Tragedy and Triumph

Wow, Tuesday made me think! The whole subject of tragedy was a wonderful topic to address. Many of the things Dr. Leeper said were jarring and reminded me a truths I knew but had not thought of in a very long time. I'll start at the beginning.

I have been at odds with Dr. Leeper on his belief that art shouldn't get a message out but instead show you how to see. Tuesday, however, he changed my mind pretty drastically when he said "Poets don't give answers, they ask questions. They give you something to think about." This blew me away as such truth. Ever since I became interested in story I figured it was my duty as a Christian to use my storytelling to tell people about Jesus. The thing is though, that's just preaching to the choir. Only Christians are gonna read or watch stories about Jesus. Show them Jesus, however, and they'll come in droves. Everyone wants to see hope. No one wants to be force fed hope. Dr. Leeper said something a few class periods ago: “If your audience is trying to put things together, then you’ve got them.” Maybe art isn’t about telling people about Jesus, maybe it’s about showing them hope.

Now for those films: The Henson one was such a sad film and it does a great job of addressing the unimaginable hurt of loss. I couldn’t connect very strongly only because I have yet to lose someone extremely close to me, but I have seen the tragedy and those who have experienced that loss could undoubtedly connect with that film. The great thing about it is that it didn’t try and answer anything. There was no resolution. It just showed hurting people that hurt is real and it’s okay to weep. Tragedy always comes before joy.

The Fridge video was a difficult video to watch because of how raw it was. Films like that leave me numb. I was depressed for several hours after viewing that movie. But it was exceptional. Beneath the hard, grotesque picture of the suffering the people were going through; behind all the profanity and violence; despite the coldness of all the outsiders; underneath all of that, there was a beauty that a film with none of the filth could not have achieved. Yes it was disgusting. Yes it was cruel. But in the end you were able to view two of those most beautiful moments. When the young man helps the boy out of the fridge, and when the main character caresses his wife’s face lovingly. On their own they were nice moments in film. In the light of the previous debauchery they were absolutely brilliant and rarely matched.

The last video we watched, the one about the German man, was equally brilliant in its delivery. The shock of the first scene never wore off throughout the whole of the film and I was okay with that because it wasn’t shock for shock’s sake. It was for the purpose of showing the realness of the suffering both the victims of the holocaust and the perpetrators had to endure. Without that first scene the rest of the movie would have been comical. In fact I caught myself several times finding the completely monotone description the man gave as almost funny. The scene in the cathedral where he is taking communion completely went over my head. It was brilliant, but my untrained eye missed it. I think that was the crescendo in the film. Without that scene the movie would have been nothing but a cruel reminder of the pain of genocide. With the communion scene that depicted the blood of Christ everything was tied together, given resolution, and the tragedy was given a moment of comedy. The ending scene was equally important in my opinion because without that we would be given the false impression of nothing but happiness after Jesus cleansed us. In reality life can still be just as crappy after Jesus. Paul would attest to that. He didn’t exactly have a great life after meeting Jesus.

All in all this was a depressing class, but a needed one. The reminder to not always speak up immediately was a needed one for me. I think that I have all the answers and that I should jump into the mess and solve everything as if I’m Batman. How arrogant. Jesus is the only one with Truth. He is the only one who brings resolution and I usually just get in the way.

I want to end with a quote from Mother Teresa:
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”