NPR devoted some time Age of Adz in a first listen. But now Heather and Josh from Seattle Pacific Seminary will evaluate Stevens’ last album after several hundred listens. We want to look at Age of Adz as a whole, cohesive album, while giving way for the peculiarities of the individual tracks to also take some spotlight. Age of Adz is as a very cohesive, focused piece somehow composed out of chaos. Sufjan mentioned somewhere that he began and ended the album with folk because that’s ultimately what he is, a folk artist. But he describes his jaunt into electronic music as something he’s always been into (see his album Enjoy Your Rabbit, 2002), AND something that is more…”explicit.” An odd word to use, yes.

Simply we want to share why Stevens has infatuated us for over a year now with Age of Adz. We encourage you to listen along to the album as you read, send us your disagreements, and what you think about the album.

Themes:
Madness
If love drives us, what could it drive us to in all its passion, especially when diverted by the object of its desire? In Adz, Stevens seems to think that madness is one of the possible destinations along the unmarked paths of love, and probably more like a ditch that is located a little too close for comfort along the side of every possible route. Enormous wrecks can occur at moment’s notice in the pursuit of love, and the true pursuit of love can only be made at the highest level of risk. Madness isn’t the goal, but the line between love and madness is quite thin. As one listens to Adz, the fear of madness and the desire to be with the beloved battle one another, and this becomes apparent even in the wild cacophony of strange, otherworldly, frenetic sounds and tightly orchestrated strings and brass.

Love in All its Forms and Colors
Age of Adz is just as much about love as it is madness. In fact every song, even Vesuvius, deals in some way with the theme of love. The album explores the many kinds and stages of love, but tends to focus on the painful end or the aspects of longing desire. Love it seems is fleeting, it does not quite work out. The love of friendship, while fine is not enough, the affections of a lover can easily be lost, and love is not always consistent with faithfulness to God. Love according to Age of Adz is dirty, painful, and focused on too much, but of course it is still lovely, still to be desired.  As the Impossible Soul states “But all I want is the perfect love/ Though I know it’s small, I want love for us all.”

Apocalypse/ End of the World
Another constant, driving force through Adz is the impending doom of the world. Channeling the schizophrenic artist and self-proclaimed prophet Royal Robertson–who predicts biblical destruction in the near future, much of which is evidenced by the alleged infidelity of his wife–Stevens brings us images of the disastrous future that awaits, and what happens in the meantime. But Adz isn’t a list of dispensationalist tribulations that conclude in a terrifying, universal judgment–though the images are certainly there. Instead, it is a deeply personal vision of a possible, not-so-distant future in an intimate relationship. Stevens’ evocation of the apocalypse is a revealing of the inherent risk of a real relationship, and of what is truly at stake when someone loves another. If we lose a significant part of ourselves, would we describe it as feeling like the end of the world? Stevens would.

Laughter as Submission

Futile Devices [1]

…And I would say I love you
But saying it out loud is hard
So I won’t say it at all
And I won’t stay very long

But you are life I needed all along
I think of you as my brother
Although that sounds dumb

And words are futile devices

Listening tips
Comfort, tenderness. Friendship. A short folk song reminiscent of Sufjan’s typical style

Too Much [2]

…But now I’m lonely as that, I put up a fight
So pick up your battering ram, love, I want to see it

There’s too much riding on that [word]
There’s too much, too much, too much love…

Listening tips
Bloopy, bleepy.  Heartbreak. “People would never fall in love if they hadn’t heard love talked about.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Age of Adz [3]

…The gorgeous mess of
Your face impressed us
Imposed in all its art
This is the Age of Adz
Eternal living

When it dies, when it dies, it rots
And when it lives, when it lives
It gives it all it gots
This is the Age of Adz
Eternal living…

Listening tips
INSANE.  Religious themes: afterlife, eternal living, Gloria, Victoria. This song feels like finding love at the end of the world only to give it up.

I Walked [4]

…Lover, will you look from me now
I’m already dead, but I’ve come to explain
Why I left such a mess on the floor
For when you went away I went crazy
I was wild with the breast of a dog
I ran through the night with the knife in my chest
With the lust of your loveless life…

Listening tips
Pathetic.  Break-ups are not always mutual.

Now That I’m Older [5]

…The silent man comes down
All dressed in radiant colors
You see it for yourself
To demonstrate my love for you
You I thought I was so in love
Some say it wasn’t true
Now that I’m older
Now, now that I’m older…

Listening tips
Ephemeral. Hindsight is 20/20.

Get Real Get Right [6]

Listening tips
This song has the quality of of a prophet from Mars coming to Earth and attempting to bring us and his/herself back to right relations with the LORD.  Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (Matthew 3:6).”

Bad Communication [7]

…I’ll talk but I know you won’t listen to me
Oh you wouldn’t say it but you wanted to
Don’t look, don’t walk away while I am speaking
I’ll take it, but I know it’s not for taking…

Listening tips
Listening is important.

