August 5, 2008
Burning Man Documentary
This is a short segment that I helped shoot footage for in 2005. It aired on Current TV, a cable television station co-founded by Al Gore. Dustin and Dara were my friends who I took for the first time and camped with.
April 20, 2008
On a Path Darkly
...the following article was published in the Summer 2008 issue of Lilipoh Magazine. Four proceeding articles appeared in the magazine exploring this topic. (Click on the navigation category "Lilipoh" to the right and they will appear in order of most recent first.)
In this article, I continue to explore the spirit of our times and what popular culture might be revealing about the emergence of a new guiding myth for the task before humanity. I continue to assess the media landscape for hints that we might be shifting from deconstructing previously important mythic signposts to raising new ones. While any hard and fast answers still evade me, several recent works have caught my attention and seem to illuminate a larger trend that speaks to our increasingly urgent condition.
The brilliantly written novel by Cormac McCarthy,The Road (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005), follows the journey of a father and son struggling to survive and maintain hope in an inescapably bleak post-apocalyptic world. The novel is set in a not-too-distant and all-too-possible future landscape of environmental devastation and human barbarism. As I read, I found myself identifying with the young son who says simply "I'm scared" as they approached situation after situation with little chance of redemption. Like the boy totally dependent on his father, the reader is put in the role of trusting that the author has something important to show us against the backdrop of sustained tension and dread. The father works to protect the boy's faith that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity - an assertion that looks increasingly unlikely as the novel unfolds.
This feeling is echoed in a recent adaptation of another McCarthy novel, the film No Country
for Old Men. Like The Road, we find ourselves in a brooding, harsh landscape; this time the southern U.S. border of 1980. The film explores the inherent imprisonment of a determined world, where a coin toss can determine if one lives or dies, and the frailty of our biological existence hits home like the thunk of a killer's cattle gun - as effective on humans as on any other animal primed for slaughter. The Village Voice describes the characters of No Country for Old Men as "members of some endangered species trying to forestall their extinction." Though it's not always easy to watch, but there is something beneath the surface that elevates this film beyond a traditional shoot 'em up or just another depressing art house meditation on human fallibility. Its redeeming element is its unusually masterful crafting. An astonishing job by the Coen brothers (who won an Oscar for their directing) made me look harder at the feelings this film invoked in me. What does its message (and popular success) reveal about our contemporary self-concept and the hopes and fears of where we may be headed?
I might have attributed whatever broader meaning these works revealed to novelist Cormac McCarthy alone, if, around the same time, I hadn't seen the film There Will be Blood. Like No Country for Old Men, it was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning Best Actor for Daniel Day Lewis' mesmerizing leading role. Set in the oil fields of the early twentieth century, There Will Be Blood shares an underlying dread with The Road and No Country for Old Men and a similarly unsentimental, near perfect artistic crafting that is hard to call anything other than beautiful.
A sense of impending doom fills all three works. It stalks each frame and page, whether
personified as an unstoppable bounty hunter, the relentlessly off-kilter and haunting score of There Will Be Blood (composed by Radiohead's Guitarist, Johnny Greenwood) or the ash falling with haunting regularity throughout The Road, fall-out from some never-explained man-made catastrophe. All three are soaked in a pitiless quality that captures the audience with a sense that "truth will be spoken here." We trust that we are going to receive something accurate even as we increasingly realize that it's not going to be a happy or even a clear outcome. We trust that there must be something important to see here, where the vultures swarm and where man goes horribly astray.
There is a shred of unsentimental hope in each work: the soot-covered purity of The Road's boy; There Will Be Blood's deaf, adopted son's escape from his father's mad clutches; and the aging country sheriff of No Country for Old Men who dreams of his own father carrying fire in a horn, "going on ahead, and fixin' to make a fire" in the surrounding dark and cold.
These three works felt to me like articulations of a larger realization happening within great swaths of our culture; like "Dead End" signs appearing along the road that we collectively race down. Things are bleak. Can anything be as depressing as knowing that you're headed for a brick wall, but, lacking visible alternatives, continue driving anyway?
