Message for middle school assembly.
On the YouTube screen of your mind, imagine photos of a smiling child. Words flash on the screen against a dark background, and tell us about some disability or accident. Next we see images of the child learning to overcome the disability.
We've all seen these kinds of videos. If we'd been meeting today where we could use a screen, Omar wanted to show us the one of the disabled team manager who shot three three-pointers in the last seconds of his last game. Some of my students have written plays and stories based on the story of Bethany Hamilton, the professional surfer who lost an arm in a shark encounter.
When all the friends who supported the athletes are cheering and hugging them, these films make us say "awww." They may even bring tears to our eyes.
But most of us watching those videos aren't disabled. None of us wants to be.
So why are these videos so popular? What do they have to show students who aren't disabled?
I asked Brad Brown, long-time athlete and coach who heads our school's admissions department. He guesses that we love the videos because they display in a physical way, the qualities of grit and determination.
Watching these, each of us thinks privately, "If I were disabled, I hope I'd have that same kind of attitude and will power."
But every day presents us with the chance to show that same kind of grit and determination, only not in a way that would look very exciting on screen. In Mrs. Whitehead's math class, you show it by not giving up on a problem after the first try. In my class, it's unfolding the paper you crumpled up to try one more way to express your idea. Mr. Brown reminded me of our volleyball team last week, digging in when they were down in the score and opposed by a home-team crowd to win.
You don't have to be disabled to feel unable; and you have a chance every day to show how you won't give up -- or to encourage someone else to keep going -- even if it doesn't make it onto YouTube.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
What Mr. Suchet Saw: Christ in Agatha Christie
Reflections on Murder on the Orient Express, produced for the series Agatha Christie: Poirot, in 2010, starring David Suchet, directed by Philip Martin, screenplay adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel by Stewart Harcourt. Other sources consulted include The Daily Mail and Nick Baldock's essay "The Christian World of Agatha Christie," First Things, www.firsthings.com August 2009.
I owe Agatha Christie an apology. After my devotion to her murder-mysteries during my early teens, I threw her over for writers more textured and more intentional about showing their world view. Though I delighted in the film Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and the BBC's Poirot series, I gave all the credit to actors who, I said, supplied reality that her two-dimensional imagination did not. But the latest screen adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express co-produced for the Poirot series by its leading actor David Suchet, strips her story down to its bare elements to show a dark, consistent, and religious, world view.
In Christie's story, while the trans-continental railroad is blocked overnight by a snow drift, someone stabs to death an odious American millionaire. Seeking to avoid bad publicity, an official of the train prevails upon passenger Hercule Poirot to identify the culprit. Early in his investigation, Poirot discovers that the dead man was a notorious kidnapper who had killed his young victim even before the distraught parents paid the ransom. (Christie wrote the novel shortly after the sensational real-life kidnapping and killing of Charles Lindbergh's little girl). Repercussions of the kidnapping spread throughout the girl's household and beyond. In gross miscarriage of justice, the kidnapper had bribed a corrupt D.A. and absconded with his loot.
When the justice system has failed, is it not justice for the murderer to be murdered? The question arises naturally from the situation; twelve stab wounds on the man suggest a verdict.
Suchet and his creative team highlight the problem by framing the story with images of justice, punishment, and confession. In the first scene of the movie, taking place in Istanbul, Poirot confronts a soldier who has lied about his whereabouts in a certain case, bringing "dishonor" to his regiment. The soldier shoots himself on the spot, leaving Poirot defensive when challenged for badgering the man so. Outside Istanbul's train station, Poirot witnesses a mob stoning a woman for adultery. In each case, Poirot maintains belief in abstract justice, strict and impartial.
Suchet's Orient Express illustrates an observation about God's justice from a character in another Christie novel, The Moving Finger Writes, "God doesn’t really need to punish us.... We’re so very busy punishing ourselves" (Baldock). In Suchet's Orient Express, we see both Poirot and the kidnapper in their separate compartments kneeling at prayers, each praying for forgiveness. We already knew that the fugitive is fearful of retribution; now we see him tearful with self-loathing.
