Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer": "That'll preach ...."

Christopher Nolan's film
Oppenheimer is based
on the Pulitzer-prize
winning book American
Prometheus by Kai Bird
and Martin J. Sherwin.

I've been sharing with colleagues the suggestion that the release of the new film about the leader of the atomic bomb project, J. Robert Oppenheimer -- Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan -- is an opportunity for preaching and faith discussions on vital issues. (See full announcement below.) 

What am I hoping for? This morning it dawned on me: the reason I think this is such an important opportunity is, "Maybe the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand when everybody has a conscience and stops being a gadget."

The story of Oppenheimer is the battle within J. Robert Oppenheimer between what he felt he wanted -- to do an amazing thing, to have glory, to have power -- and what his conscience told him was important: to lead people away from their destructive impulses. Oppenheimer was responsible, more than any other person, for the successful creation of nuclear weapons. But he also was the most stubborn voice calling for the renunciation of those weapons. And he paid the price for it.

What might happen if people come away from Oppenheimer saying, "This is not about somebody else, and some other time -- this is about me, this is about now!" -- ??

A few years ago I wrote a post about how often we surrender ourselves to the agenda or program or ambition set by others, and before we know it our only choice is to keep "going along" -- "In Whose Machine Will YOU Be a Cog?" In a way, Oppenheimer is about the battle against just being a cog in the machine, just being a "gadget." The call to action in the title of Jaron Lanier's book, You Are Not a Gadget, comes to mind -- as does the irony that the nickname of the first bomb developed in the Manhattan Project was "the gadget."

There's no telling exactly what will be in the film ... or how people will react to it. But one thing is certain. Oppenheimer: "That'll preach ...."

Oppenheimer: A Summer Blockbuster Offers an Opportunity

What will you be preaching about this summer? What will you be discussing in small groups? There will be an opportunity to “preach into the moment” when a unique cultural event occurs this summer with the release on July 21 of a major motion picture: Oppenheimer. The film is based on the choice to develop and use nuclear weapons as told in the book about the Manhattan Project leader entitled, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The $100 million production promises to deal issues of faith and conscience, and to stimulate a national conversation on dangerous technologies and social practices – nuclear weapons, but also AI and all environment-threatening behavior. “We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us. … I don’t know if we can be trusted with such a weapon. But we have no choice. Is anyone ever going to tell the truth about what’s happening here?” says Oppenheimer in the film’s trailer.

The mid-summer release is timed to coincide with the anniversary of the first atomic bomb test (“Trinity” – July 16, 1945) and the use by the United States of atomic weapons against Japan weeks later (Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9).

For more on the United Church of Christ (UCC) commitment to preventing the danger presented by nuclear weapons, see “Synod calls U.S. to pull back from brink of nuclear war.”

"Ownlife": Do Activists Dream in Eclectic Sleep?

Dream cafe set-up

Nine years ago I wrote a post about a lesser-known concept in Orwell's 1984 -- "ownlife" -- and how it might relate to a life of political activism.

In short, I suggested that the minute we start to take time for ourselves -- time to reflect, time to heal, time to grow -- we begin to have more power as activists (and begin to be more threatening to the state).

An activist friend of mine talked this morning on social media about some of the dreams he has been having. It seemed like a good time to share something that's been developing with me:

"In the past few years, I've written more and more of my dreams down. I now set aside quiet time alone each morning to do it, and also to reflect. It is astonishing to me how clearly and completely I can remember the contents of dreams ... sometimes ... but other times, as I turn my waking attention to some little thing, the dream vanishes!"

My friend had used an expression -- "like trying to hold onto wisps of fog" -- that seemed to me to exactly capture that last-mentioned phenomenon.

At first, I just focused on recall: how much of the dream could I remember?  To my surprise, I found that if I had just a small "hook" to remind me of the dream experience, and if I relaxed, it would all come back at great length and in startling detail.

Soon I realized that it was fun to notice the little tidbits from the previous day(s) waking experience that formed the raw material or props of the dream. I'd write that down, too.

Occasionally, it seemed pretty obvious that the dream was about something I was wanting or needing or wishing for. And so that is another thing I've started to jot down.

Sometimes I even have very clear visual impressions from the dream. I do a little sketch of that.

