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Sunday, November 22, 2009
Help us Spread the Word: Advent Video Collection
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Are You Aware You're Going To Die?
One of the new nine films from the upcoming TWOTP series Living A Dying Life with Stanley Hauerwas...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Ministry Media Manifesto
TWOTP VISUAL MEDIA MANIFESTO
(For now anyway...)
Intro
Profound visual imagery which moves the soul will not be the result of an institutional interest in an updated status quo. It will be the result of long hard work, sustained passion and an unshakable sense of vocation. We believe we are in the early days of a releasing of creative passion. Like Christ’s Passion it will involve suffering and sacrifice. Like the 12 stations of the cross it will involve a journey. Like the cross itself, it will require a pouring out of ourselves for the sake others.
We believe we are in the initial wave of those not settling for decoration, but instead pressing into declaration--as hard as it may be--pressing in, pushing back, opening up space for the voice of the poet. We believe those who embark upon this initial breaking-through, who open space for the poet, won’t attain the heights of those who come after. Yet it is this initial breaking-through that is profoundly important.
Juice of Emancipation
“The Prophetic Imagination,” by Dr. Walter Brueggemann has beenfairly pivotal in the development of TWOTP. Travis and I recently had the honour of spending some time with Dr. Brueggemann. As a result our thoughts, of late, have been basting in those conversations. In particular Dr.Brueggemann bestowed upon us a term I’m not sure is in writing anywhere. He was speaking about the Exilic story, the confrontation of Pharaoh and YAWEH, the centrality of this story to human experience, that we all experience Pharaohs in our lives, we all cry out in pain over some kind of bondage. The Story of Israel is the story of YAWEH’s redeeming vision for all of human kind--bondage, liberation, reconciliation. The story of Israel is the story of God’s unshakable resolve to redeem all things; love, justice and righteousness overcome the mechanizations of power, wealth and privilege. In the context of this discussion Dr.Breuggemann referred to “the juice of emancipation.”
It is a beautiful term. We love this term. It is raw and rich and and it speaks to the earthy reality in which mission and worship take place. This term connects with TWOTP because we try to make visual media that is the juice of emancipation. We aren’t as interested in making visual media for something--a service, a market, a demographic--as we are in making visual media that comes from something. This is the gift of the poet to the Church: to create from something rather than pragmatically for something.
Expose and Declare
As we create from something, we hope our visual media does two things; it exposes and it declares. It exposes, it names and it challenges: Ecologies of denial; flat Kingdoms of Pharaohs calcified in numbers and control; Kingdoms of selfishness, monuments to greed, the worship of relationship-destroying power. At the same time it declares, it describes and it affirms: God’s eternal kingdom of steadfast care, of a flourishing belonging and of making all things right. God’s kingdom of love, justice and righteousness. hesed, mishpat and tsedeka.
In as much as we are falteringly able to make what we try to make, in as much as we are little green shoots in the soil of God’s redemption, we manage to make media that moves the soul.
Good
Further, in making visual media that exposes and declares, we aren’t trying to make things that are perfect, we’re trying to make things that are good. Good in the same way God created the world and saw that it was good. Our understanding of good bears a Hebraic inflection, specifically that it refers to something being in-right-relationship-as-it-was-intended.
Associated with the “good” of Divine creation are a couple of other words, “order” and “chaos.” This triad of words--good, order and chaos--is important to how we go about creating visual media. If we start from the notion of good as right-relationship: order, then is a state in which things are in-right-relationship; and chaos is a state in which things are out-of-right relationship. These inflections are important to draw out because I think our highly rational Western minds tend to see order and chaos through a highly rational lens: we tend to see order as things which have been categorized, counted and analysed rendering them manageable, understandable and controllable. We watch a butterfly’s flight path and if we lack the algorithms from which to make numerical sense of the flight path, we declare it chaotic. So we catch the butterfly, stick a pin through it, label it and put it under glass; thereby declaring it now ordered.
In contrast, a Hebraic understanding of order would tend to see a butterfly being a butterfly and doing the butterfly things it was intended to do in a context in which it was intended to do those things--no matter how mysteriously messy looking it might be-- as being ordered. A Hebraic
understanding of order would see the butterfly as being in-right-relationship and therefore “good.” Further, removing the butterfly’s ability to do butterfly things--by sticking pins in it and putting it under glass--would be seen as counter to right-relationship--chaotic. In Hebraic thinking, an ecology of activities, values, systems or structures which impinge upon, hamper or even destroy right-relationship, is an ecology of chaos.