Vesuvius [8]

…Vesuvius
Are you a ghost
Or the symbols of light
Or a fantasy host?
In your breast
I carry the form
The heart of the Earth
And the weapons of warmth…
Vesuvius
Fire of fire
Follow me now
As I favor the ghost

Follow me now
Or follow down

Why does it have to be so hard?

Listening tips
Vesuvius as friend, Lover, Volcano, or Holy Spirit?

All for Myself [9]

Listening tips
This song feels like summer days when you know you can conquer the world.

I Want To Be Well [10]

I want to be well, I want to be well
I want to be well, I want to be well

And I forgive you even
As you choke me that way
With the pill or demon
And the shrouded shalom
Under conversation
In tremendous weight of
A crowd of ages outside
Dressed for murder

I’m not f[ing] around
I’m not, I’m not, I’m not f[ing] around

Listening tips
seriously seeking health

Impossible Soul [11]

Seems I got it wrong, I was chasing after something that was gone
To the black of night, now I know it’s not what I wanted at all
And you said something like, “All you want is all the world for yourself”
But all I want is the perfect love
Though I know it’s small, I want love for us all

And all I couldn’t sing, I would say it all, my life, to you
If I could get you at all
Trying to be something that I wasn’t at all

…

It’s a long life, better pinch yourself
Put your face together, better get it right
It’s a long life, better hit yourself
Put your face together, better stand up straight
In the wrong light, everything is chance
Does it register? Do you wanna dance?
In the right light, it’s a miracle
Possibility, do you wanna dance?

Listening tips
Epic.  5 stanzas/acts.

Heather and Josh can be counted as experts when it comes to Sufjan Stevens and Age of Adz.  Heather has exclusively, repetitively and compulsively listened to Age of Adz in her car/headphones/house for over a year.  Josh is Stevens’ #1 Internet stalker and was privileged enough to see Stevens’ perform Age of Adz live in Seattle in October 2010.  If you are interested in more information (if this can be possible) about Age of Adz or Sufjan Stevens please visit these resources….

http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/utr/interviewMore/CID/268/N/Sufjan-Stevens.utr

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/arts/music/17sufjan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

http://postpostrock.com/2011/07/22/adz-and-ends-an-interview-with-sufjan-stevens-part-1-of-3/

http://postpostrock.com/2011/07/22/music-for-the-5-an-interview-with-sufjan-stevens-part-2-of-3/

http://postpostrock.com/2011/07/23/adz-and-ends-an-interview-with-sufjan-stevens-part-3-of-3/

Game of Thrones has be receiving increased popularity over the last several months as George R.R. Martin’s series of novels (the first five are currently published) are being made into an HBO series. While the HBO series seems to be greatly exaggerating the number of scenes including sex, nudity and incest, it appears fairly accurate in terms of fighting, drinking and foul language.  Religion plays an interesting role in the book as some, the Starks, pray to the old gods, while others have abandoned them for new, more relatable, and less creepy gods.  The book itself is compelling, although very light on the fantasy particularly compared to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy or The Kingkiller Chronicle.

Instead of having a single protagonist there are eight point of view (POV) characters in the novel, which leads to a multilayered, though at times a frustrating read as storylines are picked up and abandoned for a time every chapter.  The following is a short look at each of the POV characters and their role in the novel.

Eddard “Ned” Stark had a lovely life with his wife, Catelyn, and children (Robb age 14, Jon Snow also 14, Sansa age 12, Arya age 8, Bran age 6, Rickton age 3) at the Stark family castle called Winterfell.  That is until the king, Ned’s old friend Robert came to visit.  Ned and Robert had helped take the kingdom from the king dubbed Aerys the Mad.  When Robert comes to visit he requests that ned become his “Hand,” which essentially does all the dirty or boring business the King does not wish to do. Eddard agrees, despite hardship from his wife, and decides to take along his daughters Sansa and Arya. Ned always tries to do the right thing, even if it would cause him additional hardship.   Cateyln Stark is of the House of Tulleys, a rich family who holds lands in Riverrun.  She is a strong woman, who loves her husband, however she sees nothing but ruin for their family at Eddard becoming the Hand of the King.

Jon Snow is the illegitimate child of Eddard Stark and an unknown woman.  He is the same age as Eddard and Cateyln Stark’s oldest son Robb.  While Eddard loves Jon, Catelyn cannot tolerate him due to being reminded of her husband’s infidelity early in their marriage.  After his father pledges to move south, Jon, knowing Catelyn would not allow him to stay at Winterfell, choose to join the Night’s Watch like his uncle Benjen Stark.  The Night’s Watch is similar to a monastery, if the monks traded prayer for swordplay.  Those who take the black become permanent member of the Night’s Watch, keeping the civilized world of the Seven Kingdoms safe from the wilds of the highest North by maintaining a giant wall as well as watching the north.  The Night’s Watch is a brotherhood sworn to the good of all the people in the Seven Kingdoms and thus also sworn not to marry, have children, or leave the Wall.