The path one dream followed

After a long time, I started a practice of going back to the pile of notes of past dreams and transcribing them onto my computer. I noticed three interesting things.

First, often when I read the notes from a dream that I had years ago, I recall it with crystal clarity.

Second, there are certain motifs or tropes that recur. (For instance, bizarre elevator rides.) I've started to make a list of these recurring tropes in my dreams, and I'm discovering that the list is getting longer and longer!

Third, even if the dream didn't seem to mean anything at the time, after returning to it at a later time, perhaps coming at it from a different mood or with a different attitude or outlook, it can often seem quite meaningful in the new light.

They say that our sleeping time is full of dreams, and that we only ever remember a tiny fraction. As I look back over the "haul" of notes on my dreams of the past few years, and realize it's just a drop in the bucket compared to everything my brain is working on, I can't help thinking, "You're working very hard, little brain! Thanks for all that effort you're making!"

One dream had a jar of paint in a distinct
burgundy color. (What's up with that?)

As for my assertion from nearly a decade ago -- that taking time for "ownlife" gives us more power as activists and makes us more threatening to the state -- I don't yet have an assessment vis-a-vis the impact of my own dream work. I'll need to devote some time to reflect on that. (Maybe I'll even dream on it.)

Related: "Ownlife" - A Notion Too Dangerous for the State to Tolerate?

On the Need to Slow Down

I'm listening!

I wondered yesterday: is it possible that the world -- the environment, the climate, Nature -- has sensed that we need to slow down, and that it has been sending us a message?

In other words, the challenge here is not to save the Earth from being "damaged," but to rescue human lived experience from becoming hopelessly sped up and commodified?

I was on a phone call with a group of environmental activists, and someone shared a reflection entitled, "What Can the Trees Teach Us" by Nichola Torrbett. "As far as I could make it out," she wrote, "the immediate message is SLOW DOWN."

We remarked on the irony that humans have had a very hard time listening to other humans suggest that we need to slow down; the message from the atmosphere has not been able to quite register, either; but now a microscopic bug has seems to be getting through to us.

Later, I reflected on how this has operated in my own life. I remembered a moment, sitting in a train car as it zoomed through the state of New Jersey, realizing that no matter what was happening in my life I always felt better when I was moving.

I remembered an essay in a collection on my shelf, and pulled it down to read again. In 1906, Henry Adams wrote about how life seems always to be getting faster and faster. Looking back on his own time, he observed "[b]efore the boy was six years old, he had seen four impossibilities made actual, -- the ocean-steamer, the railway, the electric telegraph, and the Daguerreotype; nor could he ever learn which of the four had most hurried others to come." (From "A Law of Acceleration")

And today that seems quaint.

When I was a teenager, the big bestseller was Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. I was amused to discover that twenty years later, it became a bestseller in Chinese translation in the bookstores of Beijing and Shanghai. The book is, in a way, an extended updating on Henry Adams' observations: the biggest change is the accelerating pace of change itself.

There was a wonderful show at the Guggenheim Museum in New York a few years ago, about the Futurist movement of the early 20th century. The Futurists sought to make a virtue of this acceleration of society -- with consequences that were partly entertaining and partly terrifying. (See What Kind of Future Comes From Worshiping Speed, Machines, Flight, War?)

I wrote once before about the need to slow down in a slightly different context: talking about the concept that George Orwell wrote about in 1984, "ownlife." That was when I began to see what a huge effort is needed to slow down and choose where to put one's own attention.

For the rest of this year (at least), the pace of our lives will be changed for us. What will we learn from the experience?

The Mind of an Immigrant to Madeline Island

(Originally published in May, 2019, as "Getting to Know Joe Scarry"  in the newsletter of St. John's UCC on Madeline Island, The Lighthouse.)

Joe Scarry in Berkeley

Can you remember what first stimulated your interest in Madeline Island?

Well, we were definitely both *curious* when we heard about this island in Lake Superior that you could only reach by ferry. I knew something about the Great Lakes, having lived in Chicago for 20 years; and I could picture coastal, and even island, communities, having visited many of them growing up on the East Coast. I think what really captured my imagination was learning that Madeline Island is the traditional spiritual center of the Ojibwe people. That felt very, very significant to me.

