Urban Mystic: The Video for the 19th anniversary of the LA riots

On this day in 1992, four Los Angeles Police Department officers were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King and Los Angeles erupted in rioting. The beating of King, which had been video tapped, the trial and acquittal were seminal events in the history of race relations in this country.

Last year I interviewed the Rev. Scott D. Young about his annual pilgrimage to the site of the flash point of the civil unrest following the acquittal of the police officers in the Rodney King case.

NCR published the article and it can be read here: Urban Mystic at the Crossroads

I believe this outtake captures the essence of Scott’s passion for the city, a true urban mystic.

You can read Scott’s blog at The Culture Vulture Report

Sympathy for Delicious: Mark Ruffalo’s directorial debut

Dean O’Dwyer (Christopher Thornton) is an aspiring DJ known as “Delicious D” on the Los Angeles underground music scene. A motorcycle accident leaves him in a wheel chair and he ends up sleeping in his car on Skid Row.

Fr. Joe (Mark Ruffalo) ministers to the homeless by organizing and serving meals and finding temporary housing shelter for those who will accept it. The priest notes how depressed the young man is and brings him to a healing service where people are “slain in the spirit.” Dean is skeptical but inexplicably he discovers he has the power to heal others. It is very confusing and a lot to take in.

Thornton and Ruffalo in "Sympathy for Delicious" that opens today in NY, LA and DC on May 5.

Meanwhile Dean, now a minor celebrity, joins a rock band and decides to market his abilities as a healer. This is not out of compassion. It seems an almost passive-aggressive reaction to God’s caring for others but not for him. Fr. Joe advises against this, but must confront his own personal faith issues as he tries to guide others. When Dean’s healing abilities fail when they are needed most, he is forced to confront his demons and accept the fact that sometimes the healing you get from God is what you need, not what you want.

Click here to continue reading

For locations and times click here

Beyond the Blackboard – Hallmark Hall of Fame movie for Easter Sunday, April 24

Beyond the Blackboard (CBS, Sunday, April 24, 9/8)

This Hallmark Hall of Fame special is based on the book Nobody Don’t Love Nobody: Lessons on Love From the School With No Name, by Stacey Bess. Her first job is at a school for homeless children, grades 1-6; the classroom is a warehouse shelter. This film, starring Emily VanCamp, is gritty and inspiring—a tribute to teachers who persevere and care. (Thanks to St. Anthony Messenger; this is my review from the April issue).

Feeling comfort from the cross for the first time

There are some things you should know about me and Jesus.

I was twelve years old in 1964. On Good Friday of that year, I was just about ready to set out on my bike for the services at St. Rita’s Church when my mother mentioned in passing that Jesus wasn’t Catholic. What a shock!

If Jesus wasn’t Catholic, then why all the fuss about having Protestant friends? And why hadn’t anyone told me before that he was Jewish?

I felt like I had been scammed and now I’d have to recalibrate everything I knew and believed about Jesus and religion to that point. That Jesus wasn’t Catholic, or that he was Jewish, seemed like really important information to hold back over all my years of CCD classes When, exactly, was someone going to mention this?

I got over it as I matured and learned more about my faith and the scriptures but I still wonder that I never connected the dots. Or that no one realized in those days that kids needed help connecting the dots.

I have always appreciated the beauty of the crucifix, especially on an artistic level. But it was hard to connect with the image of Jesus on a personal level because Jesus’ death on the cross has always been about my sin and guilt and this irritated me.

Even as I listened to the Palm Sunday homily this week, I noticed that no matter how hard he tried to get to the idea of mercy, Father couldn’t get past the dominant connection between the crucifixion, sin, guilt, and reparation for salvation.

Continue reading here from NCR Feeling comfort from the cross for the first time

PS Today is Good Friday (I wrote the above earlier this week) and I remembered a scene from Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) that is very moving. Here Judah Ben-Hur’s mother and sister are cured of leprosy and Jesus’ blood is washed into a stream and beyond; the visuals alone wouldn’t be nearly a powerful without the musical score that speaks louder than words.

