Ramblings of a Constipated Mind

Today I met Sean Astin - that's Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings movies, for those of you who don't know - on campus. I was walking down the hall and saw a flyer saying that he was going to be at NC State to promote the Hillary Clinton campaign.

How was this not advertised? About forty to fifty people showed up to hear him speak, and I think a lot more would have come out if they had actually known it was happening. It was by pure chance that I happened to see the flyer.

After his presentation, I stuck around and did a short interview while walking him to his car. Hopefully that interview will be up on MovieChatter within the next week, despite the fact that most of it is about politics (though I did ask him about The Hobbit movie at the end!).

Anyways... yeah. That was a pretty cool, unexpected twist to my day. Sean Astin is probably the nicest, most down-to-Earth celebrity I have ever met, with the possible exception of Bruce Campbell. He's the kind of guy I would love to just have lunch and hang out with. And he actually said a lot about what Clinton actually stands for and has promised to do if she's President, which is more than a lot of people on the campaign trail do.

He even managed to get me to start considering voting for Hillary. Who woulda thunkit?

My exercise in spiritual discipline is going well, though I'm having mixed results. I stayed perfectly on schedule for the first half of the week, but during the second half got off schedule and would miss either the meditation or the Scripture reading every day. I've stayed on schedule with the calls to prayer, though. Here's the lowdown on every element so far:

Calls to Prayer - These range from annoying to very worthwhile. Sometimes I'll find myself in the middle of doing something and won't want to stop to pray, so that sucks. But forcing myself to do it, as well as getting up early just for that purpose, has at times been very humbling, and it feels like there is a real connection with God.

Scripture Reading - This has actually been going the best of everything, as long as I remember to do it. It usually takes around 45-60 minutes, but it's worth it. I've got several online commentaries that I've started using. I've discovered that commentaries are extremely helpful if you're like me and question the origin/meaning of the original Greek test and wonder what Jesus' words would have meant to people at that point in time. Usually I focus on 5-10 verses every day. I've working through the Sermon on the Mount at the moment. So far, it's been a very enlightening experience.

Meditation - This hasn't been going as well as I had hoped. I've discovered it's difficult to meditate at night because sometimes there's a lot of noise out in the hall and other times I start to fall asleep doing it. I wish I knew specific techniques and things I could do to stay focused. I'm gonna stick with it though and hope it gets better.

Saturday Fasting - I did this yesterday, and it sucked. It was the most difficult time fasting I've ever had. I slept until 2, and woke up starving. I had resolved that I wouldn't eat anything until 9 PM, and it was tough to get through the day. One thing's for sure though - it did keep my mind focused on the sacrifice and on God. I can see the benefits.

All in all, things are going pretty well, and I'm not going to make any drastic changes to the routine.

***

I've spoken with a couple friends in China. It's interesting how they're handling all the protests. Basically, there's now a ton of pro-China propaganda going on (as one would expect) and a lot of national pride. Which is good, in my opinion. At the moment many people are considering boycotting Carrefour (a French grocery store chain) since there are protests in France to boycott the Olympics and the Olympic torch. Also, people are very upset about the comments made by Jack Cafferty on CNN, as they rightfully should be.

Personally, I think the Tibet issue is one that will never be solved, so it's pretty pointless to protest and boycott at this point. Both sides are right, because both sides come to the issue with different assumptions. I'm still pro-China, and I'm still going to be rooting for them in the Olympics come August.

Quotes of Da Moment:
"When life gives you lemons, just say 'Fuck the lemons,' and bail."
--Forgetting Sarah Marshall

"Hollywood has raped my dreams."
--me, after watching The Forbidden Kingdom

As mentioned yesterday, I have been thinking about engaging in a spiritual experiment/exercise in order to improve my spiritual discipline and hopefully come to a richer encounter with God.

After careful thought and prayer, I have decided to go ahead with it.

I feel like though I am constantly thinking about God and reflecting on spiritual matters, there is something missing in my spiritual life. Though recently I have started to once again feel God at work in my mind intellectually, it is as though when it comes to feeling the presence of God and feeling like I'm actually in a relationship with Him, I'm not quite there. Things are not quite like they used to be, and I do not feel as fulfilled as I did before what I have started thinking of as "the crisis."

