Is the Federated Church the cure for Avatar Depression Syndrome?

After I saw Avatar the first time, I spoke about it at church, saying that one of the unexpected reactions I had to the movie, was that it made me think of the Federated Church, in a fond way.

This confused people, because it's a movie about giant blue skinned aliens in outer space.

Nevertheless, my comment  stimulated a few conversations with people that normally don't interact with me.  Some kids and Moms told me how much they loved the movie, and how their sons also felt compelled to see it several times.  An older retired military man said he had found the movie somewhat offensive in its depiction of the main villain as a mercenary military for hire (I agreed). It was briefly mentioned in the movie that the military had conducted many previous worthwhile missions, but there is no doubt one of the two biggest villains in the picture is a military man. However, the biggest hero in the picture is also a military man.

When church members asked me, I explained my comment about Avatar, by saying that the reason I dragged myself to a real movie theater to see the film, instead of waiting for the DVD, was that I had read that a significant group of viewers were developing "Avatar Depression Syndrome."  A movie that makes people depressed?? Count me in !!! What was I thinking??? LOL.

Apparently some viewers who have seen the movie many times, end up feeling depressed that our own world is not as beautiful and interconnected as the movie's imaginary alien world and people.

In the movie, on the alien world of Pandora, the invading humans gradually discover that all living things on the planet are literally interconnected, with a biological network. The alien race called the Nav'i have a little feathery connector on their tail, that they can use to literally plug themselves into both individual creatures, that they ride or fly, and also into a larger global network. This biological connectedness gives rise to a super planetary consciousness and deity called Eywa.

In one on-line forum titled "You Know You're an Avatar Fan If..." one fan wrote "...you wish that upon death, heaven will be Pandora..." Link here .

Anyway, some people in our earthly audience see this amazing imaginary interconnectedness, depicted in stunningly realistic 3D glowing technicolor, and then the lights come on, and they feel permanently isolated and shut off from their own relatively drab industrial world.  And they get depressed and wish they could go back and live in the movie. You can read Audiences Experience Avatar Blues here .

When I read that the movie was affecting people this way, it was a clue to me that something was going on that was larger than just an epic sci-fi blockbuster.  So I went to see it on the big screen, knowing I might walk away stricken with Avatar Depression Syndrome. But instead I thought about the Federated Church. And I immediately wanted to see the movie again, and go to church.

Remember how some kids saw Star Wars twenty and thirty times when it first came out, and later George Lucas admitted he had used mythic elements from the work of Joseph Campbell? This was later described more explicitly in Campbell and Bill Moyers series The Power of Myth .

So I went to see Avatar, and instead of finding myself feeling disconnected and yearning for the connectedness of the Navi, I realized that the Federated Church was providing that sense of connection and spirituality and wisdom for me, that was expressed in such an other-worldly exotic way in the movie.

The planet Pandora has this sacred place called the Tree of Souls, which is this weeping willow type tree with long glowing white leaves.  When the Nav'i die, their conscousness is stored in the Tree of Souls and the living Nav'i can plug their tails into the tree to communicate with them.

Well, when I look out at the Federated Church congregation from my seat in the back of the choir loft, I see a lot of glowing white hair, in the choir and in the congregation.  So the Tree of Souls also reminded me of all the white haired members of the congregation that store all the wisdom and memory of the church.  The Navi can plug into their tree to reach the planet's gaia goddess figure Eywa.  And I feel like I am trying to plug in and access god, through all the white hairs in the church congregation as well... my own Tree of Souls right here in Orleans Massachusetts!

Another thing that reminded me of the Federated Church, is that when the Navi pray, they all put their hands on each others shoulders and sing.  During flu season our choir was making a prayer circle by resting our hands on each other's shoulders, instead of holding hands. So that also reminded me of the Nav'i.

So, some of the reasons Avatar reminded me of the church were pretty superficial:  white hair of congregation= white leaves of Tree of Souls.  Na'vi pray with hands on shoulders=choir making circle with hands on shoulders because of fears of swine flu.

Then there are some other paths the movie may lead you down-- the parallel of the avatar Jake Sully sent from the heavens to Pandora in the local race's body, teaching them how to save themselves, killed by his own people, and finally resurrected, is an interesting "compare and contrast" with the story of Jesus.

