Fans of Leonard Nimoy have Star Trek Conventions. Baseball historians have trading card conventions. White people who don’t like paying taxes have tea parties. And hipsters from Generations X-through-Y have South By Southwest.
As I prepare to leave my thirties, as I continue towards a horizon that is increasingly influenced by the artist-formerly-known-as Joseph Ratzinger and less so by Quentin Tarantino… and as I find myself wondering just how much the Venn Diagrams intersect the worlds of secular society and faith overlap, I decided to try an experiment: I would wear my clerics at South By Southwest film and music festival.
Before arriving in Austin to spend my pastoral year, I had to come up with a list of goals for my time here. Among those on the list: the Austin City Limits music festival (check!), Mexican food (check!), and a University of Texas football tailgate party (check! check! check!). But the other goal that I held for myself—a goal that was a little more consistent with my religious formation—was to more strongly develop my priestly identity. So I figured that there would be few better places to explore what that would mean for me than at one of the largest gatherings of hipster humanity this year.
So I get on the bus to head over to the downtown festivities. Just as I moved over to my seat, I noticed two younger guys talking next to me; out of the corner of my eye I see one of them nod to his buddy in my direction with a look that seemed to ask, “what’s his kind doing around here?” And while my knee-jerk reaction was annoyance—it’s not as if I were handing out pamphlets that asked if you’ve found Jesus—in the very next moment, his friend replied by just shrugging his shoulders and continued the previous conversation. In fact, that initial small nod of the head was the only negative reaction I would receive during the week long festival.
The following post is a continuation of BustedHalo’s coverage of the 2010 South By Southwest festival.
The guest contributor for this post is Lynn Freehill, an Austin-based writer.
Is being a faithful person a lot like being a slacker? And if so, where does that leave the faithful in life? A new indie film, “The Happy Poet,” made me wonder. This charming little story debuted at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival, and I’ve been mulling it ever since.
Because the movie was shot to simple effect in my much-loved city of Austin, it was especially easy to imagine this scenario playing out in real life: Young guy, out of work but needing to make some sort of living, buys a food cart and sets it up in a park. He puts his heart into it, tenderly hand-making and selling every sandwich and snack himself.
The cart was designed to be a hot dog stand, but this “Happy Poet” (Bill, a thirtysomething would-be creative writer), is a little more New Age-y in his dreams for it. He styles it as an “all organic, mostly vegetarian” stand, with idiosyncratic offerings like eggless egg salad.
Now, Bill doesn’t market test this or anything. He’s not a sharp business mind, or organized or ambitious or a go-getter. He doesn’t care about advertising, or making money — his simply takes pleasure in making people healthy food, day by day. And even though he can hardly afford to, he gives his food away freely. He’s the kind of person lots of us would term a slacker.
Attracted by both Bill’s generosity and his laid-back attitude, other people start hanging around the stand. There’s Donnie, who starts doing sandwich deliveries for the little business — but uses the rounds as an outlet for selling weed. Slyly, he seems to take a too-large cut of what he earns on the sandwiches to boot. And then …
The following is the homily that I gave on Easter Sunday at St. Austin’s. Since we are just beginning the Easter Season, I thought it still might be appropriate.
We have been telling and re-telling the story we just heard in the Gospel for 2,000 years. And with all stories that we know, there’s a certain comfort in familiarity. No matter how much fear creeps into the Agony in the Garden, no matter how brutal Good Friday becomes, we all know how the story ends.
But because we are so familiar with the story, it can get easy to forget one simple thing; after the death of Jesus, the people in today’s reading did not know how the story was going to end. In fact that Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene, Peter, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and everybody else at that time not only did not know how the story was going to end, they thought the story had already ended… badly.
A lot of us can probably relate to that… we don’t know how our individual stories are going to end. Some of us might be looking for a job, and we do not know if we are going to find one. Someone in our family may be sick and we do not know how everything is going to turn out. If you’ve been watching the news, our Church finds herself once again mired in scandal and betrayal on a systemic level and many are wondering if we didn’t learn our lessons eight years ago, will we ever learn them? And it’s because of all the Good Fridays around us that it can often be tempting to think that our stories have already ended… badly.
But that is exactly why the story of Jesus is The Greatest Story Ever Told. Because this is the larger story that we are invited to plug all of our individual stories into. This is the story that tells us all that EVERYTHING is going to work out in the end, even if the ending is something we never would have or could have predicted.
This homily was given on the Tuesday of Holy Week based on the Gospel reading for the day: Peter’s Denial of Jesus. The text can be read here.