As parables, they tell a story which news headlines and stark documentaries can only hint at. They tell me that there is something dark in the human character, of which the evils of the world are only symptoms. This darkness forms a hole in our lives and a sense of loss that is hard to address directly. Perhaps an unflinching mythic glimpse into our own darkest corners is an important first step? If we can just put our finger on the lingering dissatisfaction that pulls us toward self-destruction, we may be able to redirect our course. Giving image and name to our collective sense of doom might rob it of some of its power otherwise so subtle and pervasive as to seem inevitable. Visible, it can be seen, named, and rejected.
And here, for me, is where author Brian McLaren came in. While thinking over this dark picture of our shared mythic landscape, I read a couple of books by this leading proponents of the "emergent Christianity" movement. In The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren offers as hopeful a picture of the heights that human beings might attain as The Road and There Will be Blood show of our darkest depths.
By no means alone in his re-examination of the life and teaching of Jesus (the Da Vinci Code phenomenon was just the tip of the iceberg), McLaren's technique is a decidedly integral one. Post-modern and pluralistic, it doesn't seek to create another doctrine or set of beliefs but rather brings self-awareness to the process of how doctrines are established and interrupted in the first place. Different from some of the other authors in this booming genre though, Brian McLaren's perspective is not that of a distanced researcher but of a true believer.
A pastor of his own non-denominational church, McLaren is seeking to re-frame who we are
and what our role in society might look like, while honoring the religious tradition he finds great value in. His explorations shed light on a new articulation of "the kingdom of God" - a kingdom that is of this world but based on very different virtues than the predominant ones around us. An interruption that is at once both generous and orthodox, the message he delivers is both radically different and yet familiar to what one would recognize at a traditional neighborhood Sunday service. In his books McLaren deconstructs the Christian church, offering a history of the institutionalizing of this mystical message. He moves beyond denouncing the exclusionary, self-serving tendencies of organized religion, responsible for countless intolerances and atrocities, to find these tendencies within himself. He articulates the impulses behind the differing traditions and denominations and how they correlate to important elements within his own understanding of what Jesus' full message might look like. What he discovers might be a beacon of renewal not just for the Christian religion but for the whole world.
The message that he rediscovers for himself is as revolutionary today as at the time it was given, offering much more than just the foundation for the religion that followed. Heard again as if for the first time, this message offers an exciting present and future possibility of what could be; an unlikely secret that holds the power to divert us from the train wreck we seemed destined for. Perhaps a re-emergence of Jesus' original teaching, placed back into historical context and shown for the radical message it is, begins to articulate (or unearth) an alternative route running counter to our own personally engrained social, political, intellectual and spiritual beliefs. A message asking for as revolutionary a change to our daily lives as to those of any institution.
The message of Christ hints at a way of being that can overcome the most inevitable forces of darkness within our own humanity. Radical forgiveness, service to the poor and sick, a slow and steady aligning of our will with God's ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven") - stripped of the nauseating rhetoric and distorted lens that the Christian church has all too often applied - this message offers a revolutionary and unlikely promise. Just as the potential for growth of the tiny mustard seed is invisible to the physical eye, so the "kingdom of God" asks us not just to look again, but to transform the very way we see. Like Rudolf Steiner's Higher Worlds, this kingdom awaits those "with ears to hear."
This unseen kingdom is present, not just despite our despair and bleakness but also because of it. Recognizing the truth of our current situation, and accepting our personal responsibility for it will necessitate a radical re-thinking (the original meaning of metanoia "to repent"). If enough of us glimpse such a kingdom and, in our glimpsing, re-think our lives, and in re-thinking our lives believe that the impossible is possible, things could change dramatically.
And given the reports on the condition of the road ahead, let's hope that we choose to shift trajectories soon.
McLaren, Brian. The Secret Message of Jesus, Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2006
McLaren, Brian. A Generous Orthodoxy, Grand Rapids: Zonderum, 2004
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage, 2006
No Country for Old Men. Dir., Writ., Prod.,Ethan and Joel Coen. Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Miramax and Paramount Vantage, 2007.
There Will be Blood. Dir., Writ., Prod., Paul Thomas Anderson. Based on the novel by Upton Sinclair. Miramax and Paramount Vantage, 2007.
On A Path Darkly
...
Human Kingdoms advance by force and violence with falling bombs and flying bullets, but God's kingdom advances by stories, fictions, tales that are easily ignored and easily misunderstood. (p.49) The Secret Message of Jesus...