Equipped with this Hebraic understanding of good, order and chaos, we see the timeline of Creation as being: from nothing to things-in-right-relationship. There is void. Then God, ex nihilo, creates order. Then humanity sins and now we have chaos, things-out-of-right-relationship:humanity out of alignment with God, humanity out of alignment with each other and humanity out alignment with creation. In chaos we have oppressor and oppressed, domination and enslavement, the powerful and the powerless, those with water and those without water--things-not-as-they-were-intended. It is at the point in time and space, the point in history that man moves toward chaos that God begins to move, His vast loving tearful and sweeping arc toward all things-in-right-relationship-as-they-were-intended.
God’s moving starts immediately. Immediately after man’s move to chaos, God moves to order. In Genesis we see some initial small arcs, from chaos to order. They lead to the prototype, the defining shape to the arc of God’s moving--the Exodus story. The Exilic story traces the unexpected, breath taking, mysterious, good and ordered shape of YAHWEH’s moving. The shape of God’s moving--it’s good-ness--sheds light on the length and depth and breadth of the triune God’s commitment to restore his children to right-relationship with Him, with each other and with creation. From nothing to things-in-right-relationship to things-out-of-right-relationship and now back to things in right-relationship. This is where we find ourselves, as co-creators with Christ, invited into God’s work of redeeming all things.
Not Pretty
This eternal arc of God’s redeeming grace is good and ordered, but it isn’t pretty. It is blood and guts and tears. It is dirt and mud and trying and falling. The arc of God’s grace is alive with quotidian messy-ness, precisely because God moves among us and to be among us it to move in chaos. The arc of God’s grace is messy, but it is good.
When we create visual media, we don’t want to make things that are pretty or perfect, we want to make things that are--in all the ways just discussed--good.
Remembering
Lastly, when we make good visual media we don’t want to make things that forget, we want to make things that remember. Our culture is littered with liturgies of denial, liturgies of distraction; actions, habits, things, systems, techniques which manifest a self-created ecology of denial. They sentimentally ignore evil for the indulgent sake of pleasant feelings; they are subservient to Pharoah-nic machinations; they uphold the language and epistemology of Empire. These liturgies of denial are everywhere, and we don’t need more.
We want to make liturgies that remember, liturgies that break up through suffering and pain and miraculously, wonderfully amazingly create new life. We want to make liturgies that remember because we need help--every day--remembering Pharoah is a liar, YAHWEH holds the throne; Satan is defeated, God’s kingdom is here. We need help remembering--every day-- we are in this world, but not of this world. Liturgies for remembering are daring. They dare to expose real oppression; they dare to name real pain; they dare to confront local Pharaohs who perpetuate systems of scarcity and fear. But liturgies to remember don’t stop there, they go on to attempt the impossible, they dare to declare liberation and strive for reconciliation. They dare to declare grace, dare to describe a world in which it is okay to be good, dare to affirm there is another way and it is not Pharoah’s way of scarcity and fear; it is the way of shalom--of deep abiding peace whichenables profound generosity. It is the way of steadfast care, a flourishing belonging and making all things right; It is the way of love, justice and righteousness; hesed, mishpat and tsedeka.
Closing
We firmly belief that as long as visual media--or any creative endeavorwithin the church-- is an object of acquisition for the sake of upholding institutional status quo, it will not be aligned with God’s arc of redeeming all things. As long as visual media is pursued as a perfectible commodity, it will fall flat. As long as visual media is used as decoration, it will continue to be less than it could be. As long as visual media is driven by enterpriserather than poetry, it will remain hyper-kinetic eye candy and nothing more.
As we said in opening, we believe we are in the midst of a profoundly important breaking-though. The voice of the poet is awakening and creative endeavour is moving away from decoration and toward declaration.