A few days ago, I was talking on the phone with somebody who had told me once that a Catholic priest had abused him when he was a child. He had just begun to get some peace about it, but all of the new allegations over the past few weeks in Ireland and Germany really kicked up these feelings again… because for him it wasn’t just the abuse, it was the cover up that happened at a larger level. All of his anger and frustration at the Church came roaring back. And as he spoke I was reminded of today’s Gospel reading.
Peter’s denial of Jesus is a story that is contained in all four Gospels; scholars estimate that the Gospels were written sometime between 30 to 60 years after the death of Jesus. But what is fascinating is that none of the gospels cover up this humongous failure of one of their leaders. In fact, this flaw is brought to the forefront of the Gospels for all of the world to see. That the human stone on which the church rests is simply that… human.
A Buddhist reflection offers that, “all instruction is but a finger pointing to the moon; and those whose gaze is fixed upon the pointer will never see beyond. Even let him catch sight of the moon, and still he cannot see its beauty.” The same can be said for our Church – because it can be so big and so wonderful, it can be easy to mistake the finger for the moon, which of course we understand as the Son, Christ. But this is why when a wart is discovered on the finger, often the reaction is to try to cover it up, to deny it… because it’s presence is too threatening for those only looking at the finger. This dynamic is one of the reasons why …
So, what happens when a Catholic seminarian interviews the director of a documentary about Muslim Punks at the South By Southwest film festival? A pretty good conversation about the struggles of being Islamic in North America and the similar dynamics involved in different spiritual traditions it turns out! After the Austin premiere of Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, filmmaker Omar Majeed and I discussed this lesser-known movement within the modern musical and cultural landscape as it traveled from the United States to Pakistan.
The following post is a continuation of BustedHalo’s coverage of the 2010 South By Southwest festival.
The guest contributor for this post is Lynn Freehill, an Austin-based writer.
After 25 years of on-again, off-again lessons about how God asks us to forgive each other, I came to a group discussion of forgiveness with fair confidence that I could hold my own. Forgiveness was a challenging concept, I’d come to believe, but a beautiful one.
But when one group member, James, launched by asking how we each defined forgiveness, my confidence whooshed away. Here I was a writer, and I couldn’t even articulate the idea in simple words. How to explain it: accepting something that had gone wrong? Telling the wrongdoer it was okay after all?
Fortunately, James offered his own definition: restoration of relationship.
Those three words resonated with me that evening, and they came to me again as I took in a South by Southwest movie premiere.
This premiere had a red carpet and a regal star in a glittering full-length dress, but the film being screened was no fluffy Hollywood concoction. When I Rise was a documentary about the most painful period in the life of its subject, opera star Barbara Smith Conrad.
Conrad has been a famous mezzo-soprano for decades now, living in New York and traveling to places like Paris, Hamburg, and Caracas to perform.
She has the air of a diva — though only in the best sense of the word. She favors dramatic head wraps and striking jewelry. Her posture is not only perfect, but also demands to be described with words like “dignity” and “grace.” Rounding out this woman are a warm smile and a measure of good humor. She is, in short, a presence.
While she was a college student, however, a man once walked up and spit on her face. Other men made terrible, ominous phone calls, threatening her with rape.
The following post is a continuation of BustedHalo’s coverage of the 2010 South By Southwest festival.
This is my week to play “press agent.” I have a badge that makes me feel extra special and my name is on a list that allows me to take pictures on many of the Red Carpet premieres here at South By Southwest. Yet the casual observer might notice little things about me that betray that this is not my full time job.
My camera—although a nice piece of equipment that has always served me well on vacations—appears to have cost thousands of dollars less than the other cameras around me. The fact that I am dressed entirely in black—save a white tab around my neck—also suggests other employment pursuits.
But my amateur status was probably most on display when, after securing my place behind the velvet ropes along the red carpet, a press agent for the film wanted to know if I had any questions for Ms. Conrad. Because this was the moment in which I had to confess that I had never heard of Barbara Smith Conrad. The agent told me that she was a very prominent opera singer. “Opera… Oh! Did she have a role in The Who’s Tommy?” The blank look of the promoter and the shake of her head indicated that it would probably be better if I did not have any questions for Ms. Conrad.
I had only briefly heard about the movie that was premiering, that When I Rise was a film that addressed the discrimination of an African-American student when the University of Texas first integrated. I would have to wait until viewing the movie to find out more about the woman who was just coming out of the limousine.