In this article, I continue to explore the spirit of our times and what popular culture might be revealing about the emergence of a new guiding myth for the task before humanity. I continue to assess the media landscape for hints that we might be shifting from deconstructing previously important mythic signposts to raising new ones. While any hard and fast answers still evade me, several recent works have caught my attention and seem to illuminate a larger trend that speaks to our increasingly urgent condition.
The brilliantly written novel by Cormac McCarthy,The Road (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005), follows the journey of a father and son struggling to survive and maintain hope in an inescapably bleak post-apocalyptic world. The novel is set in a not-too-distant and all-too-possible future landscape of environmental devastation and human barbarism. As I read, I found myself identifying with the young son who says simply "I'm scared" as they approached situation after situation with little chance of redemption. Like the boy totally dependent on his father, the reader is put in the role of trusting that the author has something important to show us against the backdrop of sustained tension and dread. The father works to protect the boy's faith that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity - an assertion that looks increasingly unlikely as the novel unfolds.This feeling is echoed in a recent adaptation of another McCarthy novel, the film No Country
for Old Men. Like The Road, we find ourselves in a brooding, harsh landscape; this time the southern U.S. border of 1980. The film explores the inherent imprisonment of a determined world, where a coin toss can determine if one lives or dies, and the frailty of our biological existence hits home like the thunk of a killer's cattle gun - as effective on humans as on any other animal primed for slaughter. The Village Voice describes the characters of No Country for Old Men as "members of some endangered species trying to forestall their extinction." Though it's not always easy to watch, but there is something beneath the surface that elevates this film beyond a traditional shoot 'em up or just another depressing art house meditation on human fallibility. Its redeeming element is its unusually masterful crafting. An astonishing job by the Coen brothers (who won an Oscar for their directing) made me look harder at the feelings this film invoked in me. What does its message (and popular success) reveal about our contemporary self-concept and the hopes and fears of where we may be headed?I might have attributed whatever broader meaning these works revealed to novelist Cormac McCarthy alone, if, around the same time, I hadn't seen the film There Will be Blood. Like No Country for Old Men, it was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning Best Actor for Daniel Day Lewis' mesmerizing leading role. Set in the oil fields of the early twentieth century, There Will Be Blood shares an underlying dread with The Road and No Country for Old Men and a similarly unsentimental, near perfect artistic crafting that is hard to call anything other than beautiful.
A sense of impending doom fills all three works. It stalks each frame and page, whether
personified as an unstoppable bounty hunter, the relentlessly off-kilter and haunting score of There Will Be Blood (composed by Radiohead's Guitarist, Johnny Greenwood) or the ash falling with haunting regularity throughout The Road, fall-out from some never-explained man-made catastrophe. All three are soaked in a pitiless quality that captures the audience with a sense that "truth will be spoken here." We trust that we are going to receive something accurate even as we increasingly realize that it's not going to be a happy or even a clear outcome. We trust that there must be something important to see here, where the vultures swarm and where man goes horribly astray.There is a shred of unsentimental hope in each work: the soot-covered purity of The Road's boy; There Will Be Blood's deaf, adopted son's escape from his father's mad clutches; and the aging country sheriff of No Country for Old Men who dreams of his own father carrying fire in a horn, "going on ahead, and fixin' to make a fire" in the surrounding dark and cold.
These three works felt to me like articulations of a larger realization happening within great swaths of our culture; like "Dead End" signs appearing along the road that we collectively race down. Things are bleak. Can anything be as depressing as knowing that you're headed for a brick wall, but, lacking visible alternatives, continue driving anyway?
As parables, they tell a story which news headlines and stark documentaries can only hint at. They tell me that there is something dark in the human character, of which the evils of the world are only symptoms. This darkness forms a hole in our lives and a sense of loss that is hard to address directly. Perhaps an unflinching mythic glimpse into our own darkest corners is an important first step? If we can just put our finger on the lingering dissatisfaction that pulls us toward self-destruction, we may be able to redirect our course. Giving image and name to our collective sense of doom might rob it of some of its power otherwise so subtle and pervasive as to seem inevitable. Visible, it can be seen, named, and rejected.
And here, for me, is where author Brian McLaren came in. While thinking over this dark picture of our shared mythic landscape, I read a couple of books by this leading proponents of the "emergent Christianity" movement. In The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren offers as hopeful a picture of the heights that human beings might attain as The Road and There Will be Blood show of our darkest depths.