Sansa Stark is a typical 12 year old girl, in love with dresses and as a hopeful princess she quickly falls in love with the prince, Joffrey.  Arya Stark very unlike her sister does not want to fall in love or marry a prince, but would rather learn how to swordfight, a skill her father eventaully agrees to let her learn although her lessions are known as “dancing lessons.” Brandon “Bran” Stark stays in the family castle in Wintersfell because right before his father is to ride south with his sisters Bran is pushed off a building by Jaime Lannister the Queen’s twin brother and lover when bran catches them in their sin.  Bran thus has to struggle with being paralyzed at a young age.

Daenerys “Dany” Targaryen is according to some the rightful heir to the throne.  She and her brother Viserys are the only living descendants of King Aerys.  At 13 Viserys sells/gifts Dany to a powerful warlord in the  Dothraki clan, Khal Drogo.  Viserys hopes that in turn Drogo will grant him an army to take back his father’s throne, but the winy, pushy, abusive brother of Dany does not get his wish and if there is going to be another Targaryen on the throne it will have to be Daenerys herself, or perhaps one of her children.

Tyrion Lannister is brother to the Queen, Ceseri, but also an oddity and slight outcast to his family because he is a dwarf or “halfman” as he is more often called.  While aligned by the evil Lannisters by blood, Tyrion, due to his dwarfism, swings between tragedy and comic relief in the novel.  He is one of the most interesting characters as his point of view allows an insight into the Lannisters and a foil to the Starks.  Tyrion refuses or perhaps is not allowed to be aligned with either family and thus often ends up in the middle, this and his undying selfishness lends Tyrion to go to great lengths for his own preservation.

The Bluest Eye is a hauntingly tragic portrayal of race in america, specifically the midwest, during the years following the Great Depression.  While the novel centers on Pecola Breedlove, she is often portrayed as a minor character as the majority of chapters in the novel are from the perspective of another character in the book.  The novel is narrated mostly by Claudia, both as a young girl and as an adult, as well as through some third person narration.  In the pages before the first part of the book entitled Autumn adult Claudia writes

Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941.  We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow…We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt.  Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair. What is clear now is that all of that hope, fear, lust, love and greif, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth.  Cholly Breedlove is dead: our innocence too.  The seeds shriveled and died; her baby too.

There is really nothing more to say–except why.  But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

The Bluest Eye is filled with the challenging matters of race, incest, poverty, child molestation, prostitution, domestic violence, substance abuse and portrays Christianity as either irrelevant to the lives of many or simply a way (like perceived racial superiority) to pronounce yourself righteous and to condemn those less religious as immoral.  For Morrision Pecola’s experience is not to be seen as typical of African American girls in America, but perhaps an extreme of what can happen to these young girls who are despised for their race, poverty and ugliness if they have no one to rely on.  Two of the most intriguing themes in the novel is the notion of beauty and the idea that love is only as good as the lover.

Pecola is described, as is the rest of her family as ugly

Mrs. Breedlove, Sammy Breedlove and pecola Breedlove–wore their ugliness, put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to them…YOu looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source.  Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction.  It was as  though some mysterious all knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question…And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and when about the world with it.

Throughout the novel it is made clear that the beauty that is valued in little girls is the kind of beauty that Shirley Temple has.  Pecola’s beauty is not valued, understood or seen by others.  In the environment that Pecola lives in, an environment that says she is ugly, she develops such a desire for blue eyes that she falls into madness.  Madness that is certainly coupled by her father’s actions of “love.”

Love is never any better than the lover.  Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe.  There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love.  The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.

For Morrison the quality of love that is given can only be as good as the one who loves, which is clearly seen in the life of Pecola as she is surrounded by broken people who love brokenly.  It may be this belief that causes Morrison so much angst in regards to Christianity.  Is our broken love really any good to God, and depending on your view of God the love of God may not be of a great quality either.

I appreciated The Bluest Eye so much that I ended up purchasing three more of Morrison’s novels at one of Seattle Public Library mini spring sales (the next one is June 22 – 24, 2012).  I am looking forward this summer to settling down with A Mercy, Song of Solomon, and Paradise.

The Bluest Eye is one of several novels and memoirs that have been assigned for THEO 6510 Theology of Race and Culture.

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s 2004 novel, is one that I have heard a lot about for several years.  It is one of those books that seems to come up in discussions of favorites. The novel won the  2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award.  In addition President Barack Obama lists Gilead as one of his favorite books on his facebook page.  I attempted to read Gilead on a midnight greyhound to Spokane once, but the slow pace of the book could not compete with my increasingly strong desire to sleep or the strange characters that night busses always tend to collect.  This time around I was much more successful as we were reading Gilead as a class for THEO 6720: Vocational Discernment & Discipleship.

Gilead is in essence the fictitious autobiography of John Ames who is writing about his life to his young son.  Ames is a pastor during the late 1950’s in Gilead Iowa.  His narration of his own life revolves around what it is like to be a minister, his relationship with his own father and grandfather, his relationship with his namesake, observations of his young wife and son, and his feelings around the death of a wife and daughter.  The book itself is rather slow, both in subject matter and writing.  In many ways Gilead feels as though you are speaking with someone else’s grandfather.  Stories are jumbled and tend to drop off and reappear in odd places and yet somehow at the end the old guy has told a cohesive narrative.

