Tuesday, December 19, 2006

A Lesson from Lesser Characters

The following article can also be found at www.pop-culture.org...



A Lesson from Lesser Characters by Craig Mattes

This may come as a surprise, but in this review of The Nativity Story I wish to draw you nearer to the supporting cast of this drama, namely, the Persian astrologers, popularly know from Christmas lore as the three wise men.

The lives of these men and the journey they undertook are inspiring. Certainly artistic license has been taken for that which is not detailed in the Biblical account, but I believe the filmmakers present a plausible depiction of who these men were and what they would have experienced on their journey to Judea where the star shone brightest.

Here you have a group of men, not of Jewish descent, not among God’s “chosen people,” investigating whether or not the Jewish prophecies they have studied are true. Put yourself in their shoes. To take on this mission, these men would have given up lives that they were accustomed to. No matter how primitive or extravagant their lives were, they were leaving some sort of comfort zone. They traveled through distant lands and strange cultures for the prospect that a miracle would happen as promised by the God of Abraham. They traveled asking the big question, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2).

Instead of dismissing the prophecies and claims of God, they embarked on a journey to investigate the truth—a noble mission indeed.

Maybe you do not believe that there is a God. Maybe you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God sent to this world to later sacrifice his life to save the world from sin and death. Maybe you live your life on the premise that there is no more to life than what can be seen by our human eyes here on Earth.

But have you asked yourself, what if it is true? What if there is a God? What if God did come to this world to save us from sin and death? Wouldn’t it be worth the investigation? What is it worth to you to receive unconditional love? What is it worth to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 2:18)? What is the real cost of investigating the claims? Leaving a little bit of comfort?

If the Bible is accurate, if God does in fact exist, if it is true that “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16), I believe you will discover that it is well worth the cost (if that cost is even just a short period of your life) to investigate these claims?

Would you embark on this journey and follow the star? Find a Bible and open up to the Gospel according to Luke or go read online at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=49&chapter=1&version=31. Blessings on your Christmas journey!

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Spiritual Gifts

Recently, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Palatine, IL, exhibited the following original multi-media works of Kyle Johanson, inspired by the sermon series, "Unwrapping Spiritual Gifts." Kyle gave me permission to exhibit these works here. I pray that they would minister to you and draw you close (or closer) to Jesus.

Wisdom: This work investigates our culture's "quick fix" mentality in the realm of wisdom...which is attained over time through various experiences and failures. Somewhere along the line we forgot this fact, and tried to package wisdom and impose the mentality that people should "understand everything" at a certain stage of life...I don't think this is true, so in a cheeky, cheesy way I poked fun at it with the phrase "I'm a genius!" and a book that has every answer to any question ever asked...while I believe the bible leads us to all answers we may need, I don't think it is a text book, or a twelve step program...it is real life, messy and wonderful.





Service and Voluntary Poverty: This photo was taken in Gulfport Mississippi of my friend Jeremiah. After hurricane Katrina Hit, Jeremiah moved down to a mobile home I the gulf from Arlington Heights for 9 months. He left his home, family, and financial security to work with the community of Gulfport and New Orleans as they tried to rebuild their community. His example of humility and his compassion continue to inspire me to be more like Christ.

Missionary: Over the past couple of years my view of missions has expanded substantially. I am continuously meeting Jesus in places I least expect to, and the bus stop on the way to work seems to be one of those places. This is an example of what I think the kingdom of God looks like: where flawed men and women love each other in their weaknesses.

Mercy: (self portrait) God is amazing and I don't deserve him or his love.

Healing: Three parts come together, they become a whole, and the Trinity is relationship, our means to salvation. The forms are animorphic and soothing, emulating the healing nature, although not negating that it isn't always easy. There are jagged waves and rocks among the calm waters.

Evangelism: Over the years I have become somewhat cynical towards modern "evangelism" and its use of scare tactics and "4 steps to heaven" approaches. I am attracted to Paul's sermon on Mars Hill to the Athenians where he met the culture he was in and showed them where Jesus had been all along. In this way, my sculpture tries to reconcile the world of the Roman Catholic Jesus with the industrial, modern American Jesus. This is an idea of how we can meet people. It is meant to inspire people to evangelize in the context of the culture around them.

