Surprise and Delight

If I told you how I am now the owner of the new Annie Lennox CD before its release date, I might have to kill you, but all the same, I feel somewhat smug about this and just wanted you to know that I am.

Starbucks likes to encourage its employees to "surprise and delight" the customers, and I'm afraid that's a little hard to do when you're working with a skeleton crew, all of whom have coughs and fevers, as I was yesterday. And I also feel that "surprising and delighting" might be overstating things a little here, but I still have to say that I usually am most enthusiastic about things I wasn't expecting or hadn't heard of before. This happened when I saw the Matrix (the FIRST one. I only mean the FIRST one!) and Pirates of the Caribbean (again, let me emphasise that I am referring to the FIRST movie in these trilogies). I felt this way about Blue Like Jazz. It happened with the latest OtR release. And, when I unexpectedly received Songs of Mass Destruction before the release date, I was, at least on some level, surprised and delighted.

The problem with this is that I enthuse about these things for a while and then I get embarrassed and think everyone will wonder what kind of pathetic sense of style and taste I have--and then after that the things become blockbuster hits or whatever and it's disappointing because there's nothing edgy about my liking them.

But anyway, I'm just going to put out there, before the release date, that I'm really enthusiastic about the new Annie Lennox CD. It's not like I've been an Annie Lennox fan before this, although based on the songs of hers I've heard before now, I had a hunch I might could be. ("Might could," incidentally, is a verb form I picked up from College-Roommmate-Jenne, who's originally from Alabama.) But it's nice to hear music sung by people who can actually sing. And I just like Gospel- and soul-influenced music. Even if the person singing it is kind of missing something when it comes to the Gospel. Which I think it might be accurate to say Annie Lennox is (though I'm not sure I really "get" the Gospel, either, exactly, when I think about it).

Actually, the CD is a real downer, but it's a heck of a fun downer to listen to. Wikipedia says, "The album addresses global warming, Iraq, Aids, religious conflict, global poverty and inequality." I'm afraid I'm not perceptive enough to get all that, although I do get some of it. I think mostly she just sounds really lonely and sad and sometimes angry about it, and she would like the world to be fixed.

As would I. I find the whole thing a little conflicting, because as I listen to her words I want to say, "I get what you're saying, but if you just knew Jesus . . . " And I really mean it, and I really believe it, but the fact is that I have raged with the same sentiment and almost the same words, sometimes, against that very Jesus. And I can't say that I usually feel Jesus any more than Mother Theresa did, probably. (I'm just less brave about it.) So I can't truly say why, exactly, I feel that it would make a difference to Annie Lennox in this life for her to, say, "put her faith in Him." But there is something bedrock and comforting and "nevertheless" about trusting Him anyway, or trying to. And there's something about her lyrics that remind me of Him, almost as if she were wishing He were true, but not quite willing to believe it.

Anyway. I found myself praying for her on the way home from dinner with the Molly Llama last night. And I really do like the CD.

Arrgghh!

I missed Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day! I put me in mind of it out on the docks, but as soon as I put into safe harbour to tell of it, I clean forgot. (Well, I would, wouldn't I?)

Belatedly, I discovered this about my pirate self (gender issues notwithstanding):

You scored as Sinbad. You are gifted with gab and can talk your way out of just about any situation. Very charming, but sometimes the charm gets you into trouble. The gods look on you fondly and sometimes throw obstacles at you just to see how creative your solution is. Sinbad 83% Morgan Adams 83% Captain James T. Hook 75% Black Beard 42% Captain Jack Sparrow 42% Captain Barbosa 33% Will Turner 33% Long John Silvers 25% Mary Read 25% Dread Pirate Roberts 8% What kind of Pirate are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Now you take the quiz. Or walk the plank.

How the Pirate Brotherhood is Like the Church

This post goes with the Captain Jack Sparrow one, in spite of the fact that that one apparently scared the comments right out of everybody. I meant to write this one right afterward, but other things happened in the same timeframe, and they seemed a little more urgent to recount.

I have no reason to reword the title this time, but I do have another disclaimer:

• I love the Church. I doubt I love her well enough, but once again, with this post, I mean no disrespect. It is difficult for me to hear of Christians who do not take the Church of our Saviour seriously. But even I can see that she is often more than a little dysfunctional.

So, to the Pirate Brotherhood. In At World's End, after two other movies where we watch Jack Sparrow and crew dealing more or less adeptly with otherworldly and interpersonal difficulties, we suddenly meet a host of other pirates we never imagined, not all of whom are "of the Caribbean." It turns out that they all have to band together to triumph over their archnemesis, the East India Trading Company. You would think that a bunch of pirates couldn't really be all that different from each other. They have one Pirate Code which they more or less try to follow, and they all seem to want essentially the same things. You would also think that any differences they had would be set aside in the face of a common enemy.

You would think.

As it turns out, though, not only is there individual bickering and jealousy and misunderstanding between individual pirates--there is also a lot of deepseated mistrust and envy between pirate cultures. Each pirate captain wants to lord it over all the others, and they are hard-pressed to find an arbiter of peace. Sometimes even the Code doesn't help, because there are so many ways to interpret it.

