sustain:if:able kiwi

Philomena: a film review

Monthly I publish a film review for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 85 plus films later, here is the review for March 2014, of Philomena.

Philomena
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

“I forgive you because I don’t want to remain angry.” Philomena

A few weeks ago I caught a taxi cab into inner city Melbourne. Weaving through rush hour, my host asked my occupation and the conversation quickly turned religious.

Taxi drivers offer unique insight on the cultural pulse. He was respectful. Religion was good for society, offering an ethical care for others essential for better communities.

But some churches have an image problem. Especially, said my taxi driver, the Catholic church.

Films like Philomena reinforce the stereotypes. Inspired by a true story (The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by journalist Martin Sixsmith), it tells the story of an Irish Catholic mother’s (Judi Dench as Philomena) search for her son, separated as a four year old when the church forced her to give him up for adoption.

Over the years, her mother’s love continues to burn. A chance encounter with a suddenly unemployed government advisor, Steve Coogan as Martin Sixsmith, offers hope of a mother and child reunion.

The plot twists and turns, the journalistic detective work of Steve Coogan a perfect foil for the emotional rollercoaster of a mother looking for her lost son.

There are some minor speedbumps. The reluctance of her son’s partner (Peter Hermann as Pete Olssen) to meet Philomena makes little sense. In the climatic graveside shots, Dench’s face remains too deeply tanned to effectively convey the bleakness of an Irish winter.

The film is carried by Philomena’s gentle humour, her refereshing candour a perfect antidote to Coogan’s world weary cynicism. The use of historic video footage is clever, allowing the plot to move easily both forward and back in time. Poignantly, some of this footage is from real life, her son growing up in America.

Intriguingly, it is not only the Catholic church that is judged harshly in Philomena. The secular cynicism of hardbitten journalism is also portrayed as equally lacking in humanity, with little to offer those hurt by injustice.

The alternative, quietly compelling, is the faith of Philomena. It is a common cliché – I’m spiritual, not religious. In Philomena, it is devastatingly turned back against the church, her embrace of forgiveness a striking contrast to the coldness at the core of a church frozen in denial.

In real life, Philomena Lee found forgiveness in her work among the psychiatric community. Interviewed by The Atlantic in February 2014, she spoke of “nursing the patients, sitting down and talking with them, helping them with their problems—it made my own slide into the background. I’ve seen so much hurt caused through anger. And I thought, “I couldn’t go through my whole life being angry.””

It seems an approach to life worth repeating to my Melbourne taxi driver and all his passengers. Staying angry takes effort. Forgiveness is a way of life that helps us all move on. A truth for those with faith. And without.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal at the Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

renovations and leadership

We spent the weekend painting the kitchen. It’s a long weekend here in Adelaide, so it seemed a good time to enter into the chaos that painting a kitchen induces – meals, snacks, drinks – the countless reasons a kitchen remains indispensable. That in itself got me thinking, about timing, about doing things at moments of convenience for those around you.

In a 45 minute burst on Sunday afternoon, the kitchen was transformed. It is that moment when the first top coat goes on and boom – there is instant change. The colour you’ve picked is suddenly all over the walls. The old has gone, the new has come.

It got me thinking about leadership. I’ve met people who live for that “boom”, who seem to spent their entire lives seeking that 45 minute burst, that big signature, instant burst of colour change. It’s an adrenaline rush and a pretty exciting moment to be part of.

The reality is however, when it comes to the renovation, that it has taken over two years to get to that 45 minute transformation. First the big picture preparation – the large holes in the walls that needed to be filled, the lighting that needed to be changed, the pantry that needed to be built, the window that needed to be replaced. This is large scale project management, a time line of organising.

Second the small picture preparation – the plastering, again and again, the sanding, the spot undercoating. This is the painstaking part. Ironically, it is the preparation that will make or break what makes the paint job. Every blemish is magnified under lights, every poorly sanded surface is magnified in the right (wrong?) light.

Having finished, first the two years of preparation and second, the 45 minute “boom”, our work was hardly done. Much still stretched in front of us. Not just a final top coat but also the finishing touches. In this case, the skirtings and beading. It is these small changes that bring completion.

So, a number of leadership lessons tied up in the weekend renovation. There are times to prep – often years, often dirty, often painstaking. There are times to “boom” and bring large scale, sweeping momentum, a new grand gesture. There are times to attend to finish, to pay attention to detail, to take the final moments of care.

All of this comes down to a mix of planning and discernment, to preparation and timing.

Dispersed Lent Journal Project 2014

This week I released these around the 34 Lipsett Terrace community

Four journals. On the front cover, the following words … Open me, browse me, take me, write in me, return me.

Inside, mainly blank white pages. A few images, a few practices, in case people get stuck. And the following explanation

Dispersed Lent Journal Project

Here at 34 Lipsett Terrace, we are a dispersed community. We are students, staff, teachers. We are post-graduates and undergraduates. We are studying for audit and for credit. We are casual library borrowers and we are hard working full-time students.

The Lenten journal project invites those who cross paths at 34 Lipsett Terrace to share with each other, through a dispersed pattern, what the season of Lent means to us.

