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death

You Will Die at Twenty: How to Live

January 22, 2021 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

You Will Die at Twenty is Sudan’s first ever submission for Best International Film Oscar consideration, and only the eighth fiction feature film made in the country. It offers us a chance to consider the ways fear of death may strip us of the joys of life.

When Muzamil was born, his parents took him to the local Sufi holy man for a blessing. Instead, it was prophesized that he would die when he turned twenty. This is announced as God’s command. The thought is too much for his father, who leaves their village, ostensibly to find work, but he is gone for many years. As a child, his mother is overprotective, until the local imam convinces her the boy needs to learn the Quran. And he does learn it, memorizing it in two different reading styles.

But his twentieth birthday is looming. His mother and other women are busy preparing the incense for his burial. He is reluctant to allow a romantic relationship grow with a village girl, because he knows his life is ending. It is of interest that no one ever doubts the prophecy. Everyone accepts that Muzamil is a doomed young man.

Sulaiman, an older man who left the village years ago, has returned. He is looked at as a reprobate. He has traveled the world as a photographer. He has stills and motion pictures that show Muzamil the world outside the village. Sulaiman seems to be the only person around who does not accept the premise that Muzamil is, as Sulaiman puts it, “the walking dead”. He encourages Muzamil to live, even to sin, so that his life, even if short, will be meaningful.

This is a story of a life that is held hostage by the specter of death. His mother literally counts the days. Muzamil never tries to envision a future, because he has been told he has none. Because of this he cannot allow himself to love or to hope. The prophecy has actually stripped him of the freedom of life. Sulaiman asks him to imagine another world—not just one far away, but one in which his death is not a given.

In press notes, Director Amjad Abu Alala relates the way this reflects Sudan under the dictatorship of Omar el-Bashir. He says, “The Sudanese government used Islam to shut everyone’s mouth—when you say “God says” nobody talks any more.” For the Sudanese in a post el-Bashir world, this film is a call to live freely. And it should be noted that the invocation of God is used by many who wish to end conversation.

I also think that the film speaks to more universal themes. Certainly there is a sense in which knowing that we are mortal makes us reflect on life. For Christians, that is a message we receive each year when we receive ashes on our foreheads. Knowing that death awaits us all can be paralyzing for some, but for others it reminds us of the importance of each day. Death may be a reality we must all face, but life is also a reality that we are called to embrace.

You Will Die at Twenty is available on virtual cinema through local theaters.

Photos courtesy of Film Movement.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: death, Official Oscar entry, Sudan, Sufism

Wander Darkly – Therapy of Memory

December 11, 2020 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Wander Darkly, from writer-director Tara Miele, is the story of a relationship. It is told in a unusual manner that some viewers may find difficult, but if you stick with it, it will reward you.

Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) have recently bought a house and had a child, but their relationship is somewhat rocky. On a turbulent date night, there is a terrible accident. In the aftermath of that event, the couple struggles to understand why they were together. But the journey to their understanding is a very twisty and strenuous road.

It begins in the ER after the accident. Adrienne has an out of body experience, seeing her body on a gurney and wheeled into the morgue. She wanders into different scenes and settings. When she eventually reconnects with Matteo, he assures her she is alive. They have a child. Everything is real. They begin to visit their memories of their relationship. The first, which sets the tone for all the rest is right after their baby was born. To talk about trauma is to begin to understand it, so Adrienne tells her newborn about the trauma involved in the birth. As the film plays out, Adrienne and Matteo work through the trauma they have experienced by talking about their past.

There is a meta quality to their memories. As they experience the events of their past, they discuss what happened and their feelings as they are remembering it. They are not only reliving events; they are simultaneously looking back at them from the present. As they go from good memories to bad and back to current day, we see the kinds of things that make up a relationship. We see the times of joy and the times of hardship.

Just before the accident, the two are wondering why they are still together. As we see their life together to this point, we come to realize why they connected, and also why they drifted apart. And in the end, we see how they will be connected in the days and years ahead.

The structure of the film, with the questions of whether the characters are alive or not, borders on the horror genre and often seems like a psychological thriller, but at its heart this is a love story. Through Matteo and Adrienne’s relived memories, we see what it is that makes up the love that they share. Although there are some things that will never be healed, because they have undergone this period of memory, talking, experiencing each other as they had before, the love they held is transformed into something even more lasting.