The main reason for this is most likely that I have not been reading and reflecting on Scripture regularly. For a long time (probably at least two years) having what people in Christian circles refer to as a "quiet time" has not been high on my list of priorities. That's not to say I didn't do it - I did, I would just go in spurts of activity. Some months I'd do it pretty frequently, and other months I wouldn't do it at all. I was lazy, and quite frankly, pretty arrogant about whether or not it was necessary. Then, after the "crisis", it became obvious that it was necessary, yet by that point I was so frustrated with God and uncertain about how to interact with Him and with Scripture that I did not see the point. At the moment, whenever I do read Scripture on my own, I frequently come away frustrated because I feel like I'm not grasping what was originally meant in the cultural context or what God is really trying to say to me.

I feel that spiritual discipline is important if one is ever going to have meaningful encounters with God, and not just the "know-how" about theology and how God supposedly works, of which I feel I have a fairly decent amount. However, it has become obvious to me that:

a) I have problems staying consistent
b) Lately, whenever I do attempt to read Scripture and understand it, I always come away feeling like I have missed something

So, in an attempt to remedy both these problems, I am going to commit myself for the next 30 days to the practice of several different spiritual exercises, one of which comes from Islam, and the other from Buddhism and Christian monastic traditions, in the hopes that by engaging in uncomfortable and unfamiliar practices I will be able to come to a fuller encounter with God. Here is what I am going to attempt to do every day for the next month:

1) Daily calls to prayer - This is inspired by the Islamic tradition of praying at five scheduled times throughout the day. Although I am not going to do it that much, I feel like there might be benefits to scheduled times of prayer, not the least of which being that it will hopefully inspire a spirit of humility and service to God. I am going to try to pray for a few minutes at or around three scheduled times of the day: 6 AM (I know, I'm crazy), 2 PM, and 10 PM. I am going to begin by reciting a modified version of the Islamic call to prayer:

The Almighty is Great (x4)
I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but the Almighty (x2)
I bear witness that Christ is the Almighty's Messenger and Son (x2)
Come to prayer (x2)
Come to success (x2)
The Almighty is Great (x2)
There is none worthy of worship but the Almighty (x2)

I am then going to pray aloud for several minutes, doing my best to remain focused on the greatness of God. It should be noted that although I do not ascribe to Islamic beliefs, I find this call to prayer refreshingly humbling. Islam is by nature a very reverent and respectful religion in terms of how its followers relate to God, and this is an aspect of prayer I feel I need to place more emphasis on. At times when I pray, it is difficult to stop focusing on myself and my own needs, even for a few minutes, so I am hoping that by engaging in this practice I will come to appreciate God more simply for Himself.

2) After the morning prayer, I am going to read a passage of Scripture. It will range from either a few verses to an entire chapter, depending on what I feel led to read and contemplate. I am going to first read the passage aloud, and then several times silently. I am then going to prayerfully reflect on the passage, perhaps even engaging in some sort of Scriptural meditation such as lectio divino.

3) I am then going to read a passage or chapter from a book somehow related to the Christian faith. If I finish the book before the 30 days is complete, I will move on to a new book. First on the list: The Last Word by N.T. Wright.

4) In the evenings, before I go to bed I am going to engage in a time of quiet meditation, most likely for 10-20 minutes. This could range from something in the Buddhist tradition, like simply concentrating on my breath or on nothing, to more Christian monastic practices of focusing on a specific word or religious symbol. I am aware that this will probably prove difficult, since I am easily distracted, but I think that the very act of setting aside a time of silence for meditation is an important one. Often times in American culture our lives are so busy and hectic that we don't set aside time to just sit and be still. Scripture says, "Be still and know that I am God." I am going to try and set aside time to simply listen, and see if God speaks. My goal is to use this time to reflect on things such as:

a) nothing - just a time of concentration and/or rest
b) God - and who He is
c) myself - and my own strengths/weaknesses/needs

5) I am also going to commit myself to fasting every Saturday. Although I have fasted before, it's something that I think should probably be done on a more regular basis (at least once a month or every few months). My goal by doing it this frequently is to be able to get a better idea of its potential benefits and pitfalls.

Those are the basics. I am going to start by just trying to stay on schedule, and let the details of the prayer and meditation aspects evolve over the course of the next month. It will be interesting to see if I can stay committed to doing this for that long, and if I do what the effects are. I'm going to try and blog about the experience every few days to chronicle what (if anything) I learn from the experience. At the very least I hope I'll come away more disciplined in at least some aspects of spirituality.

Wish me luck!