The Overview: Lent in the church year is a time to focus on spiritual renewal. Different traditions in the church do this differently. The Dispersed Lent journals invite you to share with each other what this season means to you and how you connect more fully with the God-story in the days leading up to Easter.

The concept: A journal is a place to write. We can write privately, for ourselves. We can write publicly for others. The Lent journal invites us to write publicly, to share faith with each other.

How to proceed?
1. Once you have received the journal, you have no more than seven and no less than two days to spend with it.
2. During those days, put whatever you like in the journal – thoughts, ideas, drawings, photos, recipes, reflections – anything that captures what Lent means for you and how you connect with God during this season. Be creative. Use the exercises or images. Write in your own language.
3. Write aware that what you write will be read by a stranger. That is the nature of a public journal.
4. When you are finished, pass the journal onto another person in the Department of Flinders or ACD or UCLT or Adelaide Theological Library community.
a) It might be someone in your class
b) It might be a lecturer or staff person
c) You might leave it on the table in the Common Space or Adelaide Theological Library.
5. If you get given a journal for a second or third time, it will most likely be different than the first time you received it – different time, more input. You could pass it on straight away. Or treat it as an invitation to write further.

Who gets a journal? Four journals have been prepared. Each is different – different visual, different set of potential practices. Each will be touched by different hands, passed to different people. Each will encounter you at a different time in Lent. Each will be released into the 34 Lipsett Terrace community during the first week of Lent. After the initial release, who knows where the journals will go. Such is the mystery of God in the community.

How is it shared? The journals are public. If you see one, feel free to browse it. When finished, we might scan journal pages (including onto the website) and use them in ongoing ways around the 34 Lipsett Tce campus to encourage students and enhance worship.

So please be aware that by participating in this project, your work will be shared with others.

After Easter, please return the journals to:
Steve Taylor, Uniting College

It will be fascinating to see what happens over Lent.

leadership: giftedness or weakness

I hear a lot of talk about leadership giftedness. We have strengths, we have talents, we have “sweet spots” and we are called to find ways to express those. The body of Christ is diverse and we need to offer our uniqueness.

As Lent begins, I’m pondering leadership weakness.

As this first image from Si Smith’s wonderful 40, Jesus packs away what he is has spent a life being good at, packs away the tools of his trade, what gives him security, income and purpose.

And heads off into the wilderness, to places of insecurity and discomfort, where he will meet his inner self, face his temptations.

My strengths give me security. I know I can write and speak and improvise on my feet. I know I can listen well, find a clear phrase, think through a situation.

My strengths can be habitual. I turn to what I know, to what is well worn and familiar. Yet in times of immense transition, the future might actually be found in new habits, new people, new postures.

I wonder what it means if I were to pack away the tools of my trade – turn off the computer, the cell phone – and head into the wilderness. I wonder what temptations would find me.

And whether they are best met by my strength? Or by my weakness?

Ecclesial practices proposals for American Academy of Religion

I was very excited to hear last week that American Academy of Religion, one of the largest academic conferences in the world, had added a new subject area – Ecclesial Practices.

While this is exactly in my area of current research, the deadline for papers was today, Monday 3 March. So I’ve been working most evenings, trying to knock something together. Each person is allowed to submit two papers for consideration. This involves a 150 word abstract, plus a 1000 word proposal, which if accepted need to be further developed for presentation (at the annual conference in San Diego in November). It’s a fair bit of work!

But I’ve been searching through my hard drive, and been pleasantly surprised to discover some bits and pieces of writing from a number of sources that can be massaged into something I think is cohesive.

For those interested:

Proposal for Ecclesial Practices and Practical Theology: Lost in translation: the priority of anecdotes in discerning embodied doctrine

This article explores one analytical method by which practical theology might attend to both the descriptive and the theological.

It applies the work of Van Manen (Researching Lived Experience), and his methodological categories of knots in the webs of experience and anecdotes, to an ethnographic study of an emerging church ten years on. The anecdotes present in the data will be catalogued and then a selection probed for evidence of their doctrinal content. This will demonstrate, both by presence and in function, that anecdotes as short stories connected to real life are a repeated source by which this community chooses to express their wisdom.

It will thus be argued that anecdotes uncovered in the descriptive mode that characterizes social sciences are equally a rich lode through which to uncover doctrine as it is embodied in ecclesial practices.

Proposal for Ecclesial Practices – An ecclesiology of natality: an emerging church ten years on

This paper takes a longitudinal look at an emerging church, drawing on empirical research conducted in 2000 and again in 2010.

It will be argued that natality has emerged as a distinct ecclesial practice. Grace Jantzen argued for the importance of natality in theology, as a way to reference a symbolic in which lies the potential for new beginnings. She suggested it is characterized by embodiment, relationality, hopefulness and engenderment.

It will be argued that natality is more evident in the life of this emerging church in 2010 as demonstrated in demographic changes, gender differences and a shift of community creativity, from artistic reflections on Stations of the Cross to Advent in Art.

This allows an ecclesiological turn. An Advent narrative in the Lectionary cycle and the ecclesiology of Rowan Williams (Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin) seem to affirm ecclesial practices that offer embodiment, relationality, hopefulness and engenderment.