Wander Darkly is available in select theaters, on virtual cinema through local arthouses, and on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Lionsgate.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews, VOD Tagged With: death, horror, love story

That Good Night – To Rage or Not To Rage

November 3, 2020 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

“Are you sorry you woke up?”

What makes it worth living for another day, or two, or a few months? In Eric Styles’s film That Good Night, based on a play by N.J. Crisp, that becomes the real question, not just to be or not to be. Ralph (the late John Herd in his final film) is an aging famous screenwriter. He knows his death is coming soon, but keeps that information from his younger wife Anna (Sofia Helin). As he gets his affairs in order, he demands his estranged son come to visit “before Sunday”.  He also makes an appointment with The Society to send a representative. Ralph’s goal is to have a reconciliation with his son, and to avoid being a burden to his wife in his final days.

When his son Michael (Max Brown) arrives with his girlfriend Cassie (Erin Richards), Ralph is amazingly rude, eventually pushing Michael and Cassie to leave with nothing resolved. Ralph has never had a real relationship with Michael. We learn that Ralph wanted Michael’s mother to abort him. Ralph never saw the child until he was five years old, and rarely after that. Even as an adult, and himself a successful screenwriter, Michael has conflicted feelings towards his father.

After Michael’s departure, while Ralph is at home alone, The Visitor (Charles Dance), dressed in white, arrives from The Society. He and Ralph talk, in a pseudo-hypothetical fashion about euthanasia. Ralph is ready to end it all. The Visitor suggests waiting and counseling. But Ralph insists. The Visitor provides a shot that Ralph things will bring death. When that is not the case, Ralph has a second chance at making things right in his life. He discovers that there may be things yet to come that are worth the suffering that his final months will bring.

You might note that the title is a phrase from a famous poem by Dylan Thomas, which deals with facing death. That poem comes up twice in the film. The first is during Ralph’s first conversation with The Visitor. At that time Ralph says that Thomas, who was less that forty when he died, didn’t have an understanding of the real nature of impending death. The idea of “raging against the dying of the light” is a young man’s idea. The entire poem is read in voice over at the end of the film, now with a different emotional context.

The relationship between Ralph, Anna, Michael and Cassie provide the narrative and emotional structure of the film. The conversations that Ralph has with The Visitor are the intellectual content of the film. Those conversations, ostensibly about euthanasia, are much more centered on life than death. Even when talking about life after death, The Visitor notes that he knows that he doesn’t know. What matters is not the beyond, but the now. We sense that The Visitor is not just a local representative of a euthanasia group. He speaks of being interested in ending the suffering that people go through, but he is also very cognizant of the suffering of everyone involved in Ralph’s life. The Visitor tries to encourage Ralph to see the things that could be worthwhile, even in his final months. His return visits always give Ralph a vision of what could still lie ahead.

A key pair of scenes that occur simultaneously, are of Anna attending Mass in town while Ralph and The Visitor discuss Ralph’s desire to die. Just as Anna receives the Body during the Eucharist, The Visitor gives Ralph the injection Ralph thinks is his death. It turns out that, like the eucharist, the injection becomes both a symbol of death, and an entry into new life. It provides, in a sense, resurrection for Ralph. Resurrection is always about new possibilities.

That Good Night is available on VOD.

Photos courtesy of Trinity Creative Partnership and GSP Studios.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: death, euthanasia, father/son relationship, Resurrection

Super Bowl, Kobe Bryant: Questions & Reflections

January 29, 2020 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

your sunday drive podcast

Should Christians “celebrate” secular “holidays” like the Super Bowl? What risks and opportunities are there when we participate in such cultural events?

How can we respond to the sudden death of a celebrity like Kobe Bryant? Can we find context and insight and comfort from the Bible at times like this?

Reflections on these and other questions in Your Sunday Drive Podcast Season 2, Episode 2.

Come along for Your Sunday Drive – quick conversation about current events, politics, pop culture and more, from the perspective of a couple of guys trying to follow Jesus.

Hosts: Matt Hill and Nate Polzin. Presented by the Church in Drive of Saginaw, MI, as often as possible. Please visit churchindrive.com and facebook.com/thechurchindrive



Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Bible, christian podcast, church in drive, culture, death, Kobe Bryant, Podcast, sports, super bowl

The Long Road Home Ep. 4 – Faith in Uncertainty

November 27, 2017 by J. Alan Sharrer Leave a Comment

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

The situation in Sadr City wasn’t getting any better for the soldiers depicted in National Geographic’s The Long Road Home (Tuesdays 10 PM/9 PM CT and on demand).  In fact, it was getting significantly worse. All three platoons had come under heavy fire and numerous men have been injured or killed.  What do you do when the threat of death is pervasive in the air?