Apostle: This is Terry, a survivor of Katrina, a deacon, a cataracts patient, a father, and an Apostle. He ministers to the church as they come to him, now from all over the United States. His humility and wisdom are astounding. I am blessed by him and I hope more will meet him and be convicted by his words and actions.

Perseverance: Often as followers of Christ we fight what seem to be uphill battles. While our sinful nature and the world impale our purity and vision, we have the confidence and power of Christ's sacrifice to give us hope. Our suffering produces character, and our character is used to serve wisely and love others honestly. The old self is left behind and the new continually moves forward.

Knowledge: What is knowledge? We go through life learning and changing, continually being exposed to new life. I feel the modern perception of knowledge, wisdom, and imagination is too concrete to be tue. I feel that true knowledge comes from imagination and visualization and the acknowledgment of the unknown/spiritual as well as factual intelligence and learned discipline. This work tries to communicate how much of our minds and souls are mysteries understood by God alone.

Teaching: (this is the photo of the Man and his children) I met Peter Wholer during my first week at college, at the club fair for new students. He helped us start a student bible study and when his son Hosea was born he asked for me to take family photos. He is an example of leadership for his family and the surrounding community he nurtures through his nonprofit ministry and urban art center.

Thank you, Kyle, for using your gifts of God to glorify him!

All images are Copyright 2006. Used by permission of Kyle Johanson. All rights reserved.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Obsession in The Prestige


As a movie buff, it would be wrong of me to reveal the many twists and turns found in The Prestige. But I can give a basic account from one point of view—the birth and destructiveness of obsession.

The Prestige is a battle of magicians—Robert (Hugh Jackman) versus Alfred (Christian Bale). In many ways, to differing degrees, obsession between these characters goes back and forth. Robert has to know how Alfred performs his tricks. Alfred has to know how Robert performs his. But it is obvious that Robert’s “needing to know” is not for mere curiosity, and it goes beyond his competitive nature. In the beginning of the picture he seems like a normal and moral gentleman, but soon his morality weakens and quickly erodes to single-minded obsession.

For Robert, what good does his obsession bring him?

• A ruined and embarrassed reputation
• The sacrifice and loss of loved ones
• Lost sense of right and wrong

In the book Surrender to Love, David Benner states, “We seek bridges from our isolation through people, possessions and accomplishment. But none of these are ever quite capable of satisfying the restlessness of the human heart.”

Robert was never satisfied. And nothing on this earth truly could have ever satisfied this character. He could have “beat” Alfred, but you know that the obsession would continue. His obsession was beyond Alfred. There would be no stopping it as long as this obsession was fed.

The story of Robert and Alfred reminds me about the story of Saul and David in 1 Samuel 9-31. Saul was the first king of Israel, chosen by God. But when he forgot to whom he served, God, his life took a downwards spiral. At a young age, a new king was chosen by God to replace Saul—David (if you are familiar with the Biblical story of David and Goliath, this is the same David). From this point on, Saul became tormented by an evil spirit. He became increasingly obsessed with jealousy and suspicion. He persecuted David relentlessly, drove him into hiding in the desert, and even pursued him there. The conflict was not resolved until Saul, defeated in a battle with the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, killed himself by falling on his own sword.

Obsession did not bring fulfillment or restoration to Saul, but only brought about his destruction, and even worse, separation from a perfect love that could have met all of his true needs and wants.

Let’s counter this with an opposite path to life, taken from Psalm 23, ironically written by David:

Psalm 23 (New Living Translation)
1 The LORD is my shepherd;
I have all that I need.
2 He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
3 He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
bringing honor to his name.
4 Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.
5 You prepare a feast for me
in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
My cup overflows with blessings.
6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the LORD
forever.

Which do you believe is the preferred path to life—obsession or surrender to the perfect love that is found in God through his Son Jesus Christ? What brings true fulfillment? What truly brings to you “all that I [you] need?”