Monday night, I went to a screening of For The Bible Tells Me So, a fantastic documentary I had already seen at Full Frame in 2007 that brings up interesting issues related to the intersection and conflict between Christianity and homosexuality. I also interviewed the director, Dan Karslake (you can read the article I wrote for the paper on my blog), who is one of the nicest filmmakers I've ever met. I recorded the interview, and am waiting for his permission to publish the file online, but until then, here are some interesting tidbits he brought up in the interview, as well as the Q&A after the film:

1) Conservative Christians have been the biggest audience for the film and overall have responded well to it. However, he has received several negative emails, some of which even contain death threats, by people who have not yet seen the film but automatically condemn it because it deals with homosexuality.

2) The only interviews with conservative biblical literalists in the film are in the form of archival footage. Karslake is very disappointed that is the case, but said that originally his goal was to interview people like Pat Robertson and James Dobson and many other conservative literalists. When they first heard about the film, five people in this category immediately jumped on board and agreed to be interviewed the film. However, when they read on the film's website that it would "explore all interpretations and viewpoints" on the issue, they dropped out right away and decided not to participate. They also made sure to influence as many other such people as they could, so that in the end Karslake was unable to find a single high-profile biblical literalist to appear in the film, after checking with hundreds of prospects.

3) Many gay and lesbians who attend screenings of the film and hear about it are very hostile towards the idea of discussing the Bible, and wonder why it's worth bringing up. He feels that it is important to understand the Bible and interpretations of the Bible since it directly influences how many people treat homosexuals, and reports that after seeing the film, many homosexuals "actually end up liking Christians."

4) Karslake is saddened that usually when young gay people are confronted by issues of their faith, it pushes them towards suppression and suicide. Ironically, he himself found as a college student at Duke that it was his faith in Christ that helped him accept his own homosexuality rather than reject it.

Anyways, he's a fascinating guy and I would encourage all readers to check out the film, which is available to rent from Netflix and Blockbuster. He also announced that his next film is going to explore the issue of world poverty, and how according to UN estimates it would take around $500 billion to practically end it, yet the USA is spending its money on other things (like the war). According to Karslake, even if the USA was just to put $50 billion towards this issue, it would probably inspire other countries to do the same. It will most likely be a few more years before the film is completed, though.

***

As mentioned a few posts ago, I have begun contributing again to a film-podcast with Erik Blythe and others. His podcast, RandomChatter, has been split up into multiple little sub-podcasts, and I am going to be the backbone behind the movie review-related one, MovieChatter. I am also going to try and be a major contributor to the main podcast, RandomChatter. Look for the first episode of MovieChatter to launch within the next 48 hours if all goes well, with a discussion of the movie Street Kings.

***

Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica has started, and I am pleased to report that they haven't done anything that really pisses me off yet. Granted, they haven't done anything amazing, but they're setting the stage for what could potentially be the show's best season and a spectacular finale. We'll see what happens.

***

While I was at Full Frame this past weekend, I received an email from the NCSU film department about a woman who is looking for help making a documentary. I had the opportunity to meet with her at Full Frame and discuss the project, and it looks like I will be joining with her at several times this summer to help with filming. She appears to be very excited about working with me (she was looking for someone with skills related to film studies, sociology or journalism, and I'm studying all three) and hopefully things will go smoothly so that I'll be able to help her out. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about the film at this point, except that it's related to different strands of Christianity and how Christianity is changing in this day and age. This will be my first time working on a large-scale project as part of the crew, so I'm excited.

***

I finished reading The Reason For God. Holy crap. What an amazing book. This is one of the best logical, rational arguments for Christianity I have ever come across, and it is done with humility and wit as well as with thoughtful reflection. More on this later, possibly.

***

I am thinking about undergoing an experiment in spiritual discipline in an effort to improve my overall commitment to God and hopefully gain valuable insight both about Him and about myself. I am going to pray about it for the next 24 hours and will hopefully have a decision made by Monday whether or not to pursue a course of action. More details if I decide to go through with it, but please pray that I will receive guidance since it is an experiment that could have interesting consequences for both good and/or bad.

Quotes of Da Moment:
"Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?" --John Calvin

"The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then to ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It would be inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness you must doubt your doubts. My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs--you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared."
--Timothy Keller, The Reason For God

Full Frame was great. I'll try and post a detailed recap of everything on my film blog within the next week or two, but it'll have to wait until after this week, since I'm insanely busy - to give you an idea, I just pulled an all-nighter writing some articles for the paper and getting some recordings ready for the podcast. I've got a paper due tomorrow on a book I haven't read, and a paper due Friday that I'm really not looking forward to writing. Fun times.

