I'm Here and I'm Involved

While working on the previous two posts (“The Tell-Tale Textbook” and “But It’s Ours”), I was reminded of these two passages, one from W. E. B. Du Bois (from his severe yet charitable critique of Booker T. Washington), and the other from William Zinsser (quoting Mort Sahl):

“But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society” (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Penguin Classics, 2017, p. 37).  

“Mort Sahl, a comic, was the only person who stayed awake during the Eisenhower years, when America was under sedation and didn’t want to be disturbed. Many people regarded Sahl as a cynic, but he thought of himself as an idealist. ‘If I criticize somebody,’ he said, ‘it’s because I have higher hopes for the world, something good to replace the bad. I’m not saying what the Beat Generation says: ‘Go away because I’m not involved.’ I’m here and I’m involved’” (William Zinsser, On Writing Well, Harper Perennial, 200, p. 213).  

But It's Ours

In my last post, I had said that “I am not opposed to patriotism, but I take issue with a patriotism that comes at the expense of other nations. (You can be thankful to be an American without saying it’s better than being a Canadian or German.) More to the point, I take issue with a patriotism that’s propped up by half-truths and selective evidence.” 

What kind of patriotism do I support, then? Can patriotism be sustained without making comparisons and without ignoring shameful parts of a nation’s past or present? Yes, I think so.

When I think about my ideal form of patriotism, my mind goes to a scene from the Hungarian film A Tanú (The Witness, 1969, directed by Péter Bacsó), a satirical look at life in Hungary under communism. In one part of the film, the protagonist József Pelikán is tasked to oversee a government initiative to grow oranges. Hungary’s climate is not conducive to cultivating citrus trees, yet the government wants to try it anyway to promote national pride.

Pelikán’s team of scientists succeeds in growing a single, not-very-orange-looking orange, and the government’s top brass attend a celebration where the first-ever Hungarian orange is to be presented. Just before he is to present the literal fruit of his labor, however, Pelikán discovers that his son has eaten it. To save himself from embarrassment, Pelikán presents a lemon to the top official instead. The official bites into the lemon and is horrified by its tartness: “What is this?” Pelikán replies, deadpan: “It’s an orange. … The new Hungarian orange. It’s a little yellower, a little more sour, but it’s ours.”     

I think a healthy love of country—or for that matter, a healthy love of one’s hometown or family, one’s church or denomination, one’s alma mater or favorite sports team—finds its justification in just those three little words: “but it’s ours.” That is to say, “It may not be this, it may not be that, but it’s the one we have, and so we will love it.” I don’t think a healthy love of country can ground itself in any other claim. The patriot loves his nation (or his family or denomination or team) above all others, not because it is better than anyone else’s, and certainly not because it has no serious flaws, but simply because in his mind it is preceded by that possessive pronoun, his. With that kind of love, the patriot can be happy for others who also love their own nations simply because they are theirs, with no compulsion to argue with them. With that kind of love, the patriot can be honest and critical about his nation’s history and leadership and people, without whitewashing or excusing or needing to say, “At least we’re not as bad as that other country!” 

For the Christian, a but-it’s-ours approach to patriotism is consistent with recognizing that God has placed each of us in a particular place and time (Acts 17:26) and put each of us there for a reason (Esther 4:14, Jeremiah 29:7). The Christian citizen should say, “God could have put me somewhere else, made me a citizen of a different nation; but I’m here, so I’ll seek to be a good steward of the citizenship I have.” For the Christian, a but-it’s-ours approach to patriotism can also be a reflection of God’s steadfast, gracious love for His own nation, the church (1 Peter 2:9-10). God loves the church, not for any merit of its own, but because it is His. 

The Tell-Tale Textbook

About two months ago I was perusing a bookshelf and found a short elementary reader published by Abeka, Pensacola Christian College’s program for Christian school and homeschool curriculum. The book is titled My America: 1986 Edition and comprises a series of rudimentary civics lessons. There are sections, for example, on the symbols of the United States, a few key figures in American history, and some major American landmarks and natural wonders. While I thought the sections on freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly (pp. 6-10) are well put—reading them renewed my thankfulness for each of these freedoms—what I found both disconcerting and comical about the rest of the book is its insistence on American exceptionalism even as it keeps skirting close to undermining that insistence. The very first page says, “I think it is the best country in the world,” and a few pages later the book only slightly qualifies that claim: “Our country is not perfect, but it is still the best country in the world” (p. 4). Yet the rest of the book inadvertently sows doubts about this thesis. 

I am not opposed to patriotism, but I take issue with a patriotism that comes at the expense of other nations. (You can be thankful to be an American without saying it’s better than being a Canadian or German.) More to the point, I take issue with a patriotism that’s propped up by half-truths and selective evidence. The trouble with this textbook is that to support its argument for American superiority, it has to omit any mention of the nation’s sins against ethnic minorities, particularly against Native Americans and African Americans. No mention is made of the expulsion and decimation of indigenous tribes, or of slavery or segregation. This may be why, despite the book’s contemporary photos depicting Americans from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, all the “Great People of America” catalogued on pages 21 to 33 (the Pilgrims, George Washington, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln) are white. If Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, for example, had been included in the list of great Americans, the book might have had to mention the peculiar institution they became great for resisting. 

One could say that these issues were left out of My America because they weren’t considered age-appropriate, or that the author Judy Hull Moore wanted to leave it up to teachers or parents when to broach these sensitive subjects. But it’s impossible to tell the story of this nation honestly without giving considerable attention to these issues—and the irony is, the book betrays an awareness of this impossibility. It calls attention to the very omissions it has made, and I think even young readers would notice that something is missing. In its section on Abraham Lincoln, the book says he “led the states of the North in a war against the states of the South” (p. 31). The cause of the Civil War is entirely passed over, but any inquisitive child could be expected to wonder why such a great country would fight a bitter war within itself, and most likely would ask a teacher or parent about it. Similarly, during the section on landmarks and natural wonders, the text implies the expulsion of Native Americans not once, not twice, but three times: “We learn that Indians once lived [in the Rocky Mountains]” (p. 51); “Some Indians live on reservations” (p. 53); and “Indians used to live in Yosemite Valley” (p. 55). It’s not hard to imagine the young reader looking up and asking Mommy or Daddy or Mrs. Smith, “Why don’t they live there anymore? What’s a reservation?” Thus this little book reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in which the narrator seems compelled to lead the police as close as possible to the hidden corpse even as he insists there’s nothing amiss. The very uncomfortable truths the text wants to side-step to prop up its claim that America is “the best country in the world,” it seems it cannot help but tacitly acknowledge.