But when I first saw her approach the red carpet, I immediately regretted that I had not heard of her. I regretted that I did not have a question for Ms. Conrad. Because amidst the crowd that swarmed around her, amidst the snapping flashes from cameras more …
The following post is a continuation of BustedHalo’s coverage of the 2010 South By Southwest festival.
The search for the spirituality at the South By Southwest media festival in Austin began with a pot movie. No, I am not advocating alternative lifestyles… at least not those of the Cheech and Chong variety. But when I found out that Edward Norton would be showing his latest film at the Alamo Draft House on South Lamar, I put a big black circle around the showing of Leaves of Grass on the extended grid of movies offered on the opening night of the festival.
It might have something to do with the fact that the theme that seemed to permeate last summer was the movie Keeping The Faith. For those who have not seen it, the 2000 film featured Norton as a Catholic priest from New York whose best friend was a rabbi played by Ben Stiller. And while those months did not involve a love triangle with Jenna Elfman, I was indeed living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and my best friend that summer was a Jewish Rabbi-to-be. I even went to my first Jewish Shabbat service at the temple in which part of the movie was filmed. And rumor has it that one of the homilies used in the film was based on that of the Paulist who often took me out for Magnolia’s cupcakes.
Keeping The Faith was kind of an anomaly for Norton… in that the film did not involve a character with a dual personality. But with one look at the poster for Leaves of Grass, the viewer is quickly reminded that Norton is back in familiar territory: he plays identical twins. So what did a film about an Ivy League Classics professor and his dope-dealing brother from Oklahoma have to do with spirituality?
A week before this past Ash Wednesday, we gave a pre-Lenten retreat here at the church. The main thrust of the retreat was that …
During my novitiate year, as a way to better learn about the community a number of Paulists came and talked to us about their priestly careers. And one of them, after talking about all the things he was able to do during his time with the community—serving as the chaplain for UCLA, spending a number of years in Rome, working as a commentator on network TV—said something that stuck with me over the past four years. He said, “If you don’t have a lot of fun as a Paulist, it’s your own fault.”
With that in mind, there has been one event I have been looking forward to ever since I arrived in Austin for my pastoral year: South By Southwest (SXSW). SXSW is a yearly festival that integrates the latest in independent film, music, and interactive media. Filmmakers, artists, singers, actors, gamers, and tech geeks all converge on the capital of Texas for ten days of movies, performances, displays, conferences… if it has anything to do with media, it’s here. So with this super-cool festival taking place just twenty blocks away from my parish this year, I got the idea to cover the event from the standpoint of the Spiritual Seeker.
Okay, some of those who know me well might suggest that JUST because covering SXSW entitled me to a pass that gains me free access to the events might have something to do with my interest in this story. And you would not be wrong for noticing that I got the idea to cover this event for Busted Halo around the same time I learned how expensive it is to attend this festival. My response to those accusations is simple: because of my promise of biblical simplicity, a large part of my priestly formation is learning how to get into stuff for free and the last time I checked “shamelessness” is not one of the seven deadly sins… it’s considered venial sin at best.
But I do actually have a less nefarious reason for wanting to cover this event. The big topic …
I know that a magazine entitled “Spirit” does not necessarily involve any faith connotations per se. Of course, the official magazine of Southwest Airlines never claimed to focus on journeys of faith… only those involving honey-roasted peanuts. And when I picked up the magazine on a recent flight, I can’t say that I finally solved the problem of evil or figured out the math of single God made up of three persons. But when I landed on the page entitled “Wheel of Fortune,” I was given yet another subtle reminder of the different kind of life I am leading.
No, the article did not entail any veiled references to Pat Sajak (disappointingly) but it did feature a bright, multicolored wheel… each piece of the wheel containing statements with which the reader was meant to either agree or disagree. So with nothing to do and desperately looking to avoid a conversation with the person seated next to me—during that perilous time when all electronic devices had to be turned off, thus eliminating the famous “I’m listening to my iPhone” excuse—I reached for my own dose of “Spirit.”
The purpose of the wheel is to keep score on the number of statements with which you agree in order to determine one’s own likelihood of wealth. So I get curious… just how wealthy am I? Only one way to find out… I begin with the section of statements entitled “Behavior.”
First statement… “I am married.” Okay then, 0 for 1.
Second statement: “I exercise at least 2-3 times a week.” Rats, this is not looking good for my likelihood of wealth.
“I read newspapers regularly.” Ummm… does reading stuff online count? I guess until that new iPad comes out I am going to have to answer in the negative on this one too.
“I have a college degree.” Whew! I FINALLY get on the scoreboard. Let’s move onto the next section entitled “Goals.”
“I want to be financially comfortable before retirement.” Sure! Check.