The fourth episode focused on Staff Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Jeremy Sisto), who was called back to duty beyond his contract date (known as stop-lossing). He was portrayed in the earlier programs as a calm veteran who seems to have a laissez-faire attitude about the whole concept of war. In fact, that was far from the truth.  Miltenberger was on duty in Kosovo during an earlier tour of duty and watched helplessly as a woman carrying her dead baby walked directly towards him, then headed into a live minefield.  As a result, he had numerous dreams about the lady and developed a fatalistic outlook on the whole mission, even going so far as to write a letter his wife was supposed to find after he died in battle.

Miltenberger’s brigade in Iraq was dealing with numerous issues—notably driving into the middle of a city under attack with an unarmored vehicle and no radio communication (big no-nos). He sensed an ambush and got the squadron out of certain death, only to have the truck’s radiator crack a short while later.  While attempting a patch, he saw a group of unarmed residents—one who looked eerily like the lady he saw in Kosovo.  Was this a premonition of something?

As for the original platoon, led by Lt. Shane Aguero (EJ Bonilla), they were still hunkered down, but the militia against them was slowly closing in.  The soldiers were running out of ammunition and had no night vision gear as the sun slowly set.  You could sense fear in theiir eyes.  The head od the forces, Lt. Col. Volesky (Michael Kelly), had his life flash before his eyes after being trapped by insurgents, only to be spared at the last minute.  Some of the wounded, thankfully, were evacuated to base camp to receive treatment for their injuries.

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

Back in the US, the news outlets reported fighting in Sadr City, understandably causing the soldiers’ wives to panic. Gina Denomy (Kate Bosworth) and LeAnn Volesky (Sarah Wayne Callies) were the point people but were limited as to what could be shared due to Army regulations, infuriating some of the wives.  Lt. Aguero’s wife later learned of the attack, causing her son Elijah to run to his room and cry, “Dad’s going to die and it’s all my fault.”  It’s heartbreaking, considering his reaction to the deployment in the first episode. Uncertainty hangs in the air, with lots of men still in harm’s way and darkness closing in . . .

Though they’ve played a small role in the program, the army wives have fascinated me. They had unknown fears going into the deployment.  Some were new mothers while some were expecting a child in a matter of months.  All were trying to keep life as normal as possible–not only for their children, but for themselves.  When the news began reporting on the situation in Iraq, it understandably caused the wives to worry: Were there casualties?  If so, was my husband one of them?  If so, how am I going to live life without them by my side? If they’re hurt, can I deal with taking care of them, no matter what the injury (physical or mental)?   The hardest thing in those moments is faith–faith in God, faith in the commanders, faith that all will be okay. The Bible says faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NASB).   That’s incredibly difficult for most of us in ordinary life, much less people in the military.  However, without faith in something to stand on, we just exist.  In the case of the military wives, faith is all they had to hold on to even with the swirling winds of conflicting news reports all about them.

Tomorrow evening’s episode will look at the situation in Sadr City from the eyes of an unlikely person—the interpreter.  It should be quite interesting.

Filed Under: Reviews, Television Tagged With: Army, death, EJ Bonilla, Faith, Gary Volesky, GIna Denomy, Hebrews, Iraq, Jeremy Sisto, Kate Bosworth, Kosovo, LeAnn Volesky, Michael Kelly, National Geographic, Robert Miltenberger, Sadr City, Sarah Wayne Callies, Shane Aguero, The Long Road Home, uncertainty

The Long Road Home Ep. 1&2: Come Together

November 7, 2017 by J. Alan Sharrer Leave a Comment

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
–The Apostle Paul

Peacekeeping was the goal for the members of the First Calvary Division when they headed to Sadr City, Iraq in 2004.  It was a quiet area with one incident in the previous calendar year.

Two weeks later, that peace turned into war and a desperate fight for survival.

The first two episodes of National Geographic’s new series The Long Road Home (tonight, 9 PM/8 CT) chronicles the events of Black Sunday and paints a multifaceted picture of war and its effects on not only the soldiers but their families seven thousand miles away.  Based on the New York Times bestseller of the same name by ABC Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz, it’s intense, violent, and sad—sometimes all at once.  It’s definitely must-see-TV (or at least must-DVR).