While personally Gilead did not hold up to all the hype and esteem that surrounds the book, there are several very intriguing themes: sacraments as echoes, blessings as sacraments and the sacramentality of ordinary life.

For Ames every sacramental act echoes back to other sacramental acts.  Thus a current baptism echoes back to Ames baptizing his wife, his dying infant daughter, and  the litter of kittens he baptized as a boy.  The beauty and connectivity of sacraments is something we often miss.  Shouldn’t every baptism we see echo back to our own.

Here I am trying to be wise, the way a father should be, the way an old pastor certainly should be.  I don’t know what to say except that the worst misfortune isn’t only misfortune–and even as I write those words, I have that infant Rebecca in my mind, they was she looked while I held her, which I seem to remember, because every single time I have christened a baby I have thought of her again.  That feeling of a baby’s brow against the palm of your hand–How I have loved this life.

Ames also broadens the category of sacrament from simply baptism and communion to inclusive of blessing.  Blessings take a significant role in the book, and in many ways overshadow the other prevalent themes of baptism and communion.

And he took his hat off and set it on his knee and closed his eyes and lowered his head, almost rested it against my hand, and I did bless him to the limit of my powers, whatever they are, repeating the benediction from Numbers….Nothing could be more beautiful than that, or more expressive of my feelings, certainly or more sufficient, for that matter…Then he sat back and looked at me as if he were waking out of a dream.

The theme that I found most moving was an understanding of the sacramentality of ordinary life.  For Ames in the last few weeks of his life every meal is communion, every moment with water is a baptism and basically every conversation is a blessing.  This does not at all diminish congregational sacraments in church, but rather infuses life with a holy tenor.

My Father brought me some biscuit that had soot on it from his hands.  “Never mind,” he said “there’s nothing cleaner than ash.”  But it affected the taste of that biscuit, which I thought might resemble the bread of affliction, which was often in those days, though it’s rather forgotten now.

What would our lives look like if dinner with family and friends was seen as a sacrament.  If we looked for the holiness in a conversation over coffee.  If the mere act of showering or washing one’s face was connected to baptism?

“How long was I gone?”
“Two minutes.  I told you, it’s always two minutes.  No matter how long you stay.”  He coughed, spat into a fresh wad of napkins and folded them away in his pocket.  “And when you go down the steps it’s always 11:58 A.M. on the morning of September ninth 1958.  Every trip is the first trip…”
“Every time is the first time.” I [Jake] said slowly, putting a space around each word.  Trying to get them to make sense in my mind.
“Right.”
“And every person you meet is meeting you for the first time, no matter how many times you’ve met before.
“Right.”

Essentially what Al and now Jake have stumbled in to is time travel to one specific day with an automatic reset button if the person doing the time traveling ends up ruining the world.  Unfortunately for Jake, Al is quickly dying of cancer. Leading Al to pass on his life’s mission to Jake–Save John F. Kennedy from assassination.

“That’s right,” [Al] said.  “I had to opt out.  But you’re not sick, buddy.  You’re healthy and in the prime of life.  You can go back, and you can stop it.”
He leaned forward, his eyes not just bright; they were blazing.
“You can change history, Jake.  Do you understand that?  John Kennedy can live.”

Al and Jake decide on JFK because his assassination is well within a timeline where Jake could change the world, after waiting and planning for only 5 years, and still enjoy the altered present.  Stopping 9/11 would leave Jake an old man while stopping Hitler is too far in the past for the rabbit-hole to allow for.  So Jake takes on the alias of George Amberson and travels to 1958 a time before the internet, where women and people of color were not valued as equal, where gas is cheap enough to justify a Ford Sunliner, and where the future of 2012 is nothing more than a bright dream. Of course the past is resistant to change and continually complicates Jake’s mission with flat tires, murderous ex husband’s, cancer, death, car accidents, mobsters, thugs and unhappy gamblers.

While 11/22/63, as a blend of historical and science fiction, is quite a different novel from the typical Stephen King, there are a few very traditional King horror scenes.  Jake/George is charged with saving a family from their father who attempts to bludgeon them all to death on Halloween.  Similarly Jake/George must save his sweetheart, Sadie, from her psychotic and OCD ex-husband who has disguised himself with long orange hair.  Although King does write a lot of horror, he is actually a fairly diverse writer with novels such as The Stand, apocalyptic dystopia, and The Eyes of The Dragon, fantasy.

11/22/63 feels in many ways like several separate but connected stories as Jake saves friends from their horrific pasts, learns to live in 1960’s, falls in love with the librarian Sadie Dunhill, and hunts JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.  Jake/George has a serious hero/savior/messiah/Jesus complex, which he is entitled to based on his knowledge of the future.  However, what Jake/George fails to realize is that while the past can be changed the resulting future is difficult to predict.