On a lighter note: as some of you know, two weeks ago I and a few other members of the Film Committee filmed a short video to promote the fact that we're bringing Cloverfield to show at the Campus Cinema. It's a marketing experiment, and an idea we had kicked around, but it turned out we ended up filming rather spontaneously the day after our meeting. I edited it together, and now it's showing on the big screen before all the films shown at the Campus Cinema. Not only that, but I just saw today that it's playing on the NC State television station, despite the fact that for some reason there's no sound. Weird. Anyways, I guess that officially makes this little 2-minute video I edited the most widely-viewed of any of my work.

I've uploaded it onto YouTube and Facebook for those of you who would like to see it. I have mixed feelings about it. All of my loose planning was pretty much thrown out the window since we randomly decided at one meeting to film it the next day. Originally, I had planned on the "party scene" to actually look like a party, with more people and whatnot. On the day of the shoot, though, only 4 people showed up including myself, so we were forced to make do with that. Also: we had originally planned on having a shot of Mr. Wolf's (the NCSU mascot) head rolling down the street like the head of the Statue of Liberty in the official Cloverfield trailers. Unfortunately, Mr. Wolf didn't get back to us in time. I also had wanted to film at night, but other people were not available at that time. So, basically, we filmed the whole thing in around 2 hours by basically just finding random people to run and scream in broad daylight and hoping that with proper editing it would turn out okay and somewhat suspenseful. Or at least, suspenseful in a tongue-in-cheek way.

Considering what I had to work with, I'm pretty proud of the final product. I worked on editing this thing for probably much longer than I should have, but it was fun and I wanted to make sure I got it as close to perfect as I could. It was shot on a Canon XL1 camera that I had rented from the film department - I LOVE THIS CAMERA. Seriously, it's the best camera I've ever used, and the uncompressed footage I have on my hard drive is the crispest and prettiest I've ever had to work with. It also comes with a good microphone, so this also has the best sound quality of anything I've ever filmed. The challenging part was all the other sound; namely, any sound effects and music other than the dialogue that needed to be edited in. I'd estimate at least 90% of the sound is stuff I found and did my best to mix together in an effective way.

Anyways, it played before all the screenings at the Campus Cinema this past weekend, and I've heard the response was very positive. If we end up getting a lot of people for Cloverfield, this may be the kind of thing we do for other films in the future. I hope that's the case, I had fun with this, despite the very unprofessional day of shooting. Here it is for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure). For a look at the original product we were attempting to parody, go here.

It's 4 AM, but at last I'm organized and ready to go.

In less than 12 hours, I'll be with James watching the first of 15-20 films at Full Frame.

See you on the other side.

So the other night I was hanging out with Mason playing Super Smash Bros. A bunch of people were there, including some girls I had never met before. I got to talking with one of them (whose name shall remain anonymous) and we kinda hit it off. Turns out she's studying film at Peace College a few miles down the road from State. We talked about movies, life at college, her family, etc. Nothing life-changing. But I notice that I seem to connect with this girl more than I do with others, not to mention she's pretty attractive to boot. She's also doing that whole glance-away-frequently-because-I'm-nervous thing girls tend to do when they like someone. I start thinking to myself, "I should ask this girl out. She seems cool."

Anyways, it gets late, and I offer to drive her home. She accepts. So we pull up in front of her place, I gather up my courage and I turn to ask her out. And that's when it happens.

She leans over and kisses me.

I'm not talking a little peck on the cheek. I'm talking full-blown, lip-on-lip action. And suddenly, I realize that not only is this hot girl kissing me, but that I'm also kissing her back.

We stop and look at each other. I most likely look stunned. She has this look on her face that seems to say, "Is this really happening?" And then gradually this glint appears in her eye that suggests, "You'd better believe it." I have enough time to think, "Whoa, this is awesome" and then we're all over each other again. This isn't your typical make-out session. This is pure, animalistic desire, and all my brain can think is, "I want this." The next thing I know we're forcing ourselves into unnatural angles around the steering wheel and the gear shift just so we can get at each other. I'm groping pretty much every nook and cranny of her body, and she's returning the favor.

After a few more minutes of heavy petting, she looks at me and says, "Look, just so you know, I'm not looking for a serious relationship."

I think for a few seconds and then respond, "I'm okay with that."

We continue our necking for a few more hours. Things get really hot and heavy. Shirts come off. The windows are steam up. Things reach a peak. It's intense. Then, we stop. We say good night. She goes inside, and I'm left to wrap my brain around what just happened.

I wonder if I'll ever see her again.

I just realized that Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica premieres this Friday, not next week as previously thought.

The problem: I will be at Full Frame this weekend. I can't have both things. FRAK!

I guess I'll have to wait and watch the rerun before the second episode. Noooooooooooooooooo!