Each episode focuses, to some extent, on one of the main players in the Black Sunday attack on April 4, 2004.  1st Lt. Shane Aguero (EJ Bonilla) is the focal point of episode one as the leader of the group initially attacked.  The viewer sees him at the outset playing with his two kids, each of whom are taking his deployment hard.  His daughter is clinging to his side while his son wants absolutely nothing to do with him.  His wife Amber (Kate Paxton) is left to deal with things until he returns, but she has a group of wives on base who have banded together to provide support until the boys come back (if they do).

Life at Camp War Eagle seems quite boring, but who really wants action when it could mean dying in the process? When Aguero’s battalion is ambushed, it’s the first time many of the troops have ever experienced live fire of that nature.  It’s easy to tell the soldiers are a band of brothers, and when one of their own gets hit, it’s a race against time to keep him alive.

Courtesy National Geographic

The second episode looks at the situation through the eyes of Lt. Col. Gary Volesky (Michael Kelly, seen above), a calm, mild-mannered man who lives a life of faith back home.  There are flashbacks to his family praying before dinner and a few situations where he is asking God for faith in what would become two days of nightmares.  One of the most heartbreaking parts of the episode is when a soldier introduces his mom to Volesky, who promptly demands reasons as to why her son is being forced to deploy.  After calming her, he promises that everyone on the journey will return home alive. You can see his resolve shaken when he later learns one under his charge was killed.  Aguero’s team calls for reinforcements, and when they head out (inadequately protected, BTW), Volesky stands beside the chaplain as he prays a long prayer for them.  It’s easy to tell that the situation is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

I was immediately struck by how galvanized the troops were to each other.  Sure, they got on each other’s nerves and struggled with making the right decisions at times, but in the end, they all came together and took care of each together.  This was in direct contrast to the interpreter they had on board (Jassim al-Lani, played by Darius Homayoun), who seemed to be dispensable—especially to Sgt Eric Bourquin (Jon Beavers).  The writer of Ecclesiastes notes that “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up” (Eccl 4:9-10 NASB).  It works in friendship, it works in marriage, and it works in life-and-death situations. That writer was pretty wise!  We were not made to life live alone, and the first two episodes of The Long Road Home are testimony that is the case.

Filed Under: Current Events, Reviews, Television Tagged With: Brothers, Darius Homayoun, death, Ecclesiastes, EJ Bonilla, Eric Bourquin, Faith, Friendship, Gary Volesky, Iraq, Jassim al-Lani, Jon Beavers, Kate Paxton, Martha Raddatz, Michael Kelly, National Geographic, Paul, Prayer, Promises, Sadr City, Shane Aguero, Soldiers, The Long Road Home, war

The Midwife – Life’s Transitions

July 20, 2017 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Life is a series of transitions, bookended by the two great transitions of birth and death. But along the way there are many more shifts in our lives—some trivial, others more profound. The Midwife is a story of the transitions of life that are–like life itself–a mixture of humor and poignancy.

Claire (Catherine Frot) is a French midwife who has settled into her life. She gets a call from Béatrice (Catherine Deneuve), asking to meet. Béatrice is the former mistress of Claire’s father. She abandoned them when Claire was a teenager, contributing to her father’s suicide. Claire is understandably cool with Béatrice. Even when Béatrice reveals that she is dying, Claire is slow to welcome her back into her life. But Béatrice really has no one else in all the world. She has lived “the life I wanted”, which has been totally self-centered.

Claire and Béatrice are both people who long for control in their lives, but have found that control by very different methods. Claire has tightly constructed her life. She leads a quiet existence without extremes. Béatrice, on the other hand, seeks to be in control by living free from societal constraints. Yet they both wish that the other could have been the mother-figure or daughter that has been missing in their lives.

While Béatrice deals with her mortality, Claire continues her work as a midwife, bringing new life into the world. (The film includes real-life birth sequences.) But even though those existential events provide for a contrast, the kinds of everyday transitions are what really drive the film. The clinic where Claire has worked for years is about to be closed. She can’t bring herself to work at the new regional birthing center (she calls it a “baby factory”) where even the term midwife is being replaced by “birth technician”. Her son is dropping out of medical school and is about to become a father (making Claire a grandmother). Although she’s not sought out a romantic relationship, one develops with the truck driving son of the neighbor at her garden. But the real transitions grow out of the interaction between Claire and Béatrice as they slowly come to understand and appreciate each other.