And Oprah's latest spiritual guru, Eckhart Tolle, was recently written up in a USAToday story with the comment "Avatar's basic message of reality as pervaded by a field of intelligence struck Tolle as "a very important spiritual idea brought forward in a way that people could enjoy."


Reality pervaded by a field of intelligence ?? Is that God? What do you think? You can watch part of the new Avatar trailer below (click the triangle in the lower left corner). It's somewhat cropped... so if you want to see it in widescreen you can go to the official site here

Official Avatar Movie

iPhone and iPad - Royal Telephone ? There's an App for that!

Some time ago the choir sang an energetic ditty about a Royal Telephone we can use to talk to Jesus, and get answers directly from god's royal line.  You can read the lyrics and hear the melody here . It was a fun piece to sing in harmony and we even adapted it for a choir member's birthday party. (What a fun party that was, thank you Bob's family!).

"Telephone to glory, oh, what joy divine!
I can feel the current moving on the line,
Built by God the Father for His loved and own,
We may talk to Jesus through this royal telephone."

I also liked the song because I love my iPhone.  It's one of those "game-changers," like the DVR, where a piece of technology makes a radical alteration in your life, for the better.  I remember asking a friend who had just gotten Tivo (which is a brand of DVR), if it was worth it.  He replied, completely seriously, that it had changed his life.  I did not expect that answer! So I signed up for one, and as I slowly learned to use it, it changed my life for the better.  My friend was right. Now I can't watch TV without a DVR.  It's just too archaic.

My iPhone is the same way. It took a little time and effort to make the switch from thinking "this is my phone" to thinking "there's an app for that," but with a little effort I did make the jump, became seriously impressed with Apple's attention to detail, and now would be loathe to part with my trusty little iPhone. I even bought a share of stock in Apple.  With the recent release of the iPad, which is a larger version of the iPhone, I would buy more Apple stock if I could.  It's going to be huge.

"There's an app for that" refers to the little software applications that you download to your iPhone. Making phone calls is only a fraction of what the iPhone does. There are now 185,000 available apps... many are free or cost only a dollar or two.... games...navigation...books... gadgets... self help... social tools... car maintenance... I could go on.  Perhaps this quote sums it up best-- I read recently of a man who was crushed and trapped in rubble after the earthquake in Haiti. "Alone in the darkness beneath layers of rubble, Dan Woolley felt blood streaming from his head and leg. Then he remembered -- he had an app for that." 

He had a first aid app on his iPhone, that helped him treat his injuries and keep awake and alert until rescue arrived.  (At the end of the story, he still says he's grateful to God for getting him through the ordeal, so the iPhone doesn't get all the credit).

So what makes the iPhone a royal telephone?  Well, it turns out it's a great bible reader too. You can read more about reading the bible on the iPad by clicking on this link  "The Bible is Alive on the Most Modern Tablet"  .

I use my iPhone to read the Message bible.  The Message (click the link to read about it at Wikipedia) is a new translation of the bible in contemporary language, which the author was inspired to begin as an effort to capture the "vitality and directness" of the new testament as written in the original Greek texts. He says, "I hoped to bring the New Testament to life for two different types of people: those who hadn't read the Bible because it seemed too distant and irrelevant and those who had read the Bible so much that it had become 'old hat.'


Well I definitely fell in the former group.  And now much to my amazement, when I have a few minutes to spare, I can now pull up the bible on my phone.  I never used to read the bible.  Now I do, a lot. It's really an amazing story. (Of course these electronic bible editions have all sorts of fancy tools to highlight, compare, notate, etc that I haven't learned to use, yet.  I just read it. If you want to click through 100 images of what bible reading software can do on the iPad, click here) So, my iPhone is now my bible, literally.

It's not all good news, though.  My love for gadgetry and my royal telephone is tempered by this story outlining the negative ecological implications of this type of technology. There are labor questions, and particularly the dangers and consequences of mining and refining the fancy metals needed for all the hidden workings.  And despite the fact that you might think it's better to read a thousand books on one gadget, and thereby save a lot of trees from being turned into paper, in fact, a recent analysis shows that paper books are really more gentle to the planet than e-book readers.  Paper is a renewable resource, unlike heavy metals, and doesn't require a steady stream of electricity.