“I always knew what career I wanted.” I can’t tell you how much priestly life was WAY off of …
You know how “Fight Club” has these rules? Well, as I’ve come to learn, priests also have similar rules among themselves. Rule Number One: Do not wear clerics on an airplane. Rule Number Two: DO NOT WEAR CLERICS ON AN AIRPLANE.
Why is this you may ask? Well, the best explanation I can give is a story I heard about a fellow Paulist. This particular Paulist very much sees his priesthood as a responsibility to be as complete a representative of a loving God as he can possibly be. He takes this sense of identity very, very seriously and strives with all of his might to fulfill this divine mission. But—because he is a human being, just like everyone else—he acknowledges that he sometimes falls short of this awesome responsibility. So, as an act of penance to the God he feels that he has occasionally let down… he wears clerics on an airplane.
Because as most of us know, it’s always a roll of the dice sitting down next to someone on an airplane. The particular person you might sit next to might be chatty. And if you’re not in a chatty mood, it’s bound to be a very long few hours. You may think that just leaving on your headphones will save you, but there is always that moment in the flight when all electronic devices must be turned off so even feigning total musical involvement might not save you from a talkative passenger. But even if you happen to be open to conversation, there is still no guarantee that the person sitting next to you will be the “engaging” kind of chatty or the “hide all sharp objects for the next three hours of my life” kind of chatty.
You may ask how that is different from any other person? Well, that’s a fair point. But as someone who has simply confessed to being a seminarian while traveling across country, let me tell you that the topic of religion is rarely a neutral topic… especially when one happens to be a public …
Did you know that Ash Wednesday is NOT a Holy Day of Obligation? Seriously! My jaw dropped when I heard this yesterday. The reason: Ash Wednesday is not considered a Feast Day… it’s a fast.
That being said, for a day that does not fall under the purview of obligation, it sure does get good attendance. While I don’t know this for sure (I can let you know at the end of the day), I would be willing to venture that more people show up for church on Ash Wednesday than they do for a typical Sunday. My opinion of the reason why so many people do: giveaways.
If Trade Show people and Athletic Stadium Mascots have learned anything over the years, it’s that people love giveaways. Have you ever been to a professional game and watched people go into an absolute Meg Ryan “I’ll have what she’s having” frenzy when one of the furry green baseball monsters—wearing a gigantic sling-shot on his back—launches a five dollar t-shirt into the foaming mass of humanity? People with several hundred dollar bills in their wallet with fight to catch the exact same airborne prize they could easily purchase—but won’t—50 yards away.
Of course, the reason for the ashes this day is not for greater attendance… if it was, the Vatican would be wise to institute the day with “Keychain Thursday.” But—perhaps appropriately—Ash Wednesday is directly tied to the other day on the Church calendar most associated with giveaways: Palm Sunday.
Yes, the day is supposed to remind us all of our mortality, the fact that we are all finite beings. That the Earth we dwell on existed long before us and—barring an Apocalypse during the next few weeks—will exist long after us. But there’s something significant about the fact that it’s the palms from last year’s Holy Week that are thrown into the Kingsford and marked on our heads.
Palm Sunday was, of course, Jesus’ ticker-tape parade… his Jerusalem equivalent of a procession down New York’s “Canyon of Heroes.” And during last year’s Palm Sunday we all participated in
When I first saw Moulin Rouge! about ten years ago, one of my artsier friends brought me to the independent movie house and I had no idea what I was walking into. She had a reputation for crazy films so I was skeptical at first. As the movie started (if you’ve ever seen it), my initial skepticism seemed more than justified. The films seemed to be all over the place with crazy people shouting, rapid-fire camera cuts, and a music selection that could only be described as schizophrenic… I’m sorry, I mean “multiple-personalitied.” During its first twenty minutes , Moulin Rouge! was like an old airplane—with holes in its fabric wings—bouncing along the runway trying to take off.
And then—just when you thought the plane was going to run out of runway—it soars. It was the moment in which McGregor’s and Kidman’s characters decide that they are going to give this “love thing” a go… and so the song they sing includes a montage of the greatest hits of the past few decades: KISS’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” and the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.”
There was one other song in that montage—even amidst the sonic cacophony that didn’t immediately seem to fit with the others… David Bowie’s “We Could Be Heroes.” But it was included because the two lead characters were indeed choosing to be heroes; they were heroes because they were choosing to be open to the adventures (and the dangers) of love.
