Month / March 2019
Passion of Joan of Arc: Dreyer
As we begin Lent, take a look at this stupendous film: here it is on Vimeo. See links below for critique and reviews as well as Dreyer’s own statement of cinematic mysticism.
Here’s the film with English subtitles:
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/69-realized-mysticism-in-the-passion-of-joan-of-arc
Zig Ziglar: The Victorious Life
Hello All,
I post this interview because Ziglar’s Christian philosophy offers an antidote to the world-denying ethos of suffering, which is prevalent in some Christian piety. Ziglar asserts that the life of faith (and morality generally) lead one to success and happiness, in this world here and now. Our happiness is not relegated to the distant hereafter even though the fate of our life here and now does, in some way, hinge on our sense of the eternal. Please note that I do not agree with all of Ziglar’s views nor with the conservative Christian morality that he presupposes.
Here’s his faith testimony. See link: Confessions of a Happy Christian
The Garden of Eden/Film and Poetry (Beat Poet of San Francisco)
A Spirituality of Joy
Here’s a short film about the Garden of Eden, which celebrates joy and eroticism: The Pleasure Garden:
James Broughton was a beat poet (of 1950s-1980s San Francisco), an avant garde filmmaker, a bisexual, who celebrated love in all forms and eroticism as a celebration of being alive. He was a teacher and artist whose chief commitment was to freedom of soul and expression.
Take a look at this poem and the film below with spiritual themes.
CANTICLE
Open your doors
Open my windows
I dwell in you and you dwell in me
We are a duplex of comradely miracles
We are a house as large as mankind
Those we have sat lovingly beside
those we have ached for or laughed with
all those who have pierced us with joy
become residents of our habitation
Who needs to have it explained?
Who needs to have it defended?
This is an alleluia of life
This is our humming of humansong