Portraying Poirot since the late 1980s, Suchet feels deep sympathy with the character, whom he initially dismissed as a stereotype, as I did. In his memoir Poirot and Me, Suchet writes how he feared that identification with the character would make it impossible for audiences ever to see him again in more serious roles. Then he gave Agatha Christie a second look."The Poirot in the books was nothing like the character I’d seen on screen," Suchet tells us. "[H]e was more elusive, more pedantic, and most of all, more human. But I still wasn’t sure whether I should play him" (excerpt in The Daily Mail).
At the same time, Suchet found he was in sympathy with Dame Agatha when he accepted the Christian world view and joined the Anglican Communion. Her biographer Gillian Gill asserts that religion, though "rarely discussed in Christie's mystery novels" yet "provides the framework for all her writing" (Gill, cited in Baldock). Historian Nick Baldock, writing in the Christian journal First Things, explains:
In her autobiography, Christie told of the lasting impact on young Agatha when her math teacher got off-subject to say:
Suchet's version, without big stars but acted with conviction, with a tension-building ostinato but no characteristic theme, leaves us with a very different feeling. Justice has been done; all is not right with the world; and Poirot, clutched by self-doubt, clutches his rosary. It's powerful, and wonderful, and it's all there for the sensitive to see in the original Agatha Christie.
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| [First Photo: Poirot confronts the passengers, 1974] |
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| [Second Photo: Poirot's confrontation, 2010] |
I owe Agatha Christie an apology. After my devotion to her murder-mysteries during my early teens, I threw her over for writers more textured and more intentional about showing their world view. Though I delighted in the film Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and the BBC's Poirot series, I gave all the credit to actors who, I said, supplied reality that her two-dimensional imagination did not. But the latest screen adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express co-produced for the Poirot series by its leading actor David Suchet, strips her story down to its bare elements to show a dark, consistent, and religious, world view.
In Christie's story, while the trans-continental railroad is blocked overnight by a snow drift, someone stabs to death an odious American millionaire. Seeking to avoid bad publicity, an official of the train prevails upon passenger Hercule Poirot to identify the culprit. Early in his investigation, Poirot discovers that the dead man was a notorious kidnapper who had killed his young victim even before the distraught parents paid the ransom. (Christie wrote the novel shortly after the sensational real-life kidnapping and killing of Charles Lindbergh's little girl). Repercussions of the kidnapping spread throughout the girl's household and beyond. In gross miscarriage of justice, the kidnapper had bribed a corrupt D.A. and absconded with his loot.
When the justice system has failed, is it not justice for the murderer to be murdered? The question arises naturally from the situation; twelve stab wounds on the man suggest a verdict.
Suchet and his creative team highlight the problem by framing the story with images of justice, punishment, and confession. In the first scene of the movie, taking place in Istanbul, Poirot confronts a soldier who has lied about his whereabouts in a certain case, bringing "dishonor" to his regiment. The soldier shoots himself on the spot, leaving Poirot defensive when challenged for badgering the man so. Outside Istanbul's train station, Poirot witnesses a mob stoning a woman for adultery. In each case, Poirot maintains belief in abstract justice, strict and impartial.
Suchet's Orient Express illustrates an observation about God's justice from a character in another Christie novel, The Moving Finger Writes, "God doesn’t really need to punish us.... We’re so very busy punishing ourselves" (Baldock). In Suchet's Orient Express, we see both Poirot and the kidnapper in their separate compartments kneeling at prayers, each praying for forgiveness. We already knew that the fugitive is fearful of retribution; now we see him tearful with self-loathing.
Portraying Poirot since the late 1980s, Suchet feels deep sympathy with the character, whom he initially dismissed as a stereotype, as I did. In his memoir Poirot and Me, Suchet writes how he feared that identification with the character would make it impossible for audiences ever to see him again in more serious roles. Then he gave Agatha Christie a second look."The Poirot in the books was nothing like the character I’d seen on screen," Suchet tells us. "[H]e was more elusive, more pedantic, and most of all, more human. But I still wasn’t sure whether I should play him" (excerpt in The Daily Mail).