I guess that I am thinking of heroes because for the past few weeks in church, we’ve been reading a lot about THE hero of all Jewish heroes: King David. And what I found so fascinating about those texts in is how much they highlighted David’s flaws as well as his virtues, his failures as well as his defeats. The Scripture gives equal weight to David’s victory over Goliath as it does his murder of Uriah. In modern times, we have a peculiar insistence that our heroes be perfect. …
It was an act of incredible self-restraint to NOT begin my reflection for the feast of Saint Blaise—the patron saint of throat illnesses—with this opening line: “Today’s homily is brought to you by Vicks!”
I know, “bad seminarian.” How dare I even think of money when reflecting on one of the holy ones of the church, a martyr no less! Maybe after preaching five Masses this past weekend that involved a cash appeal, I guess my head has found itself in a fundraising place. As I’m beginning to see, it’s all part of the territory of becoming a priest. When I told my sister that I was going to be doing the appeal for the Paulists this past weekend, she said, “Ahh, you’re a priest already!”
But while we’re on the topic, it’s not as if Catholic saints don’t have a lot of untapped potential in the sponsorship department. I mean, college bowls have corporate tie-ins that are only tangentially are tied to the game. “Tune in for the Outback Bowl!!! Being played in… someplace other than Australia.” The All-State Sugar Bowl… seriously? What does car insurance have to do with sugar? The Captain Crunch Sugar Bowl seems infinitely more appropriate… and yet it seems to be working for the people in whom we are in good hands.
When this idea was brought up around the office, imaginations ran wild. We suspected that the people at Pepto-Bismol would have more than a passing interest in sponsoring the feast for Bonaventure, patron saint of bowel disorders.,, and no, I am not making that one up. Chick-Fill-A seems a natural tie-in for St. Sebastian… patron saint of cattle diseases. Goya Kidney Beans were suggested for Benedict of Nursia, patron saint for those with kidney disease… we rejected that one pretty quickly. I will spare you the ideas presented for Peregine Laziosi, patron saint of open sores.
But a common complaint of modern society is that EVERYTHING seems to be sponsored nowadays… and as someone who used to live in Baltimore for a period of time, …
A few months ago, I was sitting with some of the young adults at our parish in Austin and I casually mentioned the name of Issac Hecker. The response to that name was, “Who’s that?” And initially the response took me off-guard because for the past three-and-a-half years, much of my conversation has centered around the founder of the Paulist Fathers.
So when I preached this past weekend for the Paulist Appeal, I thought it would be a good opportunity to focus on Hecker and how his story relates to the conversion of St. Paul. Because I seemed to get a good reception on the homily, it is printed below. It does cover some good history of the community that supports Busted Halo, The Paulists, but you certainly won’t be expected to contributie for simply reading.
Of course if you WANT to, no one will stop you. :)
When our founder Isaac Hecker was born in 1819, America was not yet 50 years old. Think about that for a second… we are farther away today from the Beatle’s first appearance on Ed Sullivan than Isaac Hecker was from the Revolutionary War. America, this brand new experiment in human history, was just learning how to walk. And people were asking questions like, “What kinds of values are we going to have?” “What kind of people are we going to be?”
And as Isaac grew older in the midst of this extraordinary time, he saw his own life as being directly caught up in those very questions. But he also sensed something stirring inside of him, something that bordered on the mystical. Because if Paul’s conversion was that of a Big Bang, Hecker’s conversion consisted of a slow burn that unfolded over many, many years.
Isaac was born a Methodist and he knew that God was at work in his life but he didn’t know how. So to discern where those stirrings were leading him, he went to Massachusetts go live with the Transcendentalists. Now of course, many have observed that …
On more than one occasion, I found myself utterly forgetting the patient’s name when praying with the patient. Somehow praying for “Buddy’s” recovery and for God’s presence in “Buddy’s” life in this time of trial seemed less… personal.
Climbing “Mount Bond” was a challenge that I always lost but never stopped trying to conquer while growing up. The closest I got in my attempts were smoothly ordering a “Coca-Cola, two cherries, no ice” when going out to restaurants, my own underage version of the famous vodka martini… I know, I know, you only wish you could be THAT cool.
I myself am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions; I much prefer Lent when it comes to endeavors of personal improvement. For Catholics, the practice of sacrificing something of value for 40 days is like a New Year’s resolution, except with teeth.
Keeping The Faith was kind of an anomaly for Norton… in that the film did not involve a character with a dual personality. But with one look at the poster for Leaves of Grass, the viewer is quickly reminded that Norton is back in familiar territory: he plays identical twins. So what did a film about an Ivy League Classics professor and his dope-dealing brother from Oklahoma have to do with spirituality?