Why do I mention any of this? Who cares what’s in a 40-year-old textbook meant for children? Initially, the book struck me as interesting because it gave me a tangible example of how American exceptionalism depends on historical amnesia. A few weeks later, though, I became aware that the current presidential administration is intent on (re)teaching American history in the same way it’s taught in Abeka’s My America. For proof, look at Section 4.a.iii of the executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” issued March 27 of this year: it directs the Secretary of the Interior “to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead”—and here the directive could be  a jacket blurb for the textbook—“focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.” Based on examples I’m seeing of how this directive is being applied, to “inappropriately disparage” includes saying anything that puts American history in an unflattering light. It would be nice if this historical revisionism were limited to children’s books from the 80’s, but we’re probably going to see a lot more of it for the time being.

Ten Songs: Propaganda (Humble Beast Era)

Ten song (or spoken word) recommendations, placed in release order, from one of my favorite hip-hop artists, Propaganda, from his time with the Humble Beast label. 

1. The City (from Art Ambidextrous, 2011)

2. Raise the Banner (from Excellent, 2012)

3. Precious Puritans (from Excellent, 2012)

4. Be Present (from Excellent, 2012)

5. You Mock Me (from Crimson Cord, 2014)

6. I Ain’t Gave Up on You Yet (from Crimson Cord, 2014)

7. Redeem (from Crimson Cord, 2014)

8. Crooked Ways (from Crooked, 2017)

9. It’s Not Working (The Truth) (from Crooked, 2017)

10. Made Straight (from Crooked, 2017)

Maybe You Shouldn’t Rely on the Audience’s First Impressions

When I began this Notebook blog two summer ago, my first post was titled “Maybe You Should Give That Film/Book/Album a Second Chance.” In it I argued that “so often, the first viewing/reading/listening is for finding out what the film/book/album is not. It isn’t until the second viewing/reading/listening that I can begin to appreciate what the film/book/album actually is.”

At the time of writing that post, the work that was at the top of my mind and prompting these reflections was Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, which I had seen in the theater a few weeks prior. I went into that film with high expectations and came out feeling somewhat disappointed. At the same time, I strongly suspected I would need to give it another try. Having recently rewatched Dead Reckoning in preparation to see its follow-up, The Final Reckoning, I can confirm that Dead Reckoning was worth the second chance, and I look forward to giving it a third and a fourth. There is more going on in that film than I could appreciate on a first viewing.

I didn’t mention Dead Reckoning or any other film or book or album in that post, since the point there was to describe the hermeneutic principle and not to argue for the merits of any particular misunderstood or underrated work. But when my friend Timothy Lawrence wrote a similar post about unreliable first impressions to inaugurate his blog, he did cite Dead Reckoning as one of his examples. So, funnily enough, we both started blogs in the summer of 2023 while mulling over how Dead Reckoning challenged us to move beyond first impressions.

Now that The Final Reckoning is out and Tim and I have both seen it, the added irony is that reflecting on this new film has prompted both of us to consider the corollary of that principle I repeated at the top. If the audience shouldn’t rely too much on its first impressions of a work, then the corollary is that the makers of that work shouldn’t rely too much on the audience’s first impressions, either.

As I wrote in my Letterboxd review of The Final Reckoning, the film’s director “Christopher McQuarrie said they made substantial changes to this film after the underwhelming responses to Dead Reckoning … I wish they had stuck to their guns, because this finale did not provide the payoff I was hoping for after all the exciting possibilities set up by its predecessor.” Now, to be consistent with the first principle, I’ll acknowledge I’ve only seen The Final Reckoning once and may yet change my mind about it. As I said already in the Letterboxd post, “It may grow on me as Dead Reckoning has.” But right now my inclination is to say that, by being too sensitive to initial audience reactions to Dead Reckoning and by being too eager to please the audience with The Final Reckoning, McQuarrie failed to carry over into The Final Reckoning the elements that made Dead Reckoning a great film. I’d add that Tim, who has seen The Final Reckoning multiple times now (and therefore is not as tied to a first impression as I still am), is of the same mind. In a recent blog post, he writes that “The Final Reckoning’s determination to be ‘for the audience’ is its greatest weakness.” (I recommend reading the whole post, “Is Art for the Artist or the Audience?”) The Final Reckoning is to some degree a failure because McQuarrie thought that Dead Reckoning failed—and that because the initial audience said so or implied as much. If McQuarrie had made The Final Reckoning closer to the way he had envisioned it before audiences reacted negatively to Dead Reckoning, it may have garnered similar negative reactions, but it might have gained a stronger chance of standing the test—or should I say reckoning—of time.

Wisdom from the Mouths of Bakers

Last week as I was driving home from church the cooking show Milk Street Radio was playing on my local NPR station. A caller asked about a French bread he liked to bake and how to make it last longer since it would quickly grow stale. The caller said, “The pain de mie I make has a very low shelf life. What am I doing wrong?” The host Christopher Kimball’s answer struck me and I’m writing it down here not to forget it. He essentially said the caller wasn’t doing anything wrong, but was expecting this French bread to do something it was not designed to do. He was baking pain de mie the right way, but apparently if you’re baking pain de mie the right way you can’t expect it to last long. If what the man wanted was to bake a loaf of white bread with a higher shelf life, the solution wouldn’t be to adjust the recipe or his technique but to pick a different kind of white bread, one actually suited to that objective. (If you were wondering, the host recommended a Japanese milk bread.)

I’m not a baker or even much of a cook, but this answer struck me because it suggested a broad principle that would be true in many other areas of life. Sometimes the thing we are doing isn’t achieving the desired effect not because we are doing that thing wrong, or because there is anything wrong with that thing, but because we are expecting the thing to do what it isn’t designed to do. Instead we should use each thing according to its own capabilities and capacities, and recognize and appreciate the different ends each one can achieve. 

In other words, we need to respect the telos of each object, craft, and institution. Otherwise, we will be like the kid who is frustrated that his tricycle can’t fly; or the writer who struggles to capture a specific story, message, or feeling on the page because he is working within the wrong genre or form; or the newly-elected politician who can’t fulfill his campaign promises within a four-year term because deliberative democracy is necessarily slow. Tricycles are wonderful toys for toddlers, but make for terrible airplanes. Poetry can be a powerful form of communication, but it will serve well only those writers who understand how to tap into what it does best. Deliberative democracy can achieve many good things, but if someone wants to move fast and break things, maybe he should be the CEO of a tech startup instead of a politician.

We can also think about how this principle applies to relationships. Maybe that friendship, marriage, or church is actually doing fine—or as well as could be expected of fallen and finite people. Maybe you are already doing the best you can to be a good friend, spouse, or church member; maybe your friend, spouse, or fellow church member is doing likewise; maybe you aren’t failing them, and they aren’t failing you. Could your uneasiness or dissatisfaction instead stem from expecting these relationship to do for you what only God can do? Are you focused on what these relationships do not and cannot possibly give you instead of attending to and appreciating what they do?  