By no means alone in his re-examination of the life and teaching of Jesus (the Da Vinci Code phenomenon was just the tip of the iceberg), McLaren's technique is a decidedly integral one. Post-modern and pluralistic, it doesn't seek to create another doctrine or set of beliefs but rather brings self-awareness to the process of how doctrines are established and interrupted in the first place. Different from some of the other authors in this booming genre though, Brian McLaren's perspective is not that of a distanced researcher but of a true believer.
A pastor of his own non-denominational church, McLaren is seeking to re-frame who we are
and what our role in society might look like, while honoring the religious tradition he finds great value in. His explorations shed light on a new articulation of "the kingdom of God" - a kingdom that is of this world but based on very different virtues than the predominant ones around us. An interruption that is at once both generous and orthodox, the message he delivers is both radically different and yet familiar to what one would recognize at a traditional neighborhood Sunday service. In his books McLaren deconstructs the Christian church, offering a history of the institutionalizing of this mystical message. He moves beyond denouncing the exclusionary, self-serving tendencies of organized religion, responsible for countless intolerances and atrocities, to find these tendencies within himself. He articulates the impulses behind the differing traditions and denominations and how they correlate to important elements within his own understanding of what Jesus' full message might look like. What he discovers might be a beacon of renewal not just for the Christian religion but for the whole world.The message that he rediscovers for himself is as revolutionary today as at the time it was given, offering much more than just the foundation for the religion that followed. Heard again as if for the first time, this message offers an exciting present and future possibility of what could be; an unlikely secret that holds the power to divert us from the train wreck we seemed destined for. Perhaps a re-emergence of Jesus' original teaching, placed back into historical context and shown for the radical message it is, begins to articulate (or unearth) an alternative route running counter to our own personally engrained social, political, intellectual and spiritual beliefs. A message asking for as revolutionary a change to our daily lives as to those of any institution.
The message of Christ hints at a way of being that can overcome the most inevitable forces of darkness within our own humanity. Radical forgiveness, service to the poor and sick, a slow and steady aligning of our will with God's ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven") - stripped of the nauseating rhetoric and distorted lens that the Christian church has all too often applied - this message offers a revolutionary and unlikely promise. Just as the potential for growth of the tiny mustard seed is invisible to the physical eye, so the "kingdom of God" asks us not just to look again, but to transform the very way we see. Like Rudolf Steiner's Higher Worlds, this kingdom awaits those "with ears to hear."
This unseen kingdom is present, not just despite our despair and bleakness but also because of it. Recognizing the truth of our current situation, and accepting our personal responsibility for it will necessitate a radical re-thinking (the original meaning of metanoia "to repent"). If enough of us glimpse such a kingdom and, in our glimpsing, re-think our lives, and in re-thinking our lives believe that the impossible is possible, things could change dramatically.
And given the reports on the condition of the road ahead, let's hope that we choose to shift trajectories soon.
Works Cited
McLaren, Brian. The Secret Message of Jesus, Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2006
McLaren, Brian. A Generous Orthodoxy, Grand Rapids: Zonderum, 2004
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Vintage, 2006
No Country for Old Men. Dir., Writ., Prod.,Ethan and Joel Coen. Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Miramax and Paramount Vantage, 2007.
There Will be Blood. Dir., Writ., Prod., Paul Thomas Anderson. Based on the novel by Upton Sinclair. Miramax and Paramount Vantage, 2007.
March 1, 2008
Welcome Home
Adapted from an essay by Rob Brezsny from his fantastic book Pronoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
Let me remind you who you really are:
You're an immortal freedom fighter in service to divine love.
You have temporary taken on human form, forgetting your true origins, in order to liberate all sentient beings from suffering and the bondage of false belief.
You will accept nothing less than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to earth.
Your task may look impossible. Ignorance and inertia, partially camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround you. Pessimism is enshrined as a hall mark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as wit and perceptiveness. Irony is hip. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truth are readily believed.
To overcome these odds, we must be both a radical revolutionary and practice radical acceptance. We must be both a wrathful destroyer of falsehoods and a loving creator of true beauty. We must resist the temptation to be seduced by the thousands of delusions that have been carefully packaged to lull us into in-action. We must stay in a good mood as we overthrow the stressful hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality.