Visual media finds itself uniquely placed within that breaking-through. In as much as visual media is able to find its impetus in specific, contextual, ongoing stories of oppression, liberation and reconciliation; stories of chaos, Divine Movement and order; in as much as visual media
names our Pharaohs and points to freedom; facilitates Divine and human relationship; in as much as visual media is the juice of emancipation; in as much as visual media gives voice to the poet who lives in the tension between Empires and grace; in as much as it manages to be any or all of these things, it will touch our humanity at its core, it will caress us, it will shake us, it will hold us, it will linger in deep places long into the night--and maybe, just maybe, we will remember for one more day--there is another way.
- Steve Frost/TWOTP
(For now anyway...)
Intro
Profound visual imagery which moves the soul will not be the result of an institutional interest in an updated status quo. It will be the result of long hard work, sustained passion and an unshakable sense of vocation. We believe we are in the early days of a releasing of creative passion. Like Christ’s Passion it will involve suffering and sacrifice. Like the 12 stations of the cross it will involve a journey. Like the cross itself, it will require a pouring out of ourselves for the sake others.
We believe we are in the initial wave of those not settling for decoration, but instead pressing into declaration--as hard as it may be--pressing in, pushing back, opening up space for the voice of the poet. We believe those who embark upon this initial breaking-through, who open space for the poet, won’t attain the heights of those who come after. Yet it is this initial breaking-through that is profoundly important.
Juice of Emancipation
“The Prophetic Imagination,” by Dr. Walter Brueggemann has beenfairly pivotal in the development of TWOTP. Travis and I recently had the honour of spending some time with Dr. Brueggemann. As a result our thoughts, of late, have been basting in those conversations. In particular Dr.Brueggemann bestowed upon us a term I’m not sure is in writing anywhere. He was speaking about the Exilic story, the confrontation of Pharaoh and YAWEH, the centrality of this story to human experience, that we all experience Pharaohs in our lives, we all cry out in pain over some kind of bondage. The Story of Israel is the story of YAWEH’s redeeming vision for all of human kind--bondage, liberation, reconciliation. The story of Israel is the story of God’s unshakable resolve to redeem all things; love, justice and righteousness overcome the mechanizations of power, wealth and privilege. In the context of this discussion Dr.Breuggemann referred to “the juice of emancipation.”
It is a beautiful term. We love this term. It is raw and rich and and it speaks to the earthy reality in which mission and worship take place. This term connects with TWOTP because we try to make visual media that is the juice of emancipation. We aren’t as interested in making visual media for something--a service, a market, a demographic--as we are in making visual media that comes from something. This is the gift of the poet to the Church: to create from something rather than pragmatically for something.
Expose and Declare
As we create from something, we hope our visual media does two things; it exposes and it declares. It exposes, it names and it challenges: Ecologies of denial; flat Kingdoms of Pharaohs calcified in numbers and control; Kingdoms of selfishness, monuments to greed, the worship of relationship-destroying power. At the same time it declares, it describes and it affirms: God’s eternal kingdom of steadfast care, of a flourishing belonging and of making all things right. God’s kingdom of love, justice and righteousness. hesed, mishpat and tsedeka.
In as much as we are falteringly able to make what we try to make, in as much as we are little green shoots in the soil of God’s redemption, we manage to make media that moves the soul.
Good
Further, in making visual media that exposes and declares, we aren’t trying to make things that are perfect, we’re trying to make things that are good. Good in the same way God created the world and saw that it was good. Our understanding of good bears a Hebraic inflection, specifically that it refers to something being in-right-relationship-as-it-was-intended.
Associated with the “good” of Divine creation are a couple of other words, “order” and “chaos.” This triad of words--good, order and chaos--is important to how we go about creating visual media. If we start from the notion of good as right-relationship: order, then is a state in which things are in-right-relationship; and chaos is a state in which things are out-of-right relationship. These inflections are important to draw out because I think our highly rational Western minds tend to see order and chaos through a highly rational lens: we tend to see order as things which have been categorized, counted and analysed rendering them manageable, understandable and controllable. We watch a butterfly’s flight path and if we lack the algorithms from which to make numerical sense of the flight path, we declare it chaotic. So we catch the butterfly, stick a pin through it, label it and put it under glass; thereby declaring it now ordered.