African Cats

My review is posted at American Catholic, the web community for St. Anthony Messenger magazine:

Africa Cats: the cycle of life continues

Washing the Disciples’ Feet & Touch

One thing that religious give up is the sense of touch and being touched. Sure, we hug when we greet family and friends, and we buss with the best, but unless we go for regular massages for a medical reason, we give up the pleasure of being touched.

When I stayed with my sister last year for vacation, she took me with her for a pedicure.  She is a regular there and the ladies, all Vietnamese immigrants, greeted us warmly. We removed our sandals. I climbed into the throne-like seat and when the water was warm, the attendant invited me to put my feet in the water. The water was shooting at my feet and swirling.

Several minutes later, the pedicurist took my right foot and began to massage it with oil or lotion. She placed it back in the water and took my left foot.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

She dried each foot with care using a very soft white towel and then she trimmed my nails and sanded the calluses from the bottom of my feet.

I wonder what the apostles felt when Jesus washed their tired, dusty feet. I imagine those who were married had been long from the embrace of their spouses as they journeyed on foot with Jesus. Peter resisted because it was a lowly task to wash the feet of another, and he thought he should be washing Jesus’ feet.

Several years ago I was at a Maronite parish for Holy Thursday and the priest washed the feet of men, young and old, and three boys who could not stop laughing. I think they were embarrassed, but they made me laugh, too.

Two nights ago a sister of my community went to the parish where she sings in the choir. They had invited her to have her feet washed during the mass on Holy Thursday, and they wanted to have a dry run, literally. She is happy to be included.

Earlier this week I reflected on  feeling the comfort of the cross for the first time .Today I am thinking of the first Eucharist, yes, but also the washing of the feet and what it means for the body and soul, the whole person. Jesus probably didn’t rush through the washing for pastoral reasons. He who loved the disciples must have taken the time to truly wash their calloused, tired, perhaps neglected feet that had been everywhere, and perhaps unwashed for more than a day, taking each foot into his hands, and gently washing it and drying it before moving on. Perhaps he anointed their feet as well. It was Jesus’ way of showing them that they, too, must carry out this humble, comforting, and refreshing task for others, in order to approach the Cross.

In the documentary  The Saint of 9/11: the True Story of Father Mychal Judge, (that I reviewed in 2007) there is a part where he talks about ministering to men dying of HIV/AIDS in the hospital. Many were angry at God and wanted nothing to do with the Franciscan priest. But as he spoke with them, he would start to massage their feet, and this would calm them. In those first years of the pandemic, few people were willing touch a person with HIV/AIDS. I can only imagine what Fr. Judge’s care might have meant to them who were treated as pariahs and outcasts. It was the comfort of a loving God shown through the ministry of a priest.

My sister paid for the pedicures and I know she added a generous tip for the ladies. I felt and wonderful and I think I heard my feet laughing for the sheer joy of it.

A (Dinner) Prayer for Film & TV Writers via the Humanitas Prize

A couple of  Saturdays ago I received a call from Soozie Eastman, Director of Programs for the  Humanitas Prize. For the second year I was going to be one of the script readers to decide on which ones will receive this prestigious award trophy and cash prize. All the readers for television and film scripts were having dinner together that evening to pick up the parcels and share some inspiration. Soozie asked me to say grace.

I thought I would share this on my blog so that everyone could join in prayer to support the good work of the Humanitas Prize and to support film and television writers who seek to explore the human condition and promote human dignity in the stories they tell.

Paulist Father Elwood “Bud” Kieser (1929 – 2000) founded the he HUMANITAS Prize in 1974 “to celebrate television programs which affirm the dignity of the human person, explore the meaning of life, enlighten the use of human freedom and reveal to 
each person our common humanity.” You may remember Fr. Kieser as the producer of the films Romero(1989), Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996) and the “Insight” series (1960 -1983) for television.