Why was that significant?

I guess it's because it seemed like something I would want to learn from. Think about it: Madeline Island is about the size of Manhattan. I've spent a lot of time in Manhattan, I love New York, and it's thrilling to see what happens when a place is treated as a center of finance, commerce, international trade, entertainment, fashion, culture, architecture . . . and yet . . . . I think there is also the potential for it to be thrilling when a place is treated as a center of spiritual life.

And what have you found since you've been here?

I'm just beginning to learn. But in the few chapters that I've had a chance to dip into so far -- the chapter called "Ice," and the chapter called "Sky," for instance -- I'm beginning to get some inklings.

I have high hopes for the upcoming chapter called "Wildflowers"!

Purple Coneflowers - done years ago with my daughter who stipulate at the
time that I indicate on the drawing "drawing by Alanna, coloriong by Daddy."

It sounds like you connect with your spiritual life through Nature?

That's one of the biggest ways for me. I need time and space to focus attention beyond some of my usual hangups -- things like ego, control, fatigue. There's nothing like watching a sparrow to help me get a new perspective on things.

Music is another way. There are certain pieces -- especially "Quartet for the End of Time" by Messaien -- that really transport me.

How does your spiritual life connect with the rest of your life?

You know, it's funny but now that I'm 60 I can pause and look back and say, "I've done a lot of stuff in these years - where did the time and energy come from??" And sometimes I think, "Wow - there's a whole stretch of years that I was running around like the Energizer bunny, and to what end? I wish I had been a little more prayerful about what I was intending. I could have put that time and energy to much better use!"

I often think of the carpenter's maxim, "Measure twice, cut once." So these days I'm trying more to be willing to look around me and say, "Somehow all of this came into being. In the overall scheme of things, nothing I'm doing is so important that I can't take a little extra time and ask, what might I do that could make a difference in this Creation?"

And what might you do?

Mitri Raheb, Faith in the
Face of Empire: The Bible
Through Palestinian Eyes

Well, I think a lot about -- and feel a lot of tension around -- Jesus' proclamation that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. I believe very strongly that he meant, "I'm not talking about the run-of-the-mill, political, Caesar-as-boss type of Kingdom. This is something really new, where everybody lives a full life, fully loved." And I've been very inspired of some people like Mitri Raheb, in Bethlehem, who talks in Faith in the Face of Empire about how Jesus' "organizing strategy" involved giving attention to everybody, even the most "marginal" -- in fact, especially the most marginal.

So part of it is Jesus' simple-and-difficult (simple to hear, difficult to follow) command: "love one another."

And I think he meant it in real terms -- "love the disciple 3 seats down the table from you, even though he chews with his mouth open" -- and not just in general terms of "I love humanity."

At the same time, I really struggle: don't we also need social justice? Doesn't that require us to work for social change? Don't we need to be involved in politics?

C'mon -- "love one another" -- what's so hard about that?

Well, maybe it's just me, but I have to work at it. I mean, I *like* people. And I *get along* with people. (I ADORE my granddaughters!) But after giving it a lot of thought, I've come to the conclusion that the instruction really is to *love* people -- and not just my granddaughters -- all the time. And there are so many of them!

And I think what Jesus would say is, "... so work at it!"

I see your point - that'll keep you busy. Does that leave time for politics?

As I say, I'm really not sure how much Jesus cared about politics. As I sit here right now, I feel convinced that there *are* *some* things that call for taking time and energy and working on. It's becoming pretty clear to everyone that climate is one of them. I think nuclear disarmament is another, because if we mess that one up, there will be no tomorrow in which to practice Jesus' commandments.

Okay, thanks for sharing these thoughts. So I'm guessing, as Pastor Rachel's partner, you've got some strong opinions on a few subjects. Can I ask: what's your favorite bird?

I've gotta say cardinal: on a good day I can imitate their call well enough that they will whistle back and forth with me!

Favorite ice cream flavor?

Pistachio!

Have I missed anything?

How about favorite musical genre? I'm very into classical music these days, but there is a special place in my heart for The Beatles -- definitely the inspiration for the band that I played with in high school and that gave me some very happy days.

But *that's* a story for another day . . . .