In contrast, a Hebraic understanding of order would tend to see a butterfly being a butterfly and doing the butterfly things it was intended to do in a context in which it was intended to do those things--no matter how mysteriously messy looking it might be-- as being ordered. A Hebraic
understanding of order would see the butterfly as being in-right-relationship and therefore “good.” Further, removing the butterfly’s ability to do butterfly things--by sticking pins in it and putting it under glass--would be seen as counter to right-relationship--chaotic. In Hebraic thinking, an ecology of activities, values, systems or structures which impinge upon, hamper or even destroy right-relationship, is an ecology of chaos.
Equipped with this Hebraic understanding of good, order and chaos, we see the timeline of Creation as being: from nothing to things-in-right-relationship. There is void. Then God, ex nihilo, creates order. Then humanity sins and now we have chaos, things-out-of-right-relationship:humanity out of alignment with God, humanity out of alignment with each other and humanity out alignment with creation. In chaos we have oppressor and oppressed, domination and enslavement, the powerful and the powerless, those with water and those without water--things-not-as-they-were-intended. It is at the point in time and space, the point in history that man moves toward chaos that God begins to move, His vast loving tearful and sweeping arc toward all things-in-right-relationship-as-they-were-intended.
God’s moving starts immediately. Immediately after man’s move to chaos, God moves to order. In Genesis we see some initial small arcs, from chaos to order. They lead to the prototype, the defining shape to the arc of God’s moving--the Exodus story. The Exilic story traces the unexpected, breath taking, mysterious, good and ordered shape of YAHWEH’s moving. The shape of God’s moving--it’s good-ness--sheds light on the length and depth and breadth of the triune God’s commitment to restore his children to right-relationship with Him, with each other and with creation. From nothing to things-in-right-relationship to things-out-of-right-relationship and now back to things in right-relationship. This is where we find ourselves, as co-creators with Christ, invited into God’s work of redeeming all things.
Not Pretty
This eternal arc of God’s redeeming grace is good and ordered, but it isn’t pretty. It is blood and guts and tears. It is dirt and mud and trying and falling. The arc of God’s grace is alive with quotidian messy-ness, precisely because God moves among us and to be among us it to move in chaos. The arc of God’s grace is messy, but it is good.
When we create visual media, we don’t want to make things that are pretty or perfect, we want to make things that are--in all the ways just discussed--good.
Remembering
Lastly, when we make good visual media we don’t want to make things that forget, we want to make things that remember. Our culture is littered with liturgies of denial, liturgies of distraction; actions, habits, things, systems, techniques which manifest a self-created ecology of denial. They sentimentally ignore evil for the indulgent sake of pleasant feelings; they are subservient to Pharoah-nic machinations; they uphold the language and epistemology of Empire. These liturgies of denial are everywhere, and we don’t need more.
We want to make liturgies that remember, liturgies that break up through suffering and pain and miraculously, wonderfully amazingly create new life. We want to make liturgies that remember because we need help--every day--remembering Pharoah is a liar, YAHWEH holds the throne; Satan is defeated, God’s kingdom is here. We need help remembering--every day-- we are in this world, but not of this world. Liturgies for remembering are daring. They dare to expose real oppression; they dare to name real pain; they dare to confront local Pharaohs who perpetuate systems of scarcity and fear. But liturgies to remember don’t stop there, they go on to attempt the impossible, they dare to declare liberation and strive for reconciliation. They dare to declare grace, dare to describe a world in which it is okay to be good, dare to affirm there is another way and it is not Pharoah’s way of scarcity and fear; it is the way of shalom--of deep abiding peace whichenables profound generosity. It is the way of steadfast care, a flourishing belonging and making all things right; It is the way of love, justice and righteousness; hesed, mishpat and tsedeka.
Closing
We firmly belief that as long as visual media--or any creative endeavorwithin the church-- is an object of acquisition for the sake of upholding institutional status quo, it will not be aligned with God’s arc of redeeming all things. As long as visual media is pursued as a perfectible commodity, it will fall flat. As long as visual media is used as decoration, it will continue to be less than it could be. As long as visual media is driven by enterpriserather than poetry, it will remain hyper-kinetic eye candy and nothing more.
As we said in opening, we believe we are in the midst of a profoundly important breaking-though. The voice of the poet is awakening and creative endeavour is moving away from decoration and toward declaration.