I accepted Soozie’s invitation and did a search for “dinner grace” and guess what came up? A link sponsored by Target that wanted to sell me the DVD  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. That’s appropriate, I thought, since the readers come from various cultural and faith background.  But since Target wasn’t giving anything up on the prayer front, I decided to draw on my favorite cinema genre for inspiration: food movies.

Here is my prayer:

Dear God, come and be with us as we gather here from our Places in the Heart , at a restaurant that is a step above a Diner  , to  East and Drink as Men and Women  , let us be kind to the Waitress , enjoy Tortilla Soup,  Ratatouille  , or the  Mystic dimensions of Pizza ,  or whatever we choose; bless this Feast and those who prepared it with the generosity and totally outpouring of self of a Babette; may it to become Soul Food,  that will give us strength to confront the ducks in our lives as Julie&Julia Child admonished us; help us make this a Big Night for writers and all creative people, knowing that , as Primo said in the film, “to eat good food is to know God”. May this meal be capped by just a little  Chocolat as we begin the Humanitas Prize process once again this year with  No Reservations.   And whether we are  Mostly Marthas  or Marios, give us the grace to slow down and savor the fruits of the labors of these writers to choose the very best stories.

Thank you Lord for your blessings! Bless us, bless this food, and no Sideways Bottle Shock please – and be with us always!

(Here is an article about Humanitas director Cathleen Young  and the Humanitas New Voices initiative written by Neely Swanson in the WGA journal “Written By”; click on “Cathleen Young”)

Cathleen Young, director of the Humanitas organization, Brian Oppenheimer and Barbara Gangi, screenwriters, at the dinner to launch the Humanitas Prize process for 2011. Photo courtesy of Frederic Charpenier

The Silence PBS Frontline special on clergy sex abuse in Alaska to air tonight or online

For my review click here: PBS “Frontline” to air THE SILENCE tonight: clergy sex abuse in Alaska

Elsie Boudreau & Alberta Steve: their stories are told in "The Silence"

The Silence website

Soul Surfer – Based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton

 

This is a film about a teenage Christian girl who loses an arm in a shark attack in Hawaii. There are some perilous moments, but they are handled well. The surfing sequences are excellent – and by the way, Helen Hunt (she plays the mom) did her own surfing scenes, and AnnaSophia Robb, who plays Bethany, took lessons from her and did her own surfing as well.

I thought the faith dimension was handled well; I cannot imagine what losing an arm to a shark would have done to me if I had wanted to  be a world class surfer and champion.

Because the family had so much video of Bethany from the time she was a baby, the filmmakers were able to strive for authenticity. Except for two rather “gooey” scenes, I think they made a fine film with lots to talk about – not the least of which is “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Courage, faith, family, friends.

Here is my longer review for St. Anthony Messenger

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Bethany Hamilton

Here’s an interview with Bethany soon after the attack on October 31, 2003: NBC Insider

About the making of SOUL SURFER

 

Born to Be Wild – IMAX 3D film opens April 8

This new IMAX 3D documentary tells the profoundly moving stories of two women “super heroes” working to preserve two endangered species. These are Dr. Daphne M. Sheldrick  at the  David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya and Dr. Birute’ Mary Galdikas at   The Orangutan Foundation International in central Borneo (Indonesia). Both are articulate, experienced, quietly passionate and determined women who have spent decades rescuing, rehabilitating, and returning orphaned infant elephants and orangutans to the wild.

In general, I do not care for 3D movies but “Born To Be Wild” is a film 3D was made for. It had me from the opening scene.

The film reaches out and embraces the audience and the narrative gently calls the question: Why save wild animals when they offer humanity no practical benefit? Though the film seems to contradict this, it is not because they are cute – which they certainly are. As Dr. Galdikas said at the press day on April 2, the forests are like the original Garden of Eden that people left, and the animals remained.  Thus, she intimated, we have an obligation to preserve God’s creation.