As I look back on my life, there was a significant moment when I was obsessed with something. It was a former girlfriend. It occurred after my freshman year in college. We were dating during most of the summer. I was completely infatuated. But alas, upon visiting her at her college during one of the first weekends of my sophomore year, she broke up with me. I was devastated! I could not sleep at all that night. The entire break-up scene tossed back and forth in my mind. I had a 3-plus hour drive back to my school and I thought about her on the road the whole way. And truly for much of that semester, I thought about her often throughout each day. I was obsessed. This obsession led me to depression. I was in a deep, deep hole.

I couldn’t pinpoint the day and time or whatever, but some time around second semester of my sophomore year, God was doing something with me (not that he didn’t try beforehand). He led me to read the Bible and meditate on His Word. In many ways, although not through necessarily conscious decision, I recall that I went into surrender mode—not giving up in life, but giving my life to God. Over time, God washed this obsession out of my life. It wasn’t instant. It took time. But more and more I was beginning to find the satisfaction in Jesus that David found in God in Psalm 23. I continue to grow with this. I am finding more “rest in the green meadows” and more sitting “beside the peaceful waters” which He leads me to.

Now everyone is different and there are varying degrees of obsession with which people struggle. Your road to recovery may look different, but I believe the following remedies I experienced definitely contribute to fighting this battle. I was extremely fortunate to have met some Christ-following folk who showed the love of Christ to me. I found a place, a Bible-believing church, to learn more about God and encounter his love. I surrendered control in my life and gave it to God. Yet, ultimately, I give ALL credit to God for transforming my life. I thank him regularly for sending his son, Jesus, to bridge the gap so that I may have an intimate relationship with God the Father. God was the shepherd who led (and continues to lead) me to a right path. I pray that you would experience a similar encounter.

If you would like to process what you are obsessing over with me, feel free to shoot me a comment. Life is not a solo act. We are all in this together.

Blessings on your spiritual journey!

Friday, October 13, 2006

A Franciscan Benediction

I recently got a hold of Charlie Hall's CD Flying into Daybreak. I saw him and his band performing a few weeks ago in front of 3,000+. His words and music have moved me spiritually and drawn me closer to Jesus.

In addition to the great music, I was also taken by a Francisan Benediction he includes within the CD insert--thoughtfully and spiritually provoking. Check it out...

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Roots



How are you rooted? Are you stretching to find fertile soil and nourishment? To be grounded, do you need to bend and twist yourself?

From looking at this photo, those are the questions that pop in my head.

What do you see in this picture?

This was taken during a hiking trip this spring with my good friends, Paul and Jeff, at Giant City State Park, south of Carbondale, IL.

For the Love of a Father. For the Love of a Child.


The following is a soon-to-be-posted www.pop-culture.org article:

It is easy to get revved up viewing this Rockyesque, cheering-for-the-underdog Akleelah and the Bee. But I’ve done the underdog thang before (see American Idol).

In an interview on the DVD, I was moved by what Laurence Fishburne (Dr. Larabee) said when he mentioned that this really is a movie about a Father and a daughter. Interestingly and masterfully written, there are actually two separate father-daughter subplots occurring yet intertwined.

You have Dr. Larabee grieving the death of his eight year old daughter to illness. This traumatic experience caused separation between Dr. Larabee and his wife. It caused him to leave his on-campus university work, retreating to his home where he teaches on-line (relationship-free) college courses. He holds on to many of his daughter’s possessions, including her jump rope. He tends his wife’s former garden despite reconciliation not appearing on the radar screen. You have a man who has lost much, is holding on to the pain of the past, is reluctant to begin new deep relationships, and for the most part, because of all of this, has closed himself off from the outside world—a world that could cause him pain once again.

You have Akeelah (Keke Palmer) whose father was innocently shot down on the streets of south Los Angeles. Akeelah’s dad loved the game of scrabble. After his death, she found that the best remedy to stay connected with him and to remember her father was to earnestly grow her gift and her knowledge of words.

Dr. Larabee meet Akeelah. Akeelah meet Dr. Larabee. From this meeting, lives are changed.

For the moment, to have a daughter to love and to be loved by fills a deep hole in Dr. Larabee’s heart. For the moment, to have a father figure to love and to be loved by fills a deep hole in Akeelah’s heart. But in truth, as mortal beings, anything can happen. Pain could begin again in an instant.

But what about that deep hole? Don’t all humans sense a prevalent emptiness inside? There is something missing. We search for many things to fill it; spelling bees, relationships, work, recreation, but they never seem to completely fill this hole.