Mend My Rhyme, Ten Years Later

It’s surreal to think that it has already been ten years since I released Mend My Rhyme: The George Herbert Project, on April 4, 2015. In this short, seven-track album, I took eight poems by the Anglican devotional poet George Herbert (1593-1633) and set them to music, singing five of them, reading two of them, and—yes—making an attempt at rapping one them. I listened to the album again this week and was pleased to find I’m still happy with it.

The Inspiration for the Album

I had been introduced to George Herbert’s poetry in my British Literature class during my senior year of high school. Three years later, during my sophomore year of college, three things converged in Spring 2014 to give me the idea for making a tribute album. First, I had been listening to Heath McNease’s album The Weight of Glory (2012) and its “hip hop remix” The Weight of Glory: Second Edition (2013); in both versions of the album, each song is inspired by a different work by C. S. Lewis. Second, I was memorizing Herbert’s “The Pulley” to recite it, and writing an essay to analyze it, for an English composition class. Third, I had been working on an instrumental track in Apple GarageBand, just for fun. When it somehow occurred to me to wonder if “The Pulley” could be read over that instrumental, and it worked, I realized I could do a project in the style of McNease’s Lewis tribute, only this time almost all the words (I invented a chorus for “Paradise”) would be the author’s own.

Incidentally, the initial reason I became interested in Herbert’s poetry in high school was because of what Lewis had said about him. In the memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis writes that, while he was still an unbeliever, he found that Herbert “seemed to me to excel all the authors I had ever read in conveying the very quality of life as we actually live it from moment to moment; but the wretched fellow, instead of doing it all directly, insisted on mediating it through what I would still have called ‘the Christian mythology’. … The only non-Christians who seemed to me really to know anything were the Romantics; and a good many of them were dangerously tinged with something like religion, even at times with Christianity. The upshot of it all could nearly be expressed [as] … Christians are wrong, but all the rest are bores” (HarperOne, 2017, pp. 261–262).

The Structure of the Album

I realized that the poems I had selected from Herbert’s book The Temple generally fell into two broad thematic categories: poems about restlessness apart from God, and poems about finding rest in God. This “rest”/“restlessness” contrast is explicit in the first track, “The Pulley.” From there I discovered I could order the tracks in a fittingly poetic fashion. I hadn’t yet discovered and become obsessed with chiastic structure—but of course the structure would turn out to be very close to chiastic.

• Track 1, “The Pulley,” is about restlessness, and the poem is read (A1).

• Track 2, “Paradise,” is about rest, and the poem is sung (B).

• Track 3, “Vanity II,” is about restlessness, and the poem is sung (C).

• In track 4, “Love I and II,” “Love I” is about restlessness, and is rapped, whereas “Love II” is about rest, and is sung (D).

• Track 5, “Denial,” is about restlessness, and the poem is sung (C).

• Track 6, “Love III,” is about rest, and the poem is sung (B).

• Track 7, “The Dedication,” is about rest, and the poem is read (A2).   

The Artwork of the Album

I had a lot of fun working with my friend David Rhee to create the cover and liner notes booklet for the album. Because I took centuries-old poems, which Herbert would have written by hand, and turned them into very modern songs, which I produced using only digital instruments, we wanted the artwork to reflect that convergence of old and new, organic and artificial. David also wanted me to have a hand—literally—in the production of the artwork. For the cover, David put a parchment-like texture, covered with the words of the poem “Denial,” in the background, and put my handmade trace of Herbert’s portrait, enmeshed with two intersecting red bars (suggesting a cross and modern art), in the foreground. Inside the booklet, each track was given its own page. For tracks 2 through 6, we found stock images online that fit with the themes or imagery of each poem, and I traced them by hand just as I did the Herbert portrait. For track 1, “The Pulley,” we couldn’t find a good image of a pulley lowering a bucket, so I drew that from scratch. For track 7, “The Dedication,” David took a photo of my own outstretched hands for me to trace.

What I Would Do Differently

Herbert scholars and lovers of classic poetry generally may be horrified by what I’ve done with these poems, but I was relieved, on revisiting the album this week, that at least I didn’t do as much violence to the construction of the poems as I might have. My one regret in terms of respecting the source material is that the way I interpreted “Love I” and “Love II” ignores Herbert’s punctuation and line breaks. I had an underdeveloped understanding of the craft of poetry at the time of composing the tracks, but the semester I was finishing up the album I wrote another essay on Herbert, this time on “Easter Wings,” which helped me appreciate how Herbert uses line lengths and enjambment. If I had composed “Love I and II” even a few months later, I might have tried to pause a musical phrase only where there was a comma, period, or line break in the poem, so that the shape of the songs would always match the shape of the poems.   

The other things I would differently would be to not experiment so much with the stereo mix, and to not record the vocals for all the songs in a single half-day session. Granted, I was renting a recording booth and I had one chance to get it all right, but that wasn’t a good choice for my voice.

You Love Him More Than I Do

There is a scene somewhere in the second half of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life in which Fani Jägerstätter is praying for her husband, Franz, who is in prison and facing execution. Fani tells God, “You love him more than I do.” It is a moment of recognition that, if Franz should die for his faithfulness to God, it will not be because God abandoned him.

I don’t know if this line originated with Malick or if it came from his reading the real Franz and Fani’s letters. But in the past eleven months since I last watched the film, this statement, “You love him more than I do,” has been a comfort and help to me. 

The idea seems so obvious. If I am finite and God is infinite, He has an exponentially greater capacity for loving others than I do. Moreover, if am a sinner and God is holy, His love is pure and it is far wiser and more constant than mine. 

And yet, the idea that God loves my loved ones more than I do is hard to accept in practice. It is more intuitive to me, in my pride and from my limited frame of reference, to think that I know what would be the most loving thing to do for so-and-so—and for some reason God doesn’t see what I see and is failing to love so-and-so in that way. It also comes more naturally to me, when I don’t know what would be the most loving thing to do for so-and-so, to despair and think there is no remedy as he or she wanders in error or sinks deeper into suffering. I assume that if the situation is beyond me, it’s beyond God as well. I’ve also realized that I tend to think that if I don’t do something for so-and-so or pray to God and his or her behalf, so-and-so’s plight will escape God’s notice or fall further and further down His priority list. God is so busy managing the cosmos, after all, and if I don’t help him out with some of his minor administrative tasks, or if I don’t keep spamming his inbox with petitions, He may never get around to loving so-and-so in the way I think so-and-so needs to be loved. Indeed, I take for granted that if so-and-so’s sufferings increase, or if so-and-so departs from the faith or never receives the faith to begin with, I will be at fault because I did not love so-and-so enough to intervene in action and intercede in prayer at the most crucial moments. It sounds ridiculous to think this way once I say it loud, but this is how my mind works.      