Both women must struggle with the loss of control as the lives they have constructed for themselves under go changes. Yet even though their worlds are turning upside down, the changes they meet bring them a something they have been missing. For Béatrice there is a sense of belonging to another that empowers her at the end of life. For Claire, it is an opening of new possibilities in her life.

We all experience transitions in our lives. Some are painful, others quite pleasurable. At times, we may seek ways of controlling all these changes. But through it all, we discover that our lives are constantly leading us to someplace new.

Photos Courtesy of Music Box Films

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: birth, Catherine Deneuve, Catherine Frot, comedy, death, drama, French, Martin Provost

The Thing About Chris Cornell

May 23, 2017 by Matt Hill 1 Comment

Chris Cornellthere’s a lot i want to say
about Chris Cornell
having gone away

truth told,
it hit me kinda hard
late last week and
over the weekend

i kinda want
to go on at length
about how
his singing voice
was the one for me –
at least, one of the ones –
and how i’d try
(and fail)
to belt along
with his intensity
while driving

i kinda want to tell you
about my favorite
songs of his;
maybe link to videos –
so much fire to choose from

but then, of course,
i’d naturally note
how the horrible irony
of hindsight has
already started
to mar and morph
song meanings,
like nooses once pretty

then, quickly, maybe
i’d try to bring it back and
lightheartedly reminisce
about how i
was once even told i
look a little like him
(one could, doubtless,
do much worse 🙂 )

but kinda eventually
i’d inevitably again
attempt unpacking
the actual event itself:
that
awful
S word

i’d understandably want
to plumb my personal stake
in this particular one

is it cuz i’m “gen-x?”
is it a Cobain flashback,
Seattle grunge thing?
just nostalgia for that
specific time
when i too was
first in a band?

maybe is it cuz i was literally
*just* listening to that dude?
literally *just* saw him on
Jimmy Fallon?

i would wonder why
the pretense of
social media mourning
bothered me so this time –
the performativity,
the constructedness of it…
the rush to suddenly
and publicly be in the
Chris Cornell club,
even as i now
tempt hypocrisy
and do the same…
doing so, perhaps,
unavoidable now,
given the internet and all,
which can make
the truth seem fake
and vice-versa,
to the point that
one seriously considers silence

then i would want to
slow down,
to think more about,
maybe even
attempt the dreaded task of
saying something about,
his family,
even though i have no right

then i would note, rightly,
that it’s not right to
really just
think and talk
about oneself
under the guise of
thinking and talking
about this thing,
except that this thing, now,
is about him *and*
the rest of us,
including even me;
and except that
it’s not possible to not
think and talk about oneself,
regardless of who or what
else one thinks and talks about

i would want to invoke God, for
death and God go together,
like God goes with everything,
like oneself does too

but a wise person
once (recently) said to
say one thing at a time
and that seems like solid advice,
so –
passing wordlessly
past the fact that
i’ve already in truth said plenty
(tis a common trope) – here’s
the thing about Chris Cornell:

humans make meaning
via story,
and i think his passing has
particular sting
because, as a story,
it seems to
undermine meaning

i have personally,
over the past week,
variously felt the
story of his passing as
very sad to be sure,
but also as
terrifically *absurd* –
an *offense* even,
insofar as it is a
story that does not go
as we would expect,
or want,
or as we think it should,
or as it could,
were this world different…

were this world better

it reminds me,
in various respects,
of how i felt about
the death of
my own father,
who also went away
too young, and
to the awful strains
of what seemed to be
missed opportunity
and *tragedy*
and *meaninglessness*
and *waste*

and, to be clear,
this is not some statement
about people’s personal choices
or my inability to understand them

this is not an indictment of persons,
but of situations
and of a world
that contains such
absurd
offensive
tragic
waste –
a world where
stories sometimes just suck as
meaning makers

and it is, since
death and God go together,
like God goes with everything,
including this world,
i must admit,
an indictment of Him

and yet…

when Matthew Arnold
wrote “Dover Beach,”
he leaned on his “love”
as the “Sea of Faith” retreated;
even so, Chris Cornell,
in his own version of
that same story –
“Preaching the End of the World” –
looks for “someone out there,
who can understand,
and who’s feeling,
the same way as me”

i submit that this is why
his passing
isn’t *actually* absurd –
why no one’s passing
is actually absurd –
and why any indictment
of God isn’t the last word:

because
in the face of the absurd,
we still can’t help but
want things to mean things,
and inevitably,
we still find that meaning,
ultimately, in
stories of another