Could it be that this hole is one that could only be filled by one who could love us forever and whom we could love forever? Could this hole be filled by a relationship with God?

I believe yes to both questions, and the filler of that hole is Jesus Christ.

When time began, man had a perfect, intimate, loving relationship with God. But through a most unfortunate lapse in judgment, man decided to look for something more. This produced disastrous results. The perfect, intimate, loving relationship ended. But from the moment this relationship was severed, it has been God’s mission to make this relationship right again. He too felt a hole in his heart. Jesus came to this world and died for you and me so that this relationship could once again be restored.

Read the following passage from Psalm 139. It describes a relationship between a Father and his child that cannot be matched.

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.
In this relationship, with God the Father, through his son Jesus Christ, that hole can be filled. Nothing can destroy this relationship, not even death on this earth. You can have the assurance that he’d never leave you. You can have the assurance that he knows you better than you may know yourself. You can have that hole filled with a Father you could forever love. He filled the crevice in my heart. By faith, I know he desires to fill the crevice in your heart.

In Akeelah and the Bee, you get glimpses of restored relationship and they are wonderful—but alas temporary. However, a relationship with the God the Father would not be a glimpse. It would be everlasting. If you are willing to take a chance, he would love to have that forever relationship with you. Be assured that he wants that forever relationship with you. This is clearly evident in the chance he took for you, sending his one and only son, Jesus, so that he and you could have that Father-child relationship.

Father meet _________ (fill in your name). _________ (fill in your name) meet the Father. May lives be forever changed.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Is There a Hero Inside of You?

Heroes - Ordinary People Discovering Extraordinary Abilities.


This is NBC's new epic drama -http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/about/. The second episode opens with one of the characters pondering whether his life was meant for something more. Does this thought spin around in your noggin? Churn in your insides? If so, where does this thought/feeling orginate? I am not saying I know, but would you process this with me?

I am currently reading N.T. Wright's Simply Christian. In the first few chapters, Wright argues that all human beings hear the echo of a voice calling out to us. We hear this echo in our "search for justice, the quest for spirituality, the longing for relationship, and for the yearning for beauty." These echoes function "as signposts to something which matters a great deal but which we can't grasp in the way we grasp the distance from London to New York..." He later admits that these echoes in and of themselves do not necessarily point us directly to God. But at the very least, they lead one to consider that there is something going on in the cosmos beyond themselves and what is visibly seen.

I'm guessing that this is not an exhaustive list. One echo not making Wright's list (so far) is an echo that our lives were meant for something more in this life. Have you heard this echo? Does the idea that your life means more than eating, sleeping, and working ring true to you? It does for me. Recently I saw Erwin Mcmanus (pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles) speak at a conference. He had the audience recall watching movies such as Braveheart (my favorite movie) and Gladiator (one of my favorites). I am paraphrasing, but He said something like, "When you watch a film like these don't you most relate to the hero of the story? This is the individual you are cheering for and wish you were like. You're not rooting or empathizing with Longshanks. You are whoo-whooing Wallace. "

Personally, I hear an echo whispering to me that I was meant for something more in this life, I was meant to be a hero--an ordinary person doing extraordinary things, sacrificing my life and being used to help mankind. I don't claim and know if I have done any of these things, but the longing is still there. It should be noted that what extraordinary things may be completed in my life would not be done for my glory but for the One enabling me to accomplish such things.

I leave you to consider, hear and ponder this echo and the verse below.

Jesus said to his followers, "...anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)

Friday, September 22, 2006

Welcome to Meaning in Media!

I invite you all to check out our main site - www.pop-culture.org - for articles sharing how Jesus Christ fills in the blanks left open in popular culture - and in your life. Articles are posted once-a-month by our awesome pop-culture.org writing staff, with great help from our proofreader and webmaster.

Meaning in Media is an opportunity for me to get down some personal thoughts regarding faith and culture on a weekly basis and discuss with readers. I pray that God both blesses this blog as a vehicle in beginning one's spiritual journey with Jesus Christ and strengthens the faith of those who already identify themselves as followers of Jesus. Enjoy. Engage. Explore.