“You love him more than I do” is an antidote to this way of thinking that, even though it purports to be about my love for others, is really more about propping up my skewed sense of my own importance.

First, it has made a difference in how I pray. Several times in the past eleven months, when my heart has ached over the situation of a loved one and how little I can do to help or don’t know where to start, God has graciously brought it to mind that He loves that person more than I do. If my heart, with its weak, imperfect love, aches for them, how much more is His heart, with its strong, perfect love, intensely moved for them—and not only moved, but moving to do something for them, even if I can’t see or understand it? If He is as all-powerful and all-wise as He is all-good, then can’t I trust Him to love them with that fierce, faithful, all-surpassing love of His in a way that will be truly best for them? When I remember this, it relieves me of the false burden of thinking I need to convince God to care about so-and-so or figure out for Him (presumptuous thought!) a strategic plan of response. Instead, when I don’t know what else to ask, I can pray, as Fani does in the film, “Lord, you love this person more than I do.” When I acknowledge that truth before God, I release the person into God’s care—or rather, acknowledge that the person was always in God’s care, not mine—and find myself more at peace.

Second, more recently I’ve realized that “You love him more than I do” is a counter to my over-scrupulosity and my paranoia about the possible effects of my actions or inaction, or what Faith Chang identifies as a Christian variation on perfectionism. In Chapter 7 of her helpful book Peace Over Perfection (The Good Book Company, 2024), Chang writes about how perfectionism can keep us from trusting God’s providence. Earlier I mentioned my fear that “I will be at fault because I did not love so-and-so enough to intervene in action and intercede in prayer at the most crucial moments.” Now, it is true that people bear responsibility for others, including their souls, but Chang reminds us that, “though Scripture affirms both human responsibility and God’s providence as equally real, they are not equal in influence. The Christian’s future is not ultimately determined by her own power to always know and do what is right but by the gracious providence of God” (p. 119). That’s good news! If it weren’t so, we would all be doomed—and doomed to doom others by our shortcomings and failures to love them well enough. Chang goes on to say that “it is the love of God for those I love which anchors me when I’m tossed around by regret and fear—his love and his power to accomplish his perfect will, in spite of my weaknesses” (p. 124). Thus, when I trust that God’s love for others is greater than mine, I can still take responsibility for loving them as well as I can, but I can do so without suffering under the debilitating presumption that my failure to love them could separate them from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). 

When I was reading this chapter a few weeks ago, the phrase “the love of God for those I love” immediately reminded me of Fani’s prayer in A Hidden Life. In fact, at the end of the chapter Chang includes “A Prayer for When You Fear Missing the Way (and for All That’s Left Undone),” which includes this almost-identical statement: “You love these dear ones more than I do” (p. 130). I wonder if Chang has seen the film. Either way, she confirms the liberating power of acknowledging this simple yet profound truth.

Ten Songs: Jon Foreman

Ten song recommendations, placed in release order, from the solo work of one of my favorite artists, Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman. 

1. Southbound Train (from Fall, 2007)  

2. Learning How to Die (from Winter, 2008)

3. A Mirror Is Harder to Hold (from Summer, 2008)

4. Instead of a Show (from Summer, 2008)

5. Terminal (from The Wonderlands: Sunlight, 2015)

6. Ghost Machine (from The Wonderlands: Shadows, 2015)

7. Your Love Is Enough (from The Wonderlands: Shadows, 2015)

8. Inner Peace (from The Wonderlands: Darkness, 2015) 

9. Side by Side (from Departures, 2021)

10. Antidote (from In Bloom, 2024)

Introducing Rearview Mirror

I just launched a Substack called Rearview Mirror, which I will be using to post a monthly recap of everything I published online the previous month (articles, Notebook posts, Jedi Archives posts, Letterboxd reviews, etc.). The debut post can be viewed here. For a streamlined way to keep up with all my work across the web, or to show your support, please subscribe to Rearview Mirror.

New Article: 32 Books for 32 Years

When I published the article “31 Albums for 31 Years” in August, I wrote that “Here’s hoping there will be a ‘31 Books for 31 Years’ article soon, and not a ‘32 Books for 32 Years’ article later!’” Oh well.

A P.S. on Letterboxd

In my last post, I explained the rating system I use when reviewing movies on Letterboxd, which I referred to as “Facebook for Film Buffs.” On that note, it’s worth noting and expressing my appreciation for how unlike Letterboxd is from Facebook and other social media platforms.

What with the recurring temptations to compare my circumstances to that of others or get angry at someone’s half-baked or insensitively-worded opinion, I’ve found checking Facebook to be spiritually hazardous. But checking Letterboxd does not tend to upset my mood if I’m having a good day or worsen my mood if I’m not. Sure, every once in a while I will read a film review on Letterboxd that bothers me, but that’s much better than getting depressed or worked up almost every time I check Facebook. I also have more control over what appears in my feed on Letterboxd than I do on Facebook. It helps that, whereas Facebook has become overrun with advertisements and the algorithm favors the “friends” who post the most, Letterboxd doesn’t disable my ad-blocking browser extension and I only follow a few other users. It also helps that I don’t know personally most of the users I follow: if I should decide to unfollow one of them, it’s less emotionally taxing to do so than to “unfriend” someone. 

I am not on any other social media platforms, but I feel reasonably confident in guessing that Letterboxd doesn’t feed into self-aggrandizing performativity like Instagram does, into political polarization like Twitter/X does, or into the diminishment of attention-spans like TikTok does. Maybe some Letterboxd users are bent on amassing followers by any means necessary, and no doubt some vitriolic users and comment sections should be avoided. Maybe there are some users who restlessly flit from page to page for hours on end without reading any of the longer, more substantive pieces of amateur criticism. But I don’t think the platform’s very architecture incentivizes these behaviors, as is the case elsewhere. It doesn’t seem to have the same addictive properties and character-deforming tendencies.  

Maybe the reason Letterboxd works so well as a social media platform is that it is about only one, and one very specific, thing: movies. People join the site because they love to watch movies, to read and write about them, and to share and find recommendations. There is no other reason to create an account. On other platforms, a user is more likely to be tempted to use his account to promote himself or his pet causes. But Letterboxd doesn’t work as well for crafting a public persona or building a brand. It doesn’t turn the user’s attention back on himself, but to something outside himself. 

