specific depth changes represented mathematically by the formula, . It's way beyond me, but through the law of repeated elements, a pattern can be formed which represents roughly a 27 degree angle. And no, I'm not making this up. This particular technique is called SNIR 27, and was developed by a person named Erik Amzallag. "TFOLs" and "AFOLs" are "teen" and "adult fans of Lego" respectively. And finally, "TLC," among the building community, stands for "The Lego Company."

     Every builder has their own niche and style. Some builders have a knack for mosaics, while others may specialize in landscapes or macroscale. I have a friend who has a particular style where no studs (the Lego brick bumps) ever show. Other builders can be recognized by their talent in odd angles, while still others are renown for clever usage of the Lego elements. There are other builders whose "trademark" is building with excessive (yet contextualized) detail on large-scale creations. Masters of the art of Lego always have signature styles that set them apart from other builders. I don't think that I have a fully developed style, but others may disagree. Much of the style recognition depends on photography. Great photography can make or break the creation's reception in online communities or among friends. Photography and its relation to the creation itself is like the relationship between form and content in literature. When writing a narrative, the presentation of the subject, and usage of correct structure is half the battle. In other words, a completely genius creation could flop critically at the expense of poor photography. 

     Because my own personal brick collection doesn't support very large-scale creations, I primarily build what in the Lego community are called "vignettes." Vignettes are small slices out of time and space. Vignettes are generally no larger than the 16 stud by 16 stud baseplate threshold, and are normally designed to take advantage of a small space to tell a story much like a photograph. Like photographs, I tend to compose my vignettes based on a sort of three-dimensional "rule of thirds," and consider how to represent shadow and depth in the blocky sculpture medium that is Lego.

     For me, one of the greatest joys of the hobby is photographing the finished creations. It's that finishing touch that puts an added amount of quality on the creation if done well. To follow up on my previous post, "Black and White," I just purchased one of the expensive cameras I was drooling over in Best Buy. I now have Canon Rebel T3 DSLR that will hopefully be producing some cool Lego pictures in the future!

     Lego has fresh, yet nostalgic connotations to most anyone with any connection to the building toy. It's concept dates back to 1918, so it's brand has been grounded in quality for over 90 years. It's been copied and faked countless times, but it has always pulled to the front. It's mathematical consistency, so engrained in the art form itself, has made it one of my favorite pastimes and hobbies.

     To end, here are a few of my own builds, and I'd like to thank Didier Enjary for his helpful technique guide that assisted with descriptions of building techniques in the blog post.

"Einstein's Study"

"Streets of Jaffa"

"Unscathed"

"League of Explorers"

"Venice"

"Star Wars Relativity" 

M.C. Escher meets Lego Star Wars.

Fishing

"We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow worm." - Winston Churchill

     I may be a worm, but I am certainly not the kind of worm that attracts fish. A few weeks ago, my dad, grandfather, and I went on a fishing trip in east Michigan. Actually, it was more of an "ing" trip, because there weren't very many fish involved. Nevertheless, we had an enjoyable time. The weather was great, as were the Oreos. 

     It's the sad reality that our annual fishing trips usually turn out to be "ing" trips, but definitely not for lack of trying. I have officially decided that, when we're out on the boat, the fish order pizza and soda, and then sit around on the lake floor laughing at us like a comedy show. "And now it's time for 'Name That Lure!'" I can imagine a five pound Largemouth drawling out in a mocking, sing-song voice as we toss out all the lures in our tackle boxes. "$4:99 from Wal Mart!" would shout a thirty inch pike as a shiny diver flies past it's nose. "Cheap one from Cabelas!" would cry a walleye, rolling it's eyes at the tastiest looking spoon on the lake.

     Nonetheless, there is something special about being out on the water even when the fish aren't biting. It's the simple lapping of the water against the boat, and the reflected line where the sky meets the treetops on the other side of the lake. It's the call of the loon and the "gzzzz" of a casting line.

     These are also the things that can make a body go crazy, and write fishing stories about shotguns and dynamite.

     As Yeshua, Jesus, our messiah said in Matthew 4:19 to his first disciples-to-be, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Fishing for men is no different in philosophy than fishing for fish. There may be "dry" spells when the lake or community isn't as full of curious fish. We have to remember in life that, even when the "fish" aren't biting, as long as we're casting our lines and truly living a disciple's life -- one of imitation of our master, we need only be patient. Out of a hundred disinterested fish, only one may be interested in what you have to offer. But the truth of life is that every "fish" has a God sized hole in their souls. Deep down, they are always searching for the bait to fill that hole, even if their minds are telling them that they have it all together. There is an insatiable hunger for truth that can errantly get filled with sweet-coated lies like evolutionary theory and other rationalized explanations of supernatural events. 

    For the fisherman, waiting for the one fish who will bite can drive you insane. You begin to have fantasies about dynamite, firearms, or, in life, a sound smack across the head with a bible or a soapbox sermon in the middle of Times Square. But many times, it are these aggressive forms of discipleship that can turn people even farther away from the truth and safety that God provides. True entry into discipleship depends on the curiosity of the fish, not the zealousness of the fisherman. Making disciples is a process of patient waiting. Nibbles will come.