I think you can infer the similarities to which I am alluding. There are beautiful things about the Church--no doubt about it. There are instances where different denominations, while still acknowledging their distinctives, are working together because they recognise we do have a common enemy, and that demonstrating the love of Jesus is better than trying to lord it over people.

But let's face it, there's still a lot of division out there. And in here. Before I went to Wheaton the other week, I had an accidental run-in with some good friends because of a miscommunication around some of our specific theological differences. Sometimes even when both sides try to reach out and band together, it backfires like a cannon full of forks. Then we wonder why people who are not part of the "brotherhood" (or the "priesthood of believers") aren't that enthusiastic about becoming pirates--I mean Christians--too. I think it's worth it for them. I just kind of understand why sometimes they might not agree.

The pirates at World's End seem to get in each other's way, but all the same, there are glimpses there of nobility, love, and commitment to their people and common cause. In the end, through a series of nearly miraculous events (aided in large part by Sparrow), the pirates--who we are all routing for because in this movie-world, the bumbling sea-bandits are the good guys--do triumph. It might seem far-fetched to some people to imagine the sometimes difficult, sometimes dangerous, sometimes unsavoury Christ-followers being good guys, too. Or triumphing. But motley band that we are, there is, thank God, still nobility, and love, and commitment. Jesus is still here, and Jesus is coming back, and one of these days, because of Him and in spite of all of us, He Himself will triumph--and He'll bring His people with Him. It is, one might say, wonderful.

Young Adult Bible Study Group (2006)

P.S. Did they ever tell us--or did I miss it--why there were nine Pieces of Eight?

The Divine in Captain Jack Sparrow

You all think I'm going to talk about how much I like Johnny Depp, don't you? Well I do. But I'm not. What I really mean is something like, "How Relating to Captain Jack Sparrow Might Be Like Relating to God."


Such a proposition necessitates a lot of disclaimers, probably too many to enumerate here. But these are some of them:

1. I don't think Jack Sparrow (or Johnny Depp) is God.


2. I don't think God is a rather lascivious alcoholic pirate with multiples personalities. (I do believe He exists in multiple Persons: three, to be exact. Then there's also that "seven spirits" thing, which makes no sense at all. But I digress.)


3. I don't think that any of the Pirates movies resemble allegory or analogy to Scriptural history in any point-by-point or intentional way.


4. I mean no disrespect.

But hear me out. Here we have this enigmatic character who polarises people. He also polarises reactions within the same person. All of Jack Sparrow's friends seem both to love him and to hate him. Not to mention that said friends seem to be such on a rather unequal footing. He demands attention and respect, but we aren't always sure he deserves it. Sometimes he seems absent. Sometimes he seems in control. Sometimes he seems to have completely lost it. Often, he seems crafty and clever. At least as often, he seems a complete buffoon.

I feel like this about God a lot. I think it might even be permissable to say that the Bible presents Him similarly on occasion. Of course He's majestic and holy and just and wise and all those "omni-" things. He is. (I wouldn't say the same of Jack Sparrow.) But He's also presented as affected by our actions, emotional, ranting, and sometimes a little bit crazy. Who would come down here and sacrifice His life for us hopeless excuses for the Divine Image if he wasn't somehow insane? Although foolishness is spoken against in the Bible, there's also a holy foolishness that it might be dangerous to forget about.

Here are some other interesting points of comparison. In movie number 2 (admittedly the worst of the bunch), Captain Jack does (albeit a little unwillingly) sacrifice his life for his comrades, having been betrayed by one of them . . . with a kiss. I find it hard to imagine that these parallels to Jesus' experience were really intentional, just like I don't think Jesus needed His disciples help to rise from the dead the way Sparrow needed his friends' help to bring him back. Still, it does seem a detail worth noting.

Also, the major question underlying all three of the movies (besides, "Why is all the rum gone?") seems to be "Can we trust him?"

Even as the audience, we never really know the answer to this question. (Usually the answer to the rum one is a lot clearer.) People are constantly surprised when an action apparently completely self-destructive ends up turning things around and saving the day. In a fictional (and not so fictional) world where every character seems to put his or her own interests first, none seems to do it more or better than Jack. But without him, none of them would have survived past the first half of the first movie, and if they had, their lives would likely have had both little adventure and little meaning. (Either way, there would only have been one movie. And few people would have bothered to see it.)

At one point in this last film, young William Turner (Orlando Bloom), whose own relationship with Sparrow has become strained, defends a strategy by telling the older pirate something like, "I tried to think like you would think. I thought, 'How would Jack do it?' I thought this was what you would do." Sparrow mocks him lightly and then casts the poor boy, one might say, adrift. By doing so, however, he sets in motion a chain of events which saves the entire Pirate Brotherhood.

We, along with the rest of the characters, wonder if Sparrow really knows what's going to happen? "Does," as one of his opponents asks, "he plan it all out or just make it up as he goes along?" Is he just lucky? How does he know everybody so well? How does he turn even their antipathy towards him into something redemptive? Does he really care about everybody as much as he says he . . . doesn't?