because
death itself only makes one
think of resurrection

because though
death and God go together,
the latter continues
past the former

because,
finally,
though “Jesus wept” for Lazarus –
as we may weep for
Chris Cornell, for his family,
for what might have been,
for the loss of a
story we’d suspect,
a story we’d hope for –
those tears aren’t the end…
and they’re certainly not,
though they may seem to be so,
signposts to nowhere;
and certainly not,
though they may seem to be so,
symbols of divine absence

ironically,
but happily,
meaningfully,
quite the converse

Filed Under: Current Events, Editorial Tagged With: absurd, Audioslave, Chris Cornell, Christian, death, Dover Beach, Jesus, Lazarus, life, Matthew Arnold, meaning, Preaching the End of the World, problem of evil, Soundgarden, spiritual, suicide, Temple of the Dog

2016 sucked (and didn’t) and death is still the problem

December 29, 2016 by Matt Hill Leave a Comment

15780676_10154935525978470_7574595387239350824_n

2016 retrospectives understandably
multiply at the moment,
as does the sentiment
that 2016 sucked,
on the whole

in general,
esp in terms of
what memes get
play on Facebook,
that’s probably accurate

many are pointing, still,
with dystopian, apocalyptic fervor,
at the ascension of
the one they call Trump

fair enough
and agreed
(but read this screed)

many more,
given the timing,
are pointing to
a perceived spate of
high-profile deaths

and fair enough,
agreed,
and i don’t need
to catalogue them here . . .
(we’ve seen, read,
perhaps wept,
at least wistfully remembered,
watched that old flick,
spun that classic disc,
relived triumphant
human moments,
reveled in kitsch
and gravitas alike)

tldr: i’m sad, like you,
and it does make me say,
with you,
that 2016 sucked

but/however

2016 also did not suck

perhaps it’d help to
catalogue items of hope?
births full of potential?
perhaps it’d help to
meme and proliferate
that instead?
to burn those images,
those memories,
into our heads?

and/also

i wonder whether
this spate is truly a spate,
or if bad things just
*seem* to come in bunches,
when one looks
for bad things,
when one memes,
in general,
on Facebook?

and/also

i wonder whether
it’s just that
we’re all of us
getting to a certain age,
our pop culture,
our social media,
included?

and/also/finally/respectfully

isn’t that the point?

that we’re all of us
getting to a certain age,
that we’re all of us
moments closer to the end,
like them,
even as we sit and
write/read this screed?

isn’t
death
still
the
problem?

yes/of course

yes, of course,
part of why
those who die
matter is:
as horrible reminder,
as gauges of
our own mortality,
our own significance –
their finished stories
meeting our continuing story,
their deaths foreshadowing
our eventual death

isn’t death still the problem?
a problematic
part of life at least?

don’t we
(at least)
wish
it
were
different?
and shouldn’t we?

don’t we
(at least)
wish for
a mollifying perspective?
a palliative of some sort?
a blow softener?
a medicine, a salve,
a balm in Gilead?
or maybe we even wish for
a solution,
a fix?
a de-stinger
for death’s sting?

don’t we,
ultimately,
wish for
death’s death?
for resurrection?
for vindicated life –
true life?

yes/of course

and/well

probably, maybe they’re
working on such a thing –
probably, hopefully
it’ll be around for 2017,
you know,
so we’re not just
here again in a year –
meming on Facebook
and so on . . .

or/perhaps

there’s such a thing already

Filed Under: Current Events, Editorial Tagged With: 2016, Carrie Fisher, celebrity deaths, Christian, Christianity, David Bowie, death, Debbie Reynolds, Donald Trump, facebook, george michael, gospel, Jesus, prince, Social Media, spiritual

1on1 w/Allan Loeb (screenwriter, COLLATERAL BEAUTY)

December 26, 2016 by Steve Norton Leave a Comment

collateral

https://screenfish.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1on1-with-Alan-Loeb-writer-Collateral-Beauty.mp3

One last present under the Christmas tree! This week, Steve has the privilege to speak with screenwriter Allan Loeb (21, WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS) about his latest film, COLLATERAL BEAUTY, which stars Will Smith and Helen Mirren. They chat about love, death and the nature of fables.

A special thanks to Allan for joining us on the show!

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Filed Under: Film, Interviews, Podcast Tagged With: 21, Allan Loeb, Christmas, Christmas movie, Collateral Beauty, death, drama, Edward Norton, film, Helen Mirren, interview, Kate Winslet, Keira Knightley, life, Michael Pena, Oscars, Wall Street, Will Smith

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