We are facing the extinction of our natural habitat and the possibility of endless war, but there is an even bigger threat to the long-term fate of the earth, of which all others are but symptoms: the death of the imagination.
But what can we do?
We can create safe houses to shelter those devoted to the incremental awakening of humanity. We can create sanctuaries of festivals and parties and cafes and workshops and homes, where we can ritually celebrate the evolving mysteries of positive co-creation.
We must facilitate the regular practice of trust, cooperation, innovation and love.
We can be patient with one another as we attempt the difficult and almost impossible. We can pull each other out of our comfort zones.
We can provide gentle encouragement and committed cooperation.
We can be inclusive.
We can offer the gift of our honesty.
We can resist the substitution of passive consumption for active participation.
We can discover, exercise and rely on our own inner resources, even as we move towards greater partnership.
We can seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves and the reality of those around us.
We can make contact with a natural world exceeding human powers.
We must conspire together to carry out an agenda that Barbara Marx Hubbard describes as: to hospice what's dying and midwife what's being born.
Welcome Home
Let me remind you who you really are:
You're an immortal freedom fighter in service to divine love.
You have temporary taken on human form, forgetting your true origins, in order to liberate all sentient beings from suffering and the bondage of false belief.
You will accept nothing less than the miracle of bringing heaven all the way down to earth.
Your task may look impossible. Ignorance and inertia, partially camouflaged as time-honored morality, seem to surround you. Pessimism is enshrined as a hall mark of worldliness. Compulsive skepticism masquerades as wit and perceptiveness. Irony is hip. Stories about treachery and degradation provoke a visceral thrill in millions of people who think of themselves as reasonable and smart. Beautiful truths are suspect and ugly truth are readily believed.
To overcome these odds, we must be both a radical revolutionary and practice radical acceptance. We must be both a wrathful destroyer of falsehoods and a loving creator of true beauty. We must resist the temptation to be seduced by the thousands of delusions that have been carefully packaged to lull us into in-action. We must stay in a good mood as we overthrow the stressful hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality.
We are facing the extinction of our natural habitat and the possibility of endless war, but there is an even bigger threat to the long-term fate of the earth, of which all others are but symptoms: the death of the imagination.
But what can we do?
We can create safe houses to shelter those devoted to the incremental awakening of humanity. We can create sanctuaries of festivals and parties and cafes and workshops and homes, where we can ritually celebrate the evolving mysteries of positive co-creation.
We must facilitate the regular practice of trust, cooperation, innovation and love.
We can be patient with one another as we attempt the difficult and almost impossible. We can pull each other out of our comfort zones.
We can provide gentle encouragement and committed cooperation.
We can be inclusive.
We can offer the gift of our honesty.
We can resist the substitution of passive consumption for active participation.
We can discover, exercise and rely on our own inner resources, even as we move towards greater partnership.
We can seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves and the reality of those around us.
We can make contact with a natural world exceeding human powers.
We must conspire together to carry out an agenda that Barbara Marx Hubbard describes as: to hospice what's dying and midwife what's being born.
February 13, 2008
The Creative Arts - Class Poem
My mother and I co-taught a class entitled "The Creative Arts" January and February of 2008.
This is a short video of us reciting a poem that we'd attempted to learn by heart.
This is a short video of us reciting a poem that we'd attempted to learn by heart.
February 2, 2008
Line Mountain Residency with Charlie DelMarcelle
This video documents a residency at Line Mountain High School by Charlie Delmarcelle, an Arts in Education artist. The residency was coordinated by Perry County Council of the Arts' Arts in Education program. For more information about the program, please visit: www.perrycountyarts.org
January 31, 2008
To Occur to Myself: A Poem
To Occur to Myself
To see myself, not as I use me but as I experience me.
A mirror for one brief second as the flapping stops and the waters still
a face is glimpsed
a shear face that dwarfs the reflecting ripples that play upon my surface.
To enter dreaming awake,
to digest what is known there in front of me
whole
and awake to life bigger than me at the breakfast nook with care and sorrow
and spoon and mouth
and lips that speak truth only when stumped by letters spelled in the mind of creation clutched in chubby cherub fingers,
flitting about the word I can't remember the meaning to...
but say anyway.
on these lips that move
directed by a life circumstance that offers up layers of petals around a seed as small as lifetimes of preparation and as vital as that breath I just
now
took.