Of course, the temptation that C. S. Lewis describes in The Great Divorce, to love what you have to say about something rather than love the thing itself, may be ever-present for anyone who engages in film criticism, online or anywhere. And Letterboxd does have serious flaws. But  they aren’t the same flaws as the ones that have made the other major social media platforms so destructive for individuals and our social fabric.

How I Rate Films

Five years ago, in the beginning of 2020, I started using a rubric when rating films on Letterboxd. I had been using this “Facebook for Film Buffs” website for logging and reviewing films for a few years already, but I became dissatisfied by the lack of precision and consistency in my star ratings. For example, two films could each receive four stars from me but for different or even conflicting reasons. So I created a rubric that takes into account each of the driving factors I consider when evaluating a film. It was an experiment at first, but five years of using it has proven its usefulness and reliability. I haven’t made any changes since I instituted the rubric in February 2020, except that one year later I added “Excellent Films” alongside “Favorite Films” as an alternate designation for five-star films—because not all the films I consider excellent are my most favorite, and not all my favorite films are the most excellent.

The rating system has four categories: Content, Craft, Rewatchability, and Recommendability. The first two categories are more objective and have to do with artistic quality. The second two are more subjective and have to do with whether or not I think the film worth dwelling on or commending to others. This way I can recognize a film for being well-made while registering my strong disliking for it, and I can celebrate a film I love even while acknowledging its flaws.

The Rubric:

CONTENT
5 points: A masterclass in screenwriting/storytelling
4 points: Accomplished screenwriting/storytelling
3 points: Skilled screenwriting/storytelling
2 points: Competent screenwriting/storytelling
1 point: Incompetent screenwriting/storytelling

CRAFT
5 points: A masterclass in filmmaking
4 points: Accomplished filmmaking
3 points: Skilled filmmaking
2 points: Competent filmmaking
1 point: Incompetent filmmaking

REWATCHABILITY
5 points: Film friend
4 points: I want to watch it again
3 points: I am open to watching it again
2 points: I am unlikely to watch it again
1 point: I won’t watch it again
0 points: I regret watching it at all

RECOMMENDABILITY
5 points: Strongly recommended
4 points: Recommended
3 points: Recommended with reservations
2 points: Ambivalent
1 point: Not recommended
0 points: Do not watch!

The Rating Scale:

The points from each category are added up, divided by four, and rounded up to the nearest whole or half star rating. To each star rating, I’ve attached a representative adjective (or two, in the case of five-star films) that I think fairly describes virtually all the films to receive that rating.  

19–20 Points = 5 Stars = Favorite/Essential Films
17–18 Points = 4.5 Stars = Excellent Films
15–16 Points = 4 Stars = Great Films
13–14 Points = 3.5 Stars = Good Films
11–12 Points = 3 Stars = Decent Films
9–10 Points = 2.5 Stars = Passable Films
7–8 Points = 2 Stars = Mediocre Films
5–6 Points = 1.5 Stars = Failed Films
3–4 Points = 1 Star = Bad Films
2 Points = 0.5 Star = Terrible Films

The Rationale: 

When evaluating Content, I am thinking about the narrative: plot, pacing, character development, dialogue, theme, and the moral vision or lack thereof implied by all of these. I think the best films in this category, what I call “Masterclasses in Screenwriting/Storytelling” (which I keep a running list of here), would be great picks for studying how to create narratives for the screen, stage, or page.

When evaluating Craft, I am thinking about all the big and little things the cast and crew are doing to realize the narrative through visual and auditory means: casting and acting, production design, cinematography, editing, music, sound design, and special effects. I think the best films in this category, what I call “Masterclasses in Filmmaking” (which I keep a running list of here), would be great picks for studying what these various arts can accomplish when used to their fullest potential.

I keep the Content and Craft categories separate, because a great script could be given less-than-great execution, and the beauties of an excellently-produced film can often make up for deficiencies in the storytelling.

I don’t give 0s in the Content or Craft categories, because even incompetently written or incompetently produced films evidence some talent behind them. How else would the project have seen the light of day and come to my attention, let alone persuaded me to give it a try? Having made some films myself and knowing how many skillsets and resources and how much perseverance and tenacity it requires to finish one, I’ll give any film some credit just for existing.

When evaluating Rewatchability, I am thinking about how much time I would want to spend with the film in the future. Is this a film I want to revisit? Is it one I can see myself rewatching many times? Here I am not only considering how much I enjoy the film but the shaping influence it could have on me: would that influence more likely be for good or for ill? I think the best films in this category, what I call “Film Friends” (which I keep a running list of here), are the ones that have had the most positive influence on me so far and the ones I want to keep having the strongest influence on me. (I got the term “Film Friends” from reading an article by my friend Timothy Lawrence.)

When evaluating Recommendability, I am thinking about how readily and enthusiastically I would encourage someone else to watch it. With so many films that one could benefit from watching, so many films that one could be harmed by watching, and so many films that, if nothing else, could be a waste of one’s time, I think I have a responsibility to others to make careful distinctions between levels of recommendation and levels of non-recommendation. I think the best films in this category, designated as “Strongly Recommended” films (which I keep a running list of here), are the ones I could most heartily encourage almost anyone to watch, provided it is appropriate to the person’s age or tastes.

I keep the Rewatchability and Recommendability categories separate, because there are some films I love for particularly anecdotal reasons and therefore others may not find the same value in them, and there are some films that I think everyone who values great filmmaking should see but I don’t have as personal a connection to them. 

It’s possible for a film to be so awful I would give it 0s in the Rewatchability and Recommendability categories, but in the past five years the worst scores I’ve given have been a few 1s. This is either because I’m too forgiving and hate being harsh; or it’s because I can reliably predict which films I would most regret watching and would most emphatically urge others not to watch, and so I won’t watch them to confirm my suspicions; probably it’s both.

Fun Facts:

• From the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2024, I rated 357 films with this rubric. 

• The score I assigned the most in those five years was 16 points (which translates to four stars), given to 69 films. The next most common score was 14 points (which translates to three-and-a-half stars), given to 49 films. This tells me my scoring system is well calibrated. I think there would be a problem—either with my system or with my critical disposition—if most films scored either very high, very low, or around the median.

• To date, the lowest score I have given to any film using this rubric is four points to Spider-Man: No Way Home. In contrast I have given a perfect score of 20 points to 31 films—not a few, but not many. I call the films that score fives in all four categories “The Essentials” (and keep a running list of them here).

• At the time of writing this post, I have 56 films listed as “Masterclasses in Screenwriting/Storytelling,” 77 films listed as “Masterclasses in Filmmaking,” 52 films listed as “Film Friends,” and 68 films listed as “Strongly Recommended.” This indicates, rightly, that I am most picky about what films I embrace as friends and the most broad-minded in how I judge something to be a masterclass in filmmaking. It must be because I am a writer and a literature scholar that I am more picky about what scripts I call masterclasses than I am picky about which films I can strongly recommend. The record of the past five years shows that my first desire for a film is that it be good for me; my second is that it tell a good story exceedingly well; my third is that it be good for others; and my fourth desire for a film is that it be made with excellence all around.