Visual media finds itself uniquely placed within that breaking-through. In as much as visual media is able to find its impetus in specific, contextual, ongoing stories of oppression, liberation and reconciliation; stories of chaos, Divine Movement and order; in as much as visual media
names our Pharaohs and points to freedom; facilitates Divine and human relationship; in as much as visual media is the juice of emancipation; in as much as visual media gives voice to the poet who lives in the tension between Empires and grace; in as much as it manages to be any or all of these things, it will touch our humanity at its core, it will caress us, it will shake us, it will hold us, it will linger in deep places long into the night--and maybe, just maybe, we will remember for one more day--there is another way.
- Steve Frost/TWOTP
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
The Three Stones
An email from TWOTP's Steve Frost who's just spent two weeks in Israel among people who live and breathe Torah.
Dude, I picked up three stones for you! Check it out here's the story of the three stones.
Every Jewish child memorizes Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) by the time they are 12. If they excel, they go on to Beth Midrash. If they don't make the cut, they go learn a trade. The ones who go on to Beth Midrash and excel there, move on to Beth Talmud. The ones who go on to Beth Talmud then hope to be chosen by a Rabbi. The point of Rabbinical teaching is that the student become like the teacher. The teacher, the Rabbi, choses the best of the best. He choses students who he thinks have what it takes to follow through to the end and become like him. The contract between Rabbi and student was sealed by the Rabbi choosing the student with the words, "Follow me."
Peter, James and John are fishermen, between the ages of 13 and 20. They hadn't made the cut, so they were learning a trade. Jews hated large bodies of water. It was called the Abyss. It represents chaos and is where sin is cast away. Being a fisherman was pretty much the bottom of the trade heap. Loserville. They hadn't made Beth Midrash and they hadn't made Beth Talmud and they would never be chosen by a Rabbi. They didn't make any of the cuts.
Jesus, the Rabbi, walks up to these complete losers and says, "Follow me." He says to these guys who have nothing going for them, "I believe in you. I believe you can be like me."
Later, after Jesus had been crucified and raised from the dead, and after Peter had denied him three times, he appears to the disciples on the shore. Jesus is cooking breakfast for his friends. As they are eating together three times Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Three times Peter answers, "You are Lord." An affirmation for each denial. Jesus is reinstating covenant with Peter. He is saying to Peter, "I still believe in you. I will always believe in you. And here's what I want you to do Peter, I want you to feed my sheep."
Both of those events happened within a few hundred yards of where I picked up three stones that I will give to you the next time I see you.
Jesus believes in you. Jesus still believes in you. Jesus wants you to feed his sheep.
Love you brother
SF
Dude, I picked up three stones for you! Check it out here's the story of the three stones.
Every Jewish child memorizes Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible) by the time they are 12. If they excel, they go on to Beth Midrash. If they don't make the cut, they go learn a trade. The ones who go on to Beth Midrash and excel there, move on to Beth Talmud. The ones who go on to Beth Talmud then hope to be chosen by a Rabbi. The point of Rabbinical teaching is that the student become like the teacher. The teacher, the Rabbi, choses the best of the best. He choses students who he thinks have what it takes to follow through to the end and become like him. The contract between Rabbi and student was sealed by the Rabbi choosing the student with the words, "Follow me."
Peter, James and John are fishermen, between the ages of 13 and 20. They hadn't made the cut, so they were learning a trade. Jews hated large bodies of water. It was called the Abyss. It represents chaos and is where sin is cast away. Being a fisherman was pretty much the bottom of the trade heap. Loserville. They hadn't made Beth Midrash and they hadn't made Beth Talmud and they would never be chosen by a Rabbi. They didn't make any of the cuts.
Jesus, the Rabbi, walks up to these complete losers and says, "Follow me." He says to these guys who have nothing going for them, "I believe in you. I believe you can be like me."
Later, after Jesus had been crucified and raised from the dead, and after Peter had denied him three times, he appears to the disciples on the shore. Jesus is cooking breakfast for his friends. As they are eating together three times Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Three times Peter answers, "You are Lord." An affirmation for each denial. Jesus is reinstating covenant with Peter. He is saying to Peter, "I still believe in you. I will always believe in you. And here's what I want you to do Peter, I want you to feed my sheep."
Both of those events happened within a few hundred yards of where I picked up three stones that I will give to you the next time I see you.
Jesus believes in you. Jesus still believes in you. Jesus wants you to feed his sheep.
Love you brother
SF
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
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