Its all immensely important, surely you see that?
Isn't it more than egotism that places you and I together in the heart of the entire everything?
Gods drink from the pool that I don't know that I am.
Heavenly beings feast upon the life that I unconsciously lead,
now as a blind man,
now as a drunk falling asleep on the shoulder of a me that pretends to forget what I learned from me when I was that sorrow and care
and the breakfast nook was my home with the spoon that asked questions of my lips that supplied answers spoken of in me.
Horrible Deal : A Poem
Horrible Deal
I'd like to tell you my story in the same assured voice that whispered Mica the prophesy of Justice and humble walks with thy Lord.
I yearn for the voice that speaks in sun-rays from cloud-cover and burning archetypes,
conversation purged of get-down anger and and lift-up righteousness.
Speak to me of eyes that see and ears that hear.
Worlds transformed by lens I see through.
What do you offer there in your outstretched hand,
all shaky and clammy and not perfect?
You offer me dissolution of a separation that exists, a line where once a wall stood.
You offer me the hopeful paradox of life lived short and sweetly.
I want practical assurances with the grace you humbly offer
I want practical respite from practical frenzy
practical absolution from practical prack...tick...cal...ness.
Theses negotiations always go the same way,
(the same poem again and again)
all devouring demons and blood thirsty bliss.
The compulsions are the same beneath the surface,
here behind the skin, behind those flawed outstretched hands and this blackened corpse grinning wildly and screaming truth in its fried hair and crispy wings.
This horribleness is in you.
The one who makes the tentative offers,
who negotiates the back-room deals,
who marries the ugly daughter and sticks the knife into the fleshy part of the only little thing you ever really cared about.
Yes, there is sunlit beauty and 9 year olds demanding answers and dogs dreaming of sticks and trains arriving with lovers kissing on foreheads and hot water in the kettle and tulips alive in the snow. Yes, there is gold magic markers and brilliance behind the microphone and eyeglasses on noses and incense in temples and needles on thread. Yes, there is candles on windowsills and homecomings and footsteps and homecomings and washing and laughing and tossing and napping and...
and....
and...
But it is still a horrible deal.
Its terrible terms that you offer.
Its an awful game that you designed.
The only way I could possibly stand it is to know that you are playing it too.
January 29, 2008
Exploring the Spirit of our Times
There is a shift happening across the contemporary cultural landscape. From new understandings of human's impact on our planet to greater insights in our biology, our universe, and our collective histories, the inner workings of our life together are being exposed at an unparalleled rate. What follows is an exploration of two cultural phenomena that I believe are examples of this revealing, one defined by the corruption, manipulation and violence that can be shaped by power and greed, and the other an illustration of the complexity and paradox of a common experience of sacredness.
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The film Loose Change has been called "the first Internet blockbuster." Produced for $2,000 by a 24 year old from upstate New York, Loose Change was viewed at least 10 million times within the first year of its release in April 2005. The film was my first introduction to what has since come to be called the "9/11 Truth Movement." Made up of innumerable films, organizations and websites, the basic tenants of this movement claim that the US government not only used the September 11th attacks to gain popular support for an aggressive and profitable foreign policy, but also (to varying degrees based on the particular theory or proponent) played a part in the attacks themselves.
As more time has elapsed since the 2001 attacks, the ideas of the 9/11 Truth Movement have grown from a fringe phenomenon to what Time magazine calls a "mainstream political reality." A large, independent poll conducted by Zogby International in 2004 found that 49 percent of New York City residents believed that individuals within the US government "knew in advance that the 911 attacks were planned...and failed to act." Two years later in a nation-wide poll, 53% of Americans believed that there had been at least a partial cover-up by the government about what really took place on Sept. 11th, with 67% saying that there had never been an adequate investigation of the attacks. Whether lying or not, doubt had crept in as to whether those who we normally look to for the facts had failed to bring them to us.
The aptly named film Zeitgeist, released online in June of 2007, shares many elements with Loose Change and it's countless spin-offs. Both films can be easily found with a Google search and feature the minimal, ominous tone and pseudo-journalistic use of information stripped of its original context which has become readily recognized as made-for-the-web production values. In Zeitgeist the skepticism of the 9/11 films finds its way into all the pillars of our society's institutions. The film deconstructs Christianity (Jesus as anthropomorphized astrological data), capitalism (a secret botherhood of bankers pulling the strings), and US foreign policy (as a quest by a select group for world domination). This is not presented as story or fabled warning, but as cited and researched fact. This material can be found (and no doubt, presented more compellingly) elsewhere, but never before to my knowledge has it been tailored for absorption by such a wide audience.