At the same time, Suchet found he was in sympathy with Dame Agatha when he accepted the Christian world view and joined the Anglican Communion. Her biographer Gillian Gill asserts that religion, though "rarely discussed in Christie's mystery novels" yet "provides the framework for all her writing" (Gill, cited in Baldock). Historian Nick Baldock, writing in the Christian journal First Things, explains:
From a theological perspective, the detective genre is inclined towards a Catholic interpretation in contrast to the more Protestant thriller; the former deals with the community, the latter the individual protagonist. ...Everybody [in the detective genre] is guilty of something; it may offer hope that the problem has a solution, but evil will not be expunged as a result. It is one problem with one solution; it is a small victory in a much larger, indeed an eternal, war. The detective novel is the world’s most Augustinian genre and not, in consequence, especially reassuring. (Baldock)
To be a Christian you must face and accept the life that Christ faced and lived; you must enjoy things as he enjoyed things; be as happy as he was at the marriage at Cana, know the peace and happiness that it means to be at harmony with God and with God’s will. But you must also know, as he did, what it means to be alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, to feel that all your friends have forsaken you, that those you love and trust have turned away from you, and that God Himself has forsaken you. Hold on then to the belief that that is not the end. (Christie, in Baldock)While Suchet's Orient Express is what he called "serious fun" in interviews before its release, the delightful Hollywood version also conjured joy, spirit, and the same meditation on justice. Director Sidney Lumet emphasized the style of the era, while assembling a cast of stars who brought auras of public personas with them. The evocative score by Richard Rodney Bennett played with the tension between two distinct themes. The first, a romantic minor-key piano showpiece that Bennett based on the syllables of the title "Murder on the Orient Express," veers towards tango; the second is a grand, golden waltz to accompany images of the massive train itself. When the solution is found, the mood is sunny and celebratory.
Suchet's version, without big stars but acted with conviction, with a tension-building ostinato but no characteristic theme, leaves us with a very different feeling. Justice has been done; all is not right with the world; and Poirot, clutched by self-doubt, clutches his rosary. It's powerful, and wonderful, and it's all there for the sensitive to see in the original Agatha Christie.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
"Those Crazy Episcopalians," continued: Blessing of the Animals
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| [Photo: L-R: Lou B.&friend; Luis & me; Riva &Suzanne; the Whites & friend. |
So what's the meaning of parishioners' gathering at the church on a Saturday with their dogs? Passers-by on Marietta's Church Street may have wondered at our Rector in robes, leading us in prayers and in readings from scripture, sprinkling us all with consecrated water, and placing a hand on each furry head to pronounce a blessing. What good does it do? Is this "blessing" some superstitious ritual to ensure good luck?
We have lots of answers. We honored the memory of St. Francis, who preached to animals, "using words, when necessary."
For what good it does the animals, well, it was a treat for the dogs to mill about making friends;
little Riva (Boston Terrier of my friend Suzanne) spent so much energy
wagging and panting that she slept all the way home.
We took this time to review Scriptures that show that God intended for us to care for animals, from Eden and Ark to the Sabbath provision of rest even for our beasts of burden.
To some who asked about dogs' souls "going to heaven," Father Allen explained that the popular notion of Heaven as a lofty antiseptic place misses the point made throughout Scripture that God plans a new creation, as we say each Sunday, "We believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting." A new world surely won't be devoid of animal life.
We Episcopalians begin our theological reflections with the statement repeated seven times on the first page of the Bible, that creation is "good, very good." Any Thing in our lives can be a sacrament, "an outward and visible sign of an inner and spiritual reality." Blessing bread and wine, blessing a marriage, blessing our dogs -- these are all "sacrifices," in the original sense of "making sacred" the elements of our daily lives.
But most of all, I look forward to this annual event for its effect on me, when I remember that little old Luis, and, before him, Bo, Cleo, Churchill, Colonel and Missy -- have been blessings to me, and I to them. The ceremony is a public statement of gratitude and intention, the true meaning of "celebration."
We Episcopalians are crazy about celebrating every thing that gives life meaning.
PS - I did not bring my two-year-old rescue dog Mia to the service. She doesn't "mix" well. As Father Allen said, "The Bishop doesn't allow me to perform exorcisms."
See my earlier reflection on "Those Crazy Episcopalians." I'm sure there's enough material to produce a series! Another article, Dogs are Poetry, reflected on spiritual connections to our animal companions.
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