Number Two
Greetings from rainy Barcelona. With the rains has come a high water table and every morning we are greeted with a fresh dose of our beloved neighbors’ toilet flushes bubbling out of the drain and into our patio. These are the joys of living in an old city. Those of you who know me best know my deep dislike of scatological humor and that I do my best to steer clear of Adam Sandler films and their ilk. But, I find myself succumbing to a strange Catalan preoccupation. You see, in the province of Catalunya there is a historic obsession with this most unfortunate bodily function. The most common Christmas figurine after the baby Jesus, for example, is a man bending over and doing #2. The exterior walls of Salvador Dali’s museum are decorated with a pattern of mauve, sculptured fixtures resembling dog-doo, and every self-respecting Catalan artist pays homage in his or her art in some way. Of course, our neighbors regularly complain that the government is not doing enough to keep the streets clear of both human and animal waste, even though every night the city is cleaned and scrubbed by an army of trashmen in their fluorescent green uniforms. Likewise, there is no lack of utopian visions and programs for human betterment. The human problem is not a lack of effort to clean things up around here, but that we keep on pissing and crapping all over the place. I’ll leave it to you to make the theological translation.
These days our proclivity for mucking things up is foremost in my mind. You’ve undoubtedly heard that Europeans are not too happy with the US government’s course of action toward Iraq. The strident criticism I hear daily has been a welcome stimulus to my thinking about what I stand for as an ambassador for Christ. I have studied diligently, trying to understand and to weigh considerations on either side. My efforts notwithstanding, I am at a loss. But what is clear to me is that the lack of understanding and the jockeying for position on a global scale are the rule on my own streets and in my own circle. While I struggle to apply the way of Jesus to international politics, it is evident that living for others is the way to peace and love in my own relationships. As Thomas More noted, Jesus was the Man for others. He walked through this world, through filthy cobblestone streets much like my own, without being soiled or twisted. He is the exception to the universal principle that to clean one thing you must dirty another. In the excellent film, Shawshank Redemption, Andy, a prisoner who has suffered much, longs to escape to Zihuatanejo, a tiny town on the Mexican coast. “You know what Mexicans say about the Pacific?” he asks, “They say it has no memory.” God is deeper, longer and wider than the Pacific’s cleansing waters, and there are days when I long to be in his eternal embrace. In the meantime, there is a Way to walk and feet to wash.
Peli2003
Speaking of movies, we are readying ourselves for Peli2003, our summer film project. Our mission is to grow as storytellers and to fall in love with the Author as we make a movie together. Our story has three acts. [Act I] It begins on May 25th when twenty-five aspiring filmmakers from Europe and the US arrive in Barcelona. We will set the stage, orienting the students to Spain and to our vision for telling God’s story through film. The second week, each student will pitch a story, and after picking the best of them, we will break up into teams to film and edit several short films. [Act II] With our skills primed, we will begin our feature film, a twenty to thirty minute film from a script that we are still in the process of choosing. Throughout this time we and several guest lecturers will explore with the project the spiritual principles we learn from God’s story, from Jesus’ parables, and from all good stories. [Act III] Once we wrap our film, the project fades-out with a time of reflection and the screening of a roughcut of the film. On their departure, we will commission each student to be a protagonist in God’s story, telling the best story ever told through their lives and their creative talents. You can download a PDF version of our publicity brochure by clicking the image above-right. You can also follow this adventure at:
El Sistema Debut
A while back I mentioned “The System”, a project I am collaborating on with the high school ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ in Spain. The System is a comic book, audio CD, and webpage that tells the story of several young hackers trying to discover the key to understanding their past in a post-apocalyptic future. The key, they find, is Jesus. It is incredible to believe, but God has opened the door to distribute 40,000 of the CD’s through school teachers here in Catalunya. This remarkable opportunity has put an absolute and imminent deadline on my completing the webpage component. Pray with us that all the pieces would be in place by April 1st. And please pray that God would work through this very creative telling of the Good News and that a whole new generation of Spaniards would find their future in Jesus. The action begins on April 1st:
I will be returning to Colorado in late July indefinitely. As I have mentioned before, the studio was undertaken on a wish and a prayer. I was so impatient to make this dream a reality. Too impatient. I did not count the cost, and we have been struggling heartily to build it on a foundation that will not hold. It has been excruciating to contemplate leaving the studio when it is only half-built, but I must. We are discussing ways in which it might continue after I leave and it is my hope that God will open the way. Please pray that He would, and that He would lead Addi, Jonas, Leigh Ann, John and others. I have no doubt that my desire to serve God through art and ideas will remain. The truth is, I can’t help myself. They are the passions of my heart.
Beholden,