Some Thoughts on Burnout

How intent should Christians be on avoiding burnout? How do we balance Christ’s call to come to Him so He can give us rest from our labors (Matthew 11:28) with His other call to pick up our crosses to follow Him even unto death (Matthew 16:24)? 

This summer my pastor shared with me a Facebook post from another pastor who wrote that, with all the discourse about “soul care, sabbath’ing, and rest,” he is seeing a trend of younger pastors shrinking from the typical demands and sacrifices of ministry. The post made me wonder how many people may be using the fear of burnout as an excuse to not commit themselves to costly and exhausting acts of service. 

Not long after my pastor told me about that Facebook post, I read a blog post by Tim Challies (whose book Do More Better has been immensely helpful for my productivity) about how, despite how long and how hard he’s tried, he has never found a cure for his struggle to stay asleep. This reminded me of people I know (or know of) who have experienced chronic fatigue. But life goes on, and the people God has placed under our care still need whatever time and energy and attention we can give them. For some of us, at least, sleeplessness might be one of those Paulian thorns that reveal God’s power and all-sufficient grace through our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

These two posts put me in mind of something I had read a decade earlier in Kevin DeYoung’s Crazy Busy: “One of the reasons we struggle so mightily with busyness is because we do not expect to struggle” (Crossway, 2013, p. 103). When we expect or demand that our lives not be so busy, it makes the feelings of being overwhelmed worse. This, too, raises the question of whether we just need to accept tiredness as an unavoidable side effect of doing good work.

I think there’s truth in all this. If I had written this post in August when I first had the idea for it, I might have left the matter there. But then I went through a semester when I was at risk of burnout myself—until I lowered my expectations for what I could accomplish this semester and the next—and meanwhile I observed the ominous warning signs of burnout in a close friend. These experiences lead me to conclude that we do need to guard against burnout as much as we can, while also resisting the temptations to sloth and self-preservation. 

What that pastor posted on Facebook, warning against under-exertion, is a timely, needed corrective, but even he acknowledges that burnout exists and is harmful. And I suspect—because of what I know of my own predilections and of the many hard-working, driven people I’m surrounded by—that there are still many people out there who need to be warned against over-exertion. Some people who are scared at the thought of burning out may not even be close to it themselves, but those who are on the point of burning out risk far more than a season of exhaustion. I’m not thinking only of the risks of depression, of hospitalization, of needing years-long recovery, or of never fully recovering. The overworked also risk hurting those they are trying to help. As Christopher Ash warns in Zeal without Burnout, “The problem is that we do not sacrifice alone. It may sound heroic, even romantic, to burn out for Jesus. The reality is that others are implicated in our crashes. A spouse, children, ministry colleagues, prayer partners and faithful friends, all are drawn in to supporting us and propping us up when we collapse” (The Good Book Company, 2016, p. 24). Ash goes on to quote a pastor who is a volunteer firefighter: burnout is “a form of heroic suicide that is counterproductive because you’re now no longer effective in fighting fire and the resources that were dedicated to fighting the fire are not dedicated to saving you” (25). Moreover, as David Murray warns in Reset (Crossway, 2017), burnout can precede major moral lapses. His book opens with the warning, “Slow your pace, or you’ll never finish the race.”

Challies is right that God may withhold the gift of deep and thoroughly restorative sleep, but he also clarifies that we still have a responsibility to seek it. He writes, “I have decided I ought to receive this as God’s will—as a reality to be accepted rather than resented.” At the same time, “That doesn’t mean I won’t keep praying and won’t keep trying—praying for sleep and trying to get better at it. That doesn’t mean I won’t try the next herbal concoction someone recommends as the one that changed their life.” God can still use us when we are sleep-deprived, but Scripture, scientific studies, and street smarts all attest that He designed us to be at our best when we get good sleep. As Ash and Murray each argue in their respective books on burnout, to act as if God didn’t create us to be finite and sleep-dependent is dangerous hubris. So we should do what we can to sleep well, and above all trust God: trust Him to use sleep as He designed it, to restore us, and trust Him to sustain us even when good sleep eludes us. “Either way,” Challies concludes, “it falls to me to trust that he loves, that he cares, and that he knows best.”

I don’t need to nuance or counterbalance what DeYoung wrote, either, because he did so himself in that same chapter of Crazy Busy that’s haunted me so long. I remembered his startling diagnosis that “You Suffer More because You Don’t Expect to Suffer at All” and forgot the careful qualifications he placed around it. He writes, “This may seem a strange way to (almost) end a book on busyness. But keep in mind that this is the last of seven diagnoses, not the only one. … There’s a reason this chapter is not the only chapter in the book” (101). Even as DeYoung is concerned that “We simply don’t think of our busyness as even a possible part of our cross to bear” (103), he also reiterates that we need “rest, rhythm, death to pride, acceptance of our own finitude, and trust in the providence of God” (102). My takeaway from DeYoung is the same as the one I get from Challies: I should do what I can to rest in the midst of my work, and hold on to God’s goodness when that rest isn’t enough and the work won’t ease up. 

DeYoung is right to ask, “If we love others, how can we not be busy and burdened at least some of the time?” (105). So, to return to my opening question, we should be intent on avoiding burnout, but not on avoiding sacrifice. But as soon as I say that, I must also add that we should just as vigilantly guard against the martyr complex. DeYoung quotes John the Baptist: “I freely confess I am not the Christ” (48; see John 1:20). Neither are we! The questions we should be asking are: What are these sacrifices for, really? Will they be worth it? Are they actually for God and others, or are they for propping up our own egos? Or as DeYoung puts it, “Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good?” (39). And do our sacrifices—of time, of sleep—proceed from unbelief in God’s redemptive involvement in all things and a proud self-reliance, or do they proceed from a bold confidence that God will use the seeds that fall into the ground and die to bring forth new life (John 12:24)?

Five Favorite Christmas Albums

A few months ago I published an article here on my website about my 31 favorite albums. In making that list, I excluded favorite Christmas albums from consideration, so here are 5 of them.

Behold the Lamb of God [20th Anniversary Edition] (2019) — Andrew Peterson et al. 

Christmas (1989) — Michael W. Smith

Christmas Portrait: The Special Edition (1984) — Carpenters  (Note: The Carpenters did multiple Christmas albums. This one is a amalgamation of selections from 1978’s Christmas Portrait and 1984’s An Old-Fashioned Christmas.)