So maybe I will eventually look for a pocket sized paper Message bible, when I am able to evolve beyond my current state of rapt technological immersion.

Still, today, I thank my iPhone and Apple Computer for bringing me the words of Jesus.

Easter Sunday, God's Secret Service, and the Butterfly

Wow, what an Easter.  As a kid I loved the egg hunts.  I still enjoy the candy.  I was always mildly irritated by having to attend an Easter Dinner every year as if it was some important holiday.


Well, surprise, suddenly it is an important holiday to me. Thank you, Federated Church.

I've written previously about the Maundy Thursday Tenebrae service in the dark...amazing.

Good Friday, I attended an interfaith service at the local Catholic Church. I didn't find it very moving, except perhaps for seeing all the priests/ministers/pastors working together to lead worship, but it was another piece of the Easter journey.

Saturday I washed my dogs and my bike, and read some of the Message bible.  I kind of got into it... the story is coming together better for me, how the bible is set up, and how we know what we think we know about Jesus. Then I ran across the 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston on TV.  Believe it or not, I have never seen this film.  Well I still haven't seen the whole thing, but I've seen part of it... Egyptians in shimmering gold lame outfits and hollywood starlets with midwestern accents as famous jewish women from the bible... amazing.  A quick read at Wikipedia about the film showed me where it's accurate biblically and where it's not... and said that in today's dollars, the 10 Commandments would be one of the 10 top grossing films of all time, at just under a billion dollars. Apparently DeMille filled in some details from sources such as Josephus, the Sefer ha-Yashar, and the Chronicle of Moses, as well as the Qur'an (click the links to go to the wikipedia entries). You can read about the movie here .

Sunday I dragged myself out of bed in the dark, showered and shaved, and got out to Nauset Beach for a sunrise service with the Methodist Church.  I don't remember much of the actual service, but the setting and the sunrise was a truly spiritual event.  I've seen plenty of sunsets... I vow to see more sunrises.  Here's an actual Nauset Beach sunrise photo (not from this Easter though):

Then at the 10 am service, Pastor Sally was on fire!  (First she acknowledged the "Christmas and Easter" visitors that filled the sanctuary, with a funny joke about a pastor trying to get an Easter-only worshipper to join the army of god full-time...the visitor replies that he's actually already in the army, it's just that he's in the secret service.) She admitted that even she has those "secret service" moments.

And the Rev. Dr. Phil Mitchell (an awfully nice, humble guy, for such a long title) had a hilarious children's chat moment, as he was leading up to the analogy of Jesus rising from the crucifixion as a butterfly emerges from the cocoon... and one tiny little kid just said right into the microphone something like, "Jesus is just like a butterfly because he was raised up to god" and Phil had the good sense to know when he had been upstaged and end it right there... saying "thanks, you said in a few seconds what the grownups are now going to spend an hour to say."  Another little kid quietly corrected Phil, that moths come from cocoons, and butterflies come from a chrysalis... but that kid wasn't near the microphone so he didn't really get his point across to the whole congregation.

We do laugh a lot at the Federated Church.   And I think we truly celebrated Jesus' resurrection.

Anyway, it also gave me a new way to think about my time in Orleans... while I cast off the remnants of my old life and prepare for a permanent move to Hawaii... as time of reorganization like the caterpillar going into the chrysalis before emerging as the butterfly.  It can be painful and complicated and involves a lot of reorganization, but something great comes out at the end, much lighter and able to fly... so that gave me some good inspiration for slogging away through this period of my life.

Finally, I had just read that the Monarch butterfly that migrates from Southern Canada down to Mexico and back, does so over several generations... the butterfly that starts the trip dies on  the way, but his offspring continue the journey until it is complete.

So, if Jesus is the butterfly, does he die and return many times before his journey is complete, like the Monarch?  I just recently read someone saying that Jesus had already returned-- they believed that Martin Luther King JR was reincarnated Jesus, and he was killed again... another butterfly generation in a long migration?

Tenebrae - Were You There ?