After Jake/George manages to stop the JFK assassination, hold his dying sweetheart in his arms, and be released by the FBI, he travels back through the rabbit hole to discover 2011 like he never imagined it: earthquakes, nuclear radiation all over the east coast, no civil rights movements in the 1960s leading to horrendous race riots, mass suicides around the world, increased fundamentalism of all kinds, and frequent nuclear bomb threats to and from foreign countries.  In short the world that Jake/George steps into is a nuclear wasteland with increased violence.

Jake may have saved JFK, but he failed to make the world a better place.  It is this that leads Jake to the most salvific thing he could do, trade living in the past with the love of his life for the health and safety of the world.  Jake returns to the past to reset things to the 2011/12 that we currently know, but our future is impossible if Jake and Sadie are together.  Jake may not have given up his own life and he certainly did not succeed with his original mission, but he sacrificed a life with Sadie for the good of the world.  That in itself is a beautiful thing.

The Christian hope does not lead us away from this life: it is rather the uncovering of the truth in which God sees our life.  It is the conquest of death, but not a flight into the Beyond.  The reality of this life is involved.  Eschatology, rightly understood, is the most practical thing that can be thought.  In the eschaton the light falls from above into our life.  We await this light.

Gustavo Gutierrez makes an even more bold claim in Theology of Liberation

One idea, however, has emerged: the Bible presents eschatology as the driving force of salvific history radically oriented toward the future.  Eschatology is thus not just one more element of Christianity, but the very key to understanding  the Christian faith.

If eschatology really is the key to understanding faith and involves the reality of this life then what is it that we believe? C. S. Lewis wrote many other fantasy stories beside the Narnia Chronicles, one of which, The Great Divorce, speaks to deeply eschatological questions.  The Last Battle, from the Narnia Chronicles looks at eschatological themes in a different setting than The Great Divorce.    Lewis in his The Great Divorce 1945 preface pleads:

I beg readers to remember that this is a fantasy.  It has of course–or I intended it to have–a moral.  But the transmortal conditions are solely an imaginative supposal: they are not even a guess or a speculation at what my actually await us.  The last thing I wish is to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the after-world

Thus The Great Divorce is not a prescription of what the eschaton will look like, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins should have taken a note from Lewis here.  Rather the eschatology in The Great Divorce is a theological idea of how the afterlife could be ordered.

Hell, known as grey town, is of course  grey, always in twilight and perpetually raining.  The people are quarrelsome, eager to fight and selfish.  Life is endless, anything wished for is granted at a low quality and there is nothing for the quarrelsome people to do but dwell on their own selfish obsessions.  There is no beauty or nature in grey town only street after street of grey abandoned houses stretching to infinity.  The Unnamed Protagonist feels drawn to a line, or queue, for a flying bus with the destination of heaven.

The bus lands in a grassy valley with a river, trees, animals (birds, lions and unicorns) distant mountains and perhaps most important the light of dawn.  The land is strange, it feels bigger to the Unnamed Protagonist than any other place and has a curious effect on the other passengers

At first, of course, my attention was caught by my fellow-passengers, who were still grouped about in the neighbourhood of the omnibus, though beginning, some of them, to walk forward into the landscape with hesitating steps.  I gasped when I saw them.  Now that they were in the light, they were transparent–fully transparent when they stood between me and it, smudgy and imperfectly opaque when they stood in the shadow of some tree.  They were in fact ghosts: man[and woman]-shaped stains on the brightness of that air.

The passengers have no effect on the landscape, they cannot crush a blade of grass or pluck a daisy.  On further inspection it seems that the landscape is more solid and more real than anything in grey town, leaving the passengers unable to fully interact with it.  Not long after the landing of the bus people made of light come to visit the ghost passengers.  These solid people of light can change the landscape, can scatter dew and crush grass with their feet or if they please pluck a daisy.  Soon it becomes clear that the Solid/Bright People are known by the ghosts before death.  The Solid/Bright People have come to ask for forgiveness and to act as servants and guides if their ghost wish to journey with their unsolid bodies up the mountains.  The Bright People are asking

Will you come with me to the mountains?  It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened.  Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.  But will you come?

Many of the ghost/bus passengers answer their Solid/Bright People with an emphatic NO!  and instead return to the bus and grey town.  Their reasons are all different, but ultimately all selfish.  As one Solid/Bright Person explains:

There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery.  There is always something they prefer to joy–that is, to reality.

Finally the  Unnamed Protagonist finds a Solid/Bright One to ask questions of.

“But I don’t understand.  Is judgement not final?  Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?”

“It depends on the way ye’re using the words.  If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell.  To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory.  And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven.  Not Deep Heaven, ye understand. (Here he smiled at me.) “ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life.  and yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first.  And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning….”

“But what of the poor Ghost who never get into the omnibus at all?

“Everyone who wishes it does.  Never fear.  There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done, “ and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”  All that are in Hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.  No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.  Those who seek find.  To those who knock it is opened.”

If our view of the end helps to shape how we live our lives now what is it that C.S. Lewis is asking of us today?  Surprisingly nothing particularly harsh or severe, but simply to desire joy, to let go of our selfishness, and to allow the will of God,who Lord is over Heaven, Earth and Hell, to be done in our lives.