 The Christmas Sessions (2005) — MercyMe

The Light Came Down (2016) — Josh Garrels 

Films and Shows I'm Thankful For in 2024

In 2020, I started a Thanksgiving tradition of creating a list of twelve films or shows I was most thankful to have discovered, rediscovered, reappraised, or otherwise gained a greater appreciation for in the past year. (Click here to see the previous lists.) Here are my picks for 2024. I’m thankful for …

The Bad Batch Season 3 (a discovery): Each Star Wars animated show produced by Dave Filoni (The Clone Wars, Rebels, and now The Bad Batch) starts off a bit rocky, improves and appreciates over time, and reaches peak perfection in its final season. I’m impressed by how well The Bad Batch Season 3 stuck the landing.

Barbie (a discovery): Sure, it has a bunch of narrative and thematic issues, but then again … I was entertained and intrigued enough to watch it twice; I laughed a lot; and “I’m Just Ken” and “What Was I Made For?” were stuck in my head for days or weeks on end. 

The Boy and the Heron (a discovery): It’s a gift when one of the greatest filmmakers of our time comes out of retirement for at least one more project. 

Dune: Part Two (a discovery): It’s Lawrence of Arabia meets Revenge of the Sith—which is to say, it’s my kind of space epic tragedy.

Godzilla Minus One (a discovery): I did not expect to be so moved by a monster movie.

Ikiru (a discovery): Finally, I can say I’ve seen a film by Akira Kurosawa. And it’s near-perfect and powerful.

Lawrence of Arabia: Not on this list because it was a discovery, a rediscovery, or a reappraisal or re-appreciation, but because one of the film-going highlights of my year was seeing this on the big screen, where it felt both grander in the first half and more devastating in the second. 

Quiz Show (a discovery): I watched this on a whim knowing nothing about it except it was directed by Robert Redford and was nominated for some Oscars. It turned out to be a forgotten gem.

Spider-Man 2: As with Lawrence of Arabia, this wasn’t a discovery, a rediscovery, or a reappraisal or re-appreciation. It was just an absolute delight and privilege to see this on the big screen again for the first time since it came out twenty years ago. While the credits rolled, I turned to my friends and asked, half joking, half serious, “Why do we bother making movies anymore? Why do we need any more?” It’s that good.

Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (a greater appreciation): I’ve seen this many times and it’s grown on me a lot the past decade. But I don’t think it ever clicked for me or moved me as much as it did when I watched it this year. 

Twisters (a discovery): A pleasantly old-school blockbuster, and refreshingly human.  

VeggieTales: Lord of the Beans (a rediscovery): This summer I watched some VeggieTales for the first time in years. This is still one of my favorites and maybe the best parody (of anything) I’ve ever seen.

As Goes the Church

What do you believe is the most influential institution in the world? If given the formulation, “As goes the ____, so goes the world,” what would you put in the blank? Would you pick the Academy, the Market, the Media, or the State? Or would you pick the Church?

If you are a Christian, I hope you believe the Church is the most influential institution in the world. I hope you would say, “As goes the Church, so goes the world.” After all, it’s only the Church that is the people of God, that has the Word of God, and has the Spirit of God. It’s only the church that Jesus promised to build, and it’s the only institution He promised would prevail (Matthew 16:18). 

But if you are a Christian and are inclined to think the Academy, the Market, the Media, or the State is more influential than the Church, I would encourage you to ask yourself why. Is that way of thinking influenced more by the promises of God in Scripture, or by your perception of current events? Are your priorities driven more by faith or by fear? And I’m going to hazard to guess that this viewpoint may reflect your own sense of vocation, affect your concerns for what other individual Christians should be doing, and shape your vision of what the Church should look like.

If you think the Academy is the most influential, you are probably highly educated and see yourself as a scholar. You may think many more Christians should have advanced degrees, and that many more should be working in either secular or Christian primary and secondary schools. But not only do you want the Academy to be more Christian; it’s possible that you also, however subtly, desire for the Church to look more like the Academy. In the local church, you may gravitate toward fellow intellectuals and away from the people you see as simple or ignorant. You may expect pastors to have seminary degrees, large libraries, and sophisticated sermons.

If you think the Market is the most influential, you are probably smart with money and see yourself as a businessman. You may think many more Christians should be starting businesses, investing, or climbing the corporate ladder. But not only do you want the Market to be more Christian; it’s possible that you also, however subtly, desire for the Church to look more like the Market. In the local church, you may gravitate toward the wealthy or the financially striving and away from the people you see as poor or financially complacent. You may expect pastors to have an entrepreneurial spirit and be administratively gifted.

If you think the Media is the most influential, you are probably gifted in some art-form or medium and see yourself as a creative or a communicator. You may think many more Christians should be going into the film, music, and publishing industries and into journalism. But not only do you want the Media to be more Christian; it’s possible that you also, however subtly, desire for the Church to look more like the Media. In the local church, you may gravitate toward fellow creatives and away from the people you see as mere consumers. You may expect pastors to be artists, entertainers, or so-called “content-creators.”

If you think the State is the most influential, you are probably involved in politics (or just read the news a lot and have a lot of strong opinions) and see yourself as a civil servant or political reformer. You may think many more Christians should go into politics, get more involved at the grassroots level, or at least pay more attention to the news. But not only do you want the State to be more Christian; it’s possible that you also, however subtly, desire for the Church to look more like the State. In the local church, you may gravitate toward those who seem to have power and status in the world and away from those who seem powerless. You may expect pastors to be charismatic executives with an ambitious agenda for what the church can be doing outside its own four walls.

To be sure, right now it doesn’t seem like the Church is influential, at least not positively. It looks as if lately the Church has been better at scaring people away than drawing them in. And I’ll grant that it is a frail and weak thing, beset with sins and failings. But we ought to remember that God likes to use what seems foolish to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). We should look back to how Christians transformed the Western world two millennia ago: not by starting academies like Plato’s, or by raising capital, or by writing better epics than Homer or plays than Sophocles, or by getting into Caesar’s inner circle, but by forming churches where people heard the gospel preached and sought to live in the light of it together. And we ought to remember that when Jesus walked among us, while He would happily interact with scholars like Nicodemus and businessmen like Zacchaeus, He spent more time with the illiterate and the poor. Likewise, when Paul went on his missionary journeys, he could quote literature to philosophers and get an audience with governors, but getting them on his side was never his priority. 

Yes, go into the Academy or the Market or the Media or the State, if you have the gifting and opportunity for it, and if your motives are predominantly in the right place. But be careful that the perceived importance of your mission does not expand beyond proportion to become the mission, and that your way of contributing to the kingdom does not became the way to advance it. Jesus has His own means and methods—so much better and higher than ours—for accomplishing His purposes in the world, so let’s commit ourselves to them. However unlikely and unimpressive they appear, they will change the course of history. 