Morgan Freeman narrates the 40-minute film with conviction. He said that this project  “is extremely important and well-worth doing because it highlights a couple of ladies whose courage and dedication should be trumpeted.  It also highlights the danger of what we are doing as humans in terms of the rest of life forms on the planet. We are not aware, as people, of what we are doing. We just blithely go along, eliminating habitats, killing off other creatures in order for us to have more room to grow more food for more of us. There is an inherent danger in this that we need to bring to light, that if we continue the way we are going, eliminating habits and other forms of life, we are going to eliminate ourselves.”

Morgan Freeman

The problem for orangutans is the palm oil plantations created by the destruction of the rain forests. “Modern global culture is coming to Borneo; you cannot leave the global culture behind except in the depths of the rain forest” explained Dr. Galdikas. “Palm oil is in every product today and for someone to obtain a palm oil concession in Borneo is like a license to print money.” She admits that without government help she would not be able to rehabilitate orangutans, but the government “wants to eat its cake and have it, too” when they continue to expand palm oil franchises. “It’s like facing a tsunami,” she said.

Dr. Birute’ Mary Galdikas and son.

“Elephants” explains Dr. Sheldrick, “duplicate human in terms of age, so they don’t learn until they are 20.  We take care of them until they are grown and they we return them to the wild, where they belong. I don’t believe that elephants belong in circuses or zoos. Not do I believe in training them through brutal methods to do unnatural things for the benefit of humans. You can judge a nation by how it treats its animals. “

Dr. Sheldrick has worked with elephants for fifty years near the Tsavo Natonal Park, an area the size of Michigan, in Kenya. “When you raise an elephant there are ups and down,” she told journalists at a press day on April 2. “This space can give elephants quality of life but there is much “intrusion of domestic life and animals into the national park that politicians permit and this compromises the environment.”

There is no doubt of Dr. Sheldrick’s love for the elephants. “The memory part of an elephant’s brain is greater than that of the human brain. They never forget the human trainers from the nursery. And elephants can read your heart; there is no pretense. Those who care for them, it has to come from the heart.”

Dr.Daphne M. Sheldrick

The stunning cinematography and IMAX 3D brought me totally into the film as if I were there, from the very first moment.  This finished product was not easily obtained, however. Filmmakers David Lickley and Drew Fellman described the challenge of carrying 30,000lbs of equipment into the jungle and out again, and the difficulty in trying to manage a 500lb IMAX camera among the elephants. The good news for the crew is that a lightweight digital IMAX camera was available as a second camera.

What response does the film ask of viewers? In addition to a respect for creation, one can, through the film’s website, “foster” elephants in Kenya or “purchase” forest in Borneo – land that will be saved from deforestation for orangutans and other forest inhabitants.

There is no doubt that this film, like last year’s Oscar-winning film “The Cove” http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Apr2010/Eye_On_Entertainment.aspsends a strong anti-animal capture message to audiences.

“Born to Be Wild”  was too short. I want to know more.

Click here for IMAX Theater locations

The film opens April 8.

_______

Dr. Daphne M. Sheldrick, named a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006, and the Kenyan reserve for orphaned elephants that she founded, were profiled twice by CBS “60 Minutes” news magazine in 2006 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/06/60minutes/main1479398.shtml and in 2008

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/19/60minutes/main4677338.shtml

Dr. Galdikas and the Orangutan Foundation International at Camp Leakey (named for paleontologist and conservationist Dr. Richard Leakey) were profiled by “60 Minutes” in 2001 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/01/02/60II/main260977.shtml in the context of the Indonesian rain forest crisis and CBS “48 Hours” in 2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/07/14/48hours/main54343.shtml

After the press session I asked Morgan Freeman if I could have my picture with him “otherwise the nuns

won’t believe I got to meet ‘God'” (referring to his role in “Bruce Almighty” and “Evan Almighty”.)