Anyway in The Name of the Wind the main character Kvothe (orphan, adventurer, and future magician-hero) hears a story from a Thelin priest, Trapis, who runs a home for street children and the disabled.  The story is about Tehlu, who is god, and how he came to walk among humanity.  Trapis starts the story out by explaining:

It was a bad time in the world.  People were hungry and sick.  There were famines and great plagues.  There were many wars and other bad things in this time, because there was no one to stop them.

Even more terrible than the famines and plagues, were the demons, some of whom just bothered horses or spoiled food, while others hid in the bodies of humans.  There was one demon in particular, Encanis, who was the worst of the demons.  Tehlu, creator, lord, and watcher of the human world, was upset because of the demons. While Tehlu saved the few who were worthy something more drastic needed to be done.

After years of watching and waiting, Tehlu saw a woman pure of heart and spirit.  Her name was Perial.  Her mother had raised her to know Tehlu and she worshiped him as well as her poor circumstances allowed.  Although her own life was hard, Perial prayed only for others, and never for herself.

Seeing that Perial was holy, Telhu visited her in a dream.  In the dream Perial asks Telhu a very important question “What can you expect of people when demons are their neighbors?”  Telhu responds that humanity was wicked and that wickedness must be punished.  In response Perial boldly states that Telhu knows very little about what it is like to be human.  After the dream Perial discovers that she is pregnant, in three months she had a baby boy, which she named Menda.  In two months Menda had grown from a baby to a young man appearing to be 17 years old.  As the town comes to investigate Perial’s strange circumstances Menda makes an announcement.

I am not Menda, though that is what my mother called me.  I am Tehlu, lord above all.  I have come to free you from demons and the wickedness of your own hearts.  I am Tehlu, son of myself.  Let the wicked hear my voice and tremble.

Tehlu then draws a line in the dirt and makes the town choose if they want to be on his side of the line or not.  Crossing over leads to pain and punishment for now, while refusing to cross to Tehlu leads to death.  When the first townperson, Rengen, crosses Tehlu hits him three times with a hammer, gives Rengen the name Wereth, and embraces him to remove most, but not all of the pain.  Tehlu continues this with the town, hitting people with hammers and hugging them, in the process he drives out demons from individuals and converts the majority of the township.  Everyone gets hit with the hammer, but only those who cross over to Telhu are embraced.  Then Tehlu continues the pattern among many towns for seven years all the while hunting for Encanis.

Finally Encantis is the last demon roaming the earth.  Tehlu after many days of chasing catches up with Encantis and hits him with the hammer.  Encantis is not yet dead, but incapacitated due to the iron in the hammer.  Tehlu builds a prison of an iron wheel for Encantis and while Encantis is bound to the terrible iron wheel Tehlu gives him the choice to cross over.  When Encantis refuses, Tehlu throws him, still attached to the wheel into a fiery pit.  But Encantis begins to get loose, leading Tehlu to jump into the pit himself and hold Encantis down.

So Tehlu held [Encantis] to the burning wheel, and none of the demon’s threats or screaming moved him in the least part of an inch.  Sot it was that Encantis passed from the world, and whith him when Tehlu who was Menda.  Both of them burned to ash in the pit of Atur.  That is why the Tehlin priests wear robes of ashen grey.  And that is how we know Telhu cares for us, and watches us and keeps us safe…

It is in reading a fictionalized gospel that makes me grateful that Jesus is a God of reconciliation and mercy rather than one focused only on justice.  I am glad that in Jesus died to forgive our sins not to punish them.  That Christ died not by killing the devil, but in sacrificing himself for humanity the hold of evil has been removed from us.  It is wonderful to be a part of a tradition with a robust theology of the incarnation, the humanity of Jesus, and the Trinity.  Lastly Christ did not leave us in death, but bestowed upon us the Holy Spirit, the Church, and a escahtological hope.  These are things to be grateful for.

This is Holy Week, the culmination of Christianity, the start of a new and better Kingdom, the birthplace not only of the Church but also of our hope.  This is a week for us all to be artists, poets, dreamers and prophets.  This is a week for us to FEEL, rather than know.  I hope in these next few days leading up to Easter that you will remain in the story.  Do not jump ahead to Easter morning.  Live and feel in Thursday, Friday, Saturday until Sunday comes like a breath of fresh air and the rising of the sun after long, cold, rainy night.
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Maundy Thursday: Feast Inaugurated
Matthew 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-23; John 13:1-17

Live in the tension of celebration and betrayal on Mandy Thursday. Wash someone else’s feet.  Feel and taste and see the beauty of communion.

Good Friday: Crucifixion I
Matthew 27:32-31 ; Mark 15:21-32 ; Luke 23:26-43 ; John 19:16-27

Stay in the grim and gruesome horror of Good Friday.  Feel the sorrow, pain and thirst.  Think on what the world might be like if Jesus was only Mary’s son.