A certain unease begins to creep in as I view these films and follow links with associated websites. The questions go further than whether or not the "facts" being presented might indeed be true, to the motivation of the filmmakers and the raw nerve they touch in those who watch them. Is this just the latest level of sensationalism in pop culture's continual search for new thrills? Are New World Order conspiracy theories a symptom of a society hungry for answers to questions that it doesn't even admit that it has? Whatever the case, The 9/11 Truth Movement seems unaware that much like the evil (whether imagined or real) it purports to be exposing, its version of truth distorts the rest of the picture to fit its chosen narrative.
As the scope of our informational based culture and planetary awareness grows, so to it seems, do the scope of the questions that confront us. As we search for a context large enough to make sense of our rapidly changing world, our emerging questions might transcend the simple answers that our traditional institutions can provide. Leading me to wonder: do our current belief systems need to collapse before new forms will emerge? Or is a new infrastructure being developed right now all around us like a new skin forming beneath the old that is to be shed? While the questions seem too large and my perspective too close to arrive at any definitive answers, I am reassured by signs that others are developing ways of navigating such uncertain waters.
An impulse to transform the passive monologue of traditional media into active dialogue can be seen in The World Cafe (theworldcafe.com), Meetup.com and other social networks seeking to overcome technologies' tendency toward isolation and anonymity through real world connections and gatherings. Many artists and contemporary storytellers are working from a similar impulse when they portray human experiences with the beauty and nuance that inspires us to share our own stories and seek out other's with a renewed interest in the deepest experiences that we all share.
The Nation Public Radio program Speaking of Faith (speakingoffaith.org) is one of these shimmering bright spots of insight in our popular culture. A former journalist, diplomat and graduate of the Yale Divinity School, host Krista Tippet conducts each interview with a balanced grace that delights in life's diversity while never negating the suffering and complexities of the human condition. The show is both keenly intelligent and soaked in an appreciation for mystery. The weekly radio show and podcast features conversations with voices from the world of religion, ethics and ideas, with topics ranging from the biographies of Einstein and Darwin to explorations of faith based diplomacy in the world of politics, and money and moral balance in everyday life.
There is something very intimate and inclusive about the space that the show is able to create. Its tone far transcends what one would expect from a program covering religious issues and arrives at something familiar but all too rarely glimpsed in our mass culture. It is the feeling of a good conversations between people who care deeply for and respect one another. This feeling gives me hope in the ability to arrive at something much larger, but just as close as personal truth. It is the experience of the sacred. Through Speaking of Faith, Tippet models a public theology that doesn't yield firm and unwavering answers but instead offers a new meeting ground to explore the questions.
It seems that it is through conversation and vulnerable interactions that we begin to articulate answers for ourselves. As we commit ourselves with ever increasing self-awareness to an emerging dialogue, we arrive at a more contextual and participatory understanding than any that could ever be given to us by an outside authority. Rather than seeking a fixed truth with which to judge right or wrong, we are increasingly offered a chance to listen and interact with multiple perspectives. I feel in myself and perhaps in society at large, a subtle shift from a desire for voices of fact and solid truths, to dialogues that can sustain uncertainty and offer encouragement in the tough work of living an authentic and meaningful life.
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The film Loose Change has been called "the first Internet blockbuster." Produced for $2,000 by a 24 year old from upstate New York, Loose Change was viewed at least 10 million times within the first year of its release in April 2005. The film was my first introduction to what has since come to be called the "9/11 Truth Movement." Made up of innumerable films, organizations and websites, the basic tenants of this movement claim that the US government not only used the September 11th attacks to gain popular support for an aggressive and profitable foreign policy, but also (to varying degrees based on the particular theory or proponent) played a part in the attacks themselves. As more time has elapsed since the 2001 attacks, the ideas of the 9/11 Truth Movement have grown from a fringe phenomenon to what Time magazine calls a "mainstream political reality." A large, independent poll conducted by Zogby International in 2004 found that 49 percent of New York City residents believed that individuals within the US government "knew in advance that the 911 attacks were planned...and failed to act." Two years later in a nation-wide poll, 53% of Americans believed that there had been at least a partial cover-up by the government about what really took place on Sept. 11th, with 67% saying that there had never been an adequate investigation of the attacks. Whether lying or not, doubt had crept in as to whether those who we normally look to for the facts had failed to bring them to us.