Pastor Sally Norris led an amazing worship service last thursday night.

From the program... "the service of Tenebrae is an ancient church tradition, dating back to the fifth century.  it dramatizes the suffering, death, and burial of Jesus Christ. The service moves from light to darkness. Seven candles are gradually extinguished, symbolizing the flight and denial of the disciples and friends of Jesus after the crucifixion... we remember that Jesus this night gave -- and gives -- us a new commandment: 'this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you... This I command you, to love one another.' (John 13:34)"

From the Call to Worship: ".... O God, help me this night not to fall away from you and from Jesus. Strengthen my faith. Increase my love for you. I have come to be washed, fed, and healed."

Prayer of Confession: "Spirit of Christ be with us now. We try to avoid this journey you are taking.  We may not watch and pray with you. We may deny you. Help us to face our fear of the Cross on which you died. Help us to face the crosses we must carry to honor your life...."

From the Litanies of Response: "... yet in our daily confusion sometimes we forget you... we have avoided opportunities to cry out against injustice.... yet we have stood by and watched even when we witness suffering...when our own clamoring deafens our hearing, will you knock again....?"

"May we learn by your example to love others as we love ourselves."

"We need a fuller understanding of life's meaning in our own existence... we need a vision that enables us to see the creation of your kingdom on earth... we need the comforting assurance of your presence."

"As this day ends, the darkness surrounds us. Give us light... send us peace... show us joy... grant us forgiveness... establish your live in and among us... "

"Help us to bear the burden of these moments... to follow with strength the paths you have laid for us... beyond dimness into fuller understanding of your will... that we may not stumble in darkness, but follow with blessing and joy where Jesus leads.""

Was Jesus Open and Affirming ?

I haven't written much recently, because I've been feeling resistance from a new path I've wandered into at the Federated Church.  You know like those dreams where you're trying to run, but you can only move in slow motion?  That's how church has felt for me recently, sad to say.

A few weeks ago, when I was writing an earlier post referring to the Mormon Church and their position on gays, I went to my current church's website to refer to information about their "Open and Affirming" status to gays and lesbians, as part of a larger United Church of Christ resolution.  I could not find what I was looking for on the local website, so I went to the UCC website, and found that while several UCC churches on Cape Cod have adopted the Open and Affirming resolution, the Federated Church is not one of them.  And in the general listing on the UCC website for the Federated Church, it simply reads "Listed Open and Affirming? No."

When I read this online, late on a Saturday night, I was almost physically sick. My heart started pounding in my chest... one of those moments when you think you know something, and it suddenly turns out you were completely mistaken. The rug just completely pulled out from under you.  It was quite a blow to me, because I had thought I had been specifically told the Federated Church had adopted this resolution, and this was one of the things that had given me the confidence in the first place, to attend an unfamiliar straight church as an open and honest gay man, without having to worry if that was going to be a problem.

It turns out the Federated Church has an old painful history around this resolution, and so this discovery led me onto a new path I had not expected to be taking at this church, of feeling reminded of my second class status and how often I have faced discrimination, and of course now having to speak up and defend and explain my feelings around this issue.  And I finally realized, I was avoiding my blog because of this... it wasn't a subject I had planned to write about... and I certainly wasn't enthusiastic about having to go down this road... but now it seems like I am being called to talk and write about it.

 I found a great writeup by Dan Kirk about how to escape from quicksand, real or metaphorical, here .  He writes, "Well, like any unfortunate wanderer stepping into quicksand or conversational danger, the immediate response is the one most likely to get you in trouble. Thinking before you do anything will save your sorry hide, and understanding your adversary gives you far more hope of survival. First of all, the viscosity of quicksand, just as with your mother in law or boss, increases with the more force you apply in the opposite direction."

So... more to come on this topic.

PS. On a COMPLETELY different subject, I was looking for an image of "dream running in slow motion," and found the MIDDLE image above.   It's from a blog written by some guy named Archimedes Minor, writing as knownstranger1, documenting his game play in in an artificial 3D Life Simulation Game... incredibly detailed and beautiful and thought provoking about the choices people are starting to make between living in the real world or artificial worlds that they create and control... you can check it out here .