Holy Saturday: The Tombstone of Mary’s Son—“King of the Jews”
Matthew 27:57-61 ; Mark 15:42-47: ; Luke 23:50-56 ; John 19:38-42

Be numb when the realities of Friday prove true on Holy Saturday.  Weep and wait.  Jesus is dead.  We will place more flowers at his tomb tomorrow.
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Every Sunday if rightly orchestrated is an Easter celebration.  Easter Sunday, the day we make fools of our selves with fabulous and elaborate celebrations of Christ’s resurrection, family, friends, community and the new lives we all can live, is a great and wonderful thing.  However if we do not sit in Thursday, Friday, Saturday can we truly appreciate what Sunday brings?  Sit with me, feeling, through Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

The novel focuses around the mysterious Vagner family.  Henrik Vagner the patriarch of the Vagner family and retired CEO of the Vagner Cooperation hires a defamed journalist/reporter  Mikael Blomkvist to wirte a family biography and discover what happened to Henrik’s grandniece, Harriet.  Harriett disapeared in 1966, on Sweden’s Hedeby Island, and since then Henrik has been obsessed with discovering what happened to this young girl of 16 who was very much like his own daughter.  To compound his grief someone, presumably Harriett’s kidnapper, sends Henrik a framed flower every year on his birthday.  Mikael begins his very literal cold case in the dead of Swedish winter.

The novel is as compelling as it is gruesome.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo contains  violence (domestic and otherwise) as well as rape and other sexual assault. This is perhaps Larsson‘s own commentary about gender relations in Sweden as he himself witnessed the violent gang rape of a young girl when he was a teenager.  Each of the four parts of the book also include statistics about violence against women in Sweden.

Eighteen percent of the women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man.
Forty-six percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man.
Thirteen percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to aggravated sexual assault outside of a sexual relationship.
Ninety-two percent of women in Sweden who have been subject to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police.

Lisbeth Salander is every one of these statistics.  Salander, the most interesting character of the novel, is a hacker and researcher for Milton Security.  She ends up looking into Blomkvist for the Vagners, and helps him look for Harriet. Like Salander almost every woman in the novel has had some kind of abuse (sexual, physical, or both) whether in the past or continuing. Lisbeth despite her abuse refused to be labeled a victim.

Even though she was well aware of what a women’s crisis centre was for, it never occurred to her to turn to one herself.  Crisis centres existed, in her eyes, for victims, and she had never regarded herself as a victim. Consequently, her only remaining option was to do what she had always done–take matters in her own hands and solve her problems on her own.  That was definitely an option.

Lisbeth in fact refuses all labels, societal norms, and rules for politeness.  She is in many ways a contradiction and uses her aggressive clothing and attitude to cope with and prevent future abuse.

Salander was dressed for the day in a back T-shirt with a picture on it of E.T. with fangs, and the words I AM ALSO AN ALIEN. She had on a black skirt that was frayed at the hem, a worn-out black, mid-length leather jacket, rivet belt, heavy Doc Marten boots, and horizontally striped, green-and-red knee socks.  She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind.  In other words, she was exceptionally decked out.

Many Critics have hailed Lisbeth a feminist avenger, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo essentially a feminist novel.  Lisbeth would not accept this label, and it is not one that the novel deserves either.  Lisbeth is merely trying to do her best in a misogynist world, she does not care for justice, but her own brand of vengeance that incapacitates those who have harmed her or other women.  Feminism seeks equality between men and women that goes beyond the end of violence against women to social, political, and economic equity for both sexes.  Lisbeth in her overly countercultural manner does not seek justice, but vengeance and an end to abuse for herself and those she encounters.  While not a feminist superhero, Lisbeth remains a compelling character, one who I as a reader was equally engaged and mystified by.

During Lisbeth and Mikael’s time together attempting to solve Harriet’s disappearance and unearth the skeletons in the Vagner family’s closet, they become lovers.  Mikael is a bit of a playboy and although he is the hero in some sense, he is almost as bad as his abusive male counterparts.  While Mikael does not physically, sexually or emotionally abuse women, as most men in the novel do, he cannot have a substantive relationship or friendship with women without sex being involved.  Despite Lisbeth’s prickly personality and closed off nature towards other people she finds herself needing Mikael’s company after the case is over.  This may be as close as it get to love for Lisbeth, sadly due to Mikael’s nature Lisbeth sees that he may not be a good person to long for.

Then she sat as if paralysed, thinking.  She had never in her life felt such a longing.  She wanted Mikeal Blomkvist to ring the doorbell and…what then?  Lift her off the ground, hold her in his arms?  Passionately take her into the bedroom and tear off her clothes?  No, she really just wanted his company.  She wanted to hear him say that he liked her for who she was.  That she was someone special in his world and in his life.  She wanted him to give her some gesture of love, not just of friendship and companionship.  I’m flipping out, she thought.

Due to price of movie tickets, I cannot speak to the American film, but the Swedish version is overall darker than the book.  The darkness is created with added scenes of violence and less humanity or light in Lisbeth’s character.  The Swedish film also takes great liberty with the story line of the novel, the trail of evidence leading to the solving of Harriet Vagner’s disappearance as well as Lisbeth’s personality and relationship with Mikael.  The American version is reported to not be a remake of the Swedish film, but rather to be a different interpretation of the book and Lisbeth herself.  I hope the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, recent winner of 2012 Oscar for Film Editing, captures Lisbeth in all her contradictions.