Looking for Home Across the Stars, Redux

Last October, I wrote a long post and a short follow-up post on homes/homelessness in Star Wars. Now, over at The Jedi Archives, I have a new post about the significance of the Lars homestead in Episodes II, III, IV, and IX. 

There is a homecoming at the end of the Skywalker Saga, but although a specific location is involved the homecoming is spiritual rather than geographical.

Election 2024

With only three weeks left to go until U.S. Election Day, here are my two cents—two thoughts that I’ve been pondering the past few weeks and that I put out there for whoever might want to pick them up.

One, I think that honesty requires all of us to admit that there are no good options. I suspect that Republican-leaning voters who minimize or dismiss the problems of the Republican candidates and exaggerate the problems of the Democratic candidates—or invent new, slanderous charges against them—do so because the urge for self-justification runs deep and the alternative—to admit how bad a shape our entire political system is in—is terrifying and demoralizing. Likewise, I suspect that Democratic-leaning voters who minimize or dismiss the problems of the Democratic candidates and exaggerate the problems of the Republican candidates—or again, misrepresent them—do so for the same reasons. Everyone is tempted to look for someone else to blame for how we’re all stuck between a rock and a hard place, so that we can all feel vindicated for the far-less-than-ideal choices we make under duress. Partisans find it easier to blame supporters of the other party than to accept their own share of the blame for the state of the nation—and, because misery loves company, partisans of both parties tend to rally together in pointing their fingers at those who vote third-party or don’t vote at all, accusing them of helping the wrong people get into office by throwing away their votes. All this is preferable to admitting the faults in our own political stars and confessing that the moral fog is so bad that none of us can see a north star overhead to lead us back to political sanity. We should be grieving that our only choices for president are Trump, Harris, some third-party candidate who has no chance of winning, or refusing the choice entirely. Instead we want to beat our chests in pride and act as if our choice is the obviously right one, or at least the least wrong one, and conclude everyone else is a fool or a coward.  

Two, if all the options are really as bad as I suspect they are, then we need to have charity for those who choose differently, and we need to accept responsibility for the consequences of our own choices. 

Concerning having charity for one another in political contentious times, we’d do well to practice the intellectual humility that Alexander Hamilton modeled in the first letter of The Federalist Papers. Hamilton firmly believed adopting the Constitution and having a stronger centralized federal government would be for the benefit of all the States, and he did not withhold this opinion: “Yes, my countrymen, I own it to you, that, after having given it an attentive consideration, I am clearly of the opinion that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I effect not reserves, which I do not feel.” And he expressed a concern that some were opposed to the Constitution because they either stood to lose power through federal consolidation or stood to gain power from the continued fracturing of the union (see his third paragraph). And yet, he chose not “to dwell upon observations of this nature,” because “I am well aware that it would be disingenuous to resolve indiscriminately the opposition of any set of men … into interested or ambitious views: candor will oblige us to admit, that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions.” That is, Hamilton didn’t want to attach impure motives to everyone who disagreed with him. He admits that “we upon many occasions see wise and good men on the the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society.” This should be “a lesson in moderation” for all of us. “And a further reason for caution,” he adds, is “that we are not always sure that those who advocate the truth are influenced by purer principles than their antagonists.” We shouldn’t presume to know why people make the choices they do. You could pick the “right” candidates for bad reasons; you could pick the “wrong” candidates for good reasons. If we’re honest, we’re all flying blind here. So, this election cycle, can we believe the best of each other and give grace to those who are no more perplexed and fearful, and no more vulnerable to mixed motives, than we are?

Think with Your Chest?

Yesterday my YouTube feed recommended a newly released music video by a band I’d never heard of, Gable Price and Friends. The song is titled “Think With Your Chest.” If the song had been titled “Think With Your Heart” I wouldn’t have given it a second glance, dismissing it as another variation on the wrong-headed (ha!) “follow your heart” cliché. But the use of the word “chest” intrigued me. Being me, I naturally wondered: Could the song be a response to The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis and its critique of a modern education system producing “men without chests”?

Alas, I don’t think Gable Price and Friends have read The Abolition of Man. If they had, and had been convinced by it, their song wouldn’t have so simplistically opposed the Chest to the Head, as if only one can win and the other must lose. Lewis argues the Head and the Chest must work together. To be sure, he believes the Head should lead, but he also says the Head will be ineffective or go astray without the Chest. And I think the reason that the song is stuck in this zero-sum binary is that it doesn’t consider an idea that has been around for two millennia: the tripartite soul.

In Lewis’s understanding of the human person, which he gets from Plato, there are not two but three parties jostling for control: the Head, the Chest, and the Belly. According to Plato, it’s this third, appetitive part of the soul that craves pleasure, and especially money to secure its pleasures. It’s to regulate the desires of the Belly that the Head and the Chest must work together.

In the song, the Head is associated with “surviving,” “the calculated outcome,” “the status quo,” and “thinking with me income.” Lewis and Plato would say that’s the Belly talking, not the Head. People who think with the Head are seeking to discern and live according to transcendent ideals. Contrary to what the song says, people who are living to make enough money to just get by and maintain their comforts might be using their brains—it takes some strategy to climb the corporate ladder or develop a strong portfolio—but ultimately they’re using their brains to serve their stomachs. The struggle described in the song is not really between the people who think with the Chest and those who think with the Head, but between the people who think with the Chest and Head and those who think with the Belly—and think with the Belly because they haven’t strengthened and harmonized the other two parts of the soul which should be in control.

The song is right that repressing the Chest in the name of a cold rationality is making people “depressed.” But ignoring the Head to follow the Chest is no solution. The song anticipates the objection that “the heart can be misleading,” and even validates that concern: “I can admit [my heart has] made some mistakes.” While I agree “I’d rather live with [the heart] than die so comfortably”—I’m reminded of what Lewis says elsewhere, in The Four Loves, about the necessary risks of loving others—how can a person think with the heart without falling into grave error? The song doesn’t offer a way out of that conundrum. 

Yes, we shouldn’t live for comfort, or as if we were computers or disembodied and soulless brains. But instead of living by the whims of unregulated emotions, which is just another way of thinking with the Belly, we need what Lewis calls the “trained emotions” and “stable sentiments” of the Chest. And training and stabilizing our feelings so that they accord with reality is only possible through exercising reason to discern reality.

P.S.: It’s ironic that, in the first few seconds of the music video, you can see a bust of young Anakin Skywalker, in his podracing helmet, sitting on the dashboard of a car. As Timothy Lawrence has convinced me, Star Wars is all about resolving the tension between reason and emotion by rightly ordering the tripartite soul.