The aptly named film Zeitgeist, released online in June of 2007, shares many elements with Loose Change and it's countless spin-offs. Both films can be easily found with a Google search and feature the minimal, ominous tone and pseudo-journalistic use of information stripped of its original context which has become readily recognized as made-for-the-web production values. In Zeitgeist the skepticism of the 9/11 films finds its way into all the pillars of our society's institutions. The film deconstructs Christianity (Jesus as anthropomorphized astrological data), capitalism (a secret botherhood of bankers pulling the strings), and US foreign policy (as a quest by a select group for world domination). This is not presented as story or fabled warning, but as cited and researched fact. This material can be found (and no doubt, presented more compellingly) elsewhere, but never before to my knowledge has it been tailored for absorption by such a wide audience.
A certain unease begins to creep in as I view these films and follow links with associated websites. The questions go further than whether or not the "facts" being presented might indeed be true, to the motivation of the filmmakers and the raw nerve they touch in those who watch them. Is this just the latest level of sensationalism in pop culture's continual search for new thrills? Are New World Order conspiracy theories a symptom of a society hungry for answers to questions that it doesn't even admit that it has? Whatever the case, The 9/11 Truth Movement seems unaware that much like the evil (whether imagined or real) it purports to be exposing, its version of truth distorts the rest of the picture to fit its chosen narrative.
As the scope of our informational based culture and planetary awareness grows, so to it seems, do the scope of the questions that confront us. As we search for a context large enough to make sense of our rapidly changing world, our emerging questions might transcend the simple answers that our traditional institutions can provide. Leading me to wonder: do our current belief systems need to collapse before new forms will emerge? Or is a new infrastructure being developed right now all around us like a new skin forming beneath the old that is to be shed? While the questions seem too large and my perspective too close to arrive at any definitive answers, I am reassured by signs that others are developing ways of navigating such uncertain waters.
An impulse to transform the passive monologue of traditional media into active dialogue can be seen in The World Cafe (theworldcafe.com), Meetup.com and other social networks seeking to overcome technologies' tendency toward isolation and anonymity through real world connections and gatherings. Many artists and contemporary storytellers are working from a similar impulse when they portray human experiences with the beauty and nuance that inspires us to share our own stories and seek out other's with a renewed interest in the deepest experiences that we all share.
The Nation Public Radio program Speaking of Faith (speakingoffaith.org) is one of these shimmering bright spots of insight in our popular culture. A former journalist, diplomat and graduate of the Yale Divinity School, host Krista Tippet conducts each interview with a balanced grace that delights in life's diversity while never negating the suffering and complexities of the human condition. The show is both keenly intelligent and soaked in an appreciation for mystery. The weekly radio show and podcast features conversations with voices from the world of religion, ethics and ideas, with topics ranging from the biographies of Einstein and Darwin to explorations of faith based diplomacy in the world of politics, and money and moral balance in everyday life.
There is something very intimate and inclusive about the space that the show is able to create. Its tone far transcends what one would expect from a program covering religious issues and arrives at something familiar but all too rarely glimpsed in our mass culture. It is the feeling of a good conversations between people who care deeply for and respect one another. This feeling gives me hope in the ability to arrive at something much larger, but just as close as personal truth. It is the experience of the sacred. Through Speaking of Faith, Tippet models a public theology that doesn't yield firm and unwavering answers but instead offers a new meeting ground to explore the questions.
It seems that it is through conversation and vulnerable interactions that we begin to articulate answers for ourselves. As we commit ourselves with ever increasing self-awareness to an emerging dialogue, we arrive at a more contextual and participatory understanding than any that could ever be given to us by an outside authority. Rather than seeking a fixed truth with which to judge right or wrong, we are increasingly offered a chance to listen and interact with multiple perspectives. I feel in myself and perhaps in society at large, a subtle shift from a desire for voices of fact and solid truths, to dialogues that can sustain uncertainty and offer encouragement in the tough work of living an authentic and meaningful life.
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