The Hunger Games is Suzanne Collins first book in The Hunger Games Trilogy and the start of her second Young Adult series.  The protagonist and narrator, Katniss Everdeen, is a young woman of 16 trying to provide for her little sister and mother after her father was killed in a mining accident four years ago.  Life for Katniss is not always pleasant, particularly as she could be shot dead for hunting outside of District Twelve’s fence.  This illegal act of poaching and trespassing is the only way for Katniss to adequately feed her family; “District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety.”  The fact that the majority of people in District Twelve do not have adequate food is not the only concern that Katniss has about her district:

When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District Twelve, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the capitol.  Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble…Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games.

Collins’ futuristic distopia takes place hundreds of years after the collapse of North America.  Amidst the rubble of destruction a new society was built, Panem, which consisted of one shining capitol and thirteen districts. But then came what is referred to as the “Dark Days” when the thirteenth district staged an uprising against the capitol, leading to the entire annihilation of the thirteenth district and a severe punishment for the remaining districts–The Hunger Games.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate.  The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland.  Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death.  The last tribute standing wins.

The Hunger Games are only one of the many ways that keep the people of the districts in check.  There are “peacekeepers,” who are essentially police from the capitol.  Their main job is to enforce rules, set by the capitol, to keep citizens of the district from doing such things as hunting, trading, or producing illegal goods such as alcohol.  The peacekeepers are above the law and focused not on justice, but rather control.

And then there are the tesserae.  The children of the districts are drawn in a lottery to determine who will be in the Hunger Games.  Each year, starting at age 12, children are entered once into the lottery, and then twice at age 13 and so on until they are 18 and entered seven times.  However poor children, starving children, are given the opportunity to buy a tesserae, grain and oil for one person for one year, for an addition to the lottery.  Tesserae can be taken for every member of a family and are compounded, thus leading some like Katniss’ friend Gale to be added 42 times by the time he was 18.  In essence poor children are given greater odds to become Hunger Games tributes.

The Mayor of District twelve states that the Hunger Games are “both a time for repentance and a time for thanks.”  However, the Hunger Games are really nothing more than child sacrifice for the purposes of temporary atonement to the Capitol gods greedy for assurance that they are in control.  The Games also act as entertainment for the capitol, and a measure of control for the districts as watching the games is mandatory.  Before the games actually begin the tributes, children who have won the lottery, are televised during the reaping, presenting, evaluating, interviewing with all the pomp, ceremony and makeup required of Capitol events.

The Hunger Games Trilogy chronicles Katniss as she sacrifices herself by taking the place of her twelve year old sister Prim, in the the 74th Hunger Games.  Katniss fights to survive in the arena, gets tangled up in a love triangle, and defies the Capitol.  While Katniss has grown up despising the ways of the Capitol and the oppressive system of Government, it is not until she is in the arena that Katniss feels as though she should stand up to the injustices around her.

What sparks Katniss’ desire to fight against injustice in the arena is the death of an ally, Rue.  Rue is a 12 year old tribute from District Eleven, she is sweet, crafty at avoiding conflict, and loves music.  Rue reminds Katniss of her little sister Prim, who is the same age.  When Rue is killed by another tribute, from District 1, Katniss cradles Rue in her arms, sings as Rue lays dying and anoints her body with flowers.

I can’t stop looking at Rue, smaller than ever, a baby animal curled up in a nest of netting.  I can’t bring myself to leave her like this.  Past harm, but seeming utterly defenseless.  to hate the boy from District 1, who also appears so venerable in death, seems inadequate.  It’s the Capitol I hate, for doing this to all of us….

I want to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whenever they do or force us to do there is a part of every tribute they can’t own.  That Rue was more than a piece in their Games.  And so am I.

A few steps into the woods grows a bank of wild flowers.  Perhaps they are really weed of some sort, but they have blossoms in beautiful shades of violet and yellow and white.  I gather up an armful and come back to Rue’s side.  Slowly, one stem at a time, I decorate her body in the flowers.  Covering the ugly wound.  Wreathing her face.  Weaving her hair with bright colors.

Katniss’ act, of shaming beauty, is televised, like everything in the games.  Hopefully others will also wake up to the injustice around them by seeing Katniss mourn Rue.  In Panem evil does not have a face, it is the structure, the government, the Capitol which is corrupt, broken, villainous.  There is no Voldemort, Lord Sauron, or White Witch in Panem.  Sure the government does have a ruler, President Snow, but he is just as much a pawn, albeit one with some power, in the system he inherited as Katniss is.  Certainly The Hunger Games trilogy is the coming of age story of a young girl, but it is also the story of awakening to systemic injustice.  The long awaited movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutchersonand Liam Hemsworth, will be in theaters on March 23.  Let us all catch fire to the injustices we see.