Dreams

Dreams

By the Panhandling Philosopher

 

                Do dreams come true? Do dreams die or fade away? The answer to both questions is yes. Life humbles us. It humbles us in failure. It sometimes humbles us in success.

                I know some people considering their dreams right now. I know someone who thought of a dream for continuing education and when she inquired about taking a class at the university she considered, discovered that the cost would be staggering. I know someone else, only an acquaintance online. I imagined that she was wonderfully successful. Her photography is beautiful. Her spirit conveyed in photographs and words is astonishing. Her life story is inspiring. She has tasted moments of decent success but for now she struggles to pay the bills. She thinks she might quit her struggle to be a full time artist. I don’t want her to do that partly because I like to give her photography books to some people for Christmas gifts. If her photography books no longer are forthcoming, I will have to think about Christmas gifts for these people and I never can imagine a decent Christmas gift for anyone. But I do understand. The amount of people who are able live off their writing (not getting wealthy but paying their bills in middle class fashion), are in number roughly the same as the number of players in the NFL. There are plenty of athletes who got close to obtaining their dream of playing professionally in sports. I know someone who was on the way until a knee injury tore up the dream. There are athletes, artists, and others who pursued their dreams, got close, and it never worked out. If dreams were surefire successes they wouldn’t be described as dreams.

                I don’t know what to tell people who want to pursue a dream. I don’t even know what to tell myself about my dream. I think you should know a dream by definition is a long shot. A lot of dreams end in failure. But what is success? What is failure? Is success someone who is described as a success in life but carries within him a sense of a dream that he never quite chose to give a chance. Surprisingly the answer may be yes. He is often a wise man who realizes that the bird in hand was worth more than two in flight. There is that person whose family, children, and associates could depend on, even when the guy had a dream he never found time or the bravery to pursue. Maybe like Jimmy Stewart’s presentation of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” the life he actually pursued turned out to be worth more to everyone, including himself, than the pursuit of his dream would have been. But perhaps like dreams in the actual sense, those ones that take over when we are sleeping – we would be lesser creatures without them. It may be the decisions of the daytime that matter, but it is said, even if we don’t remember that that terrible things happen if there are no dreams in our sleep. I suspect the dreams we have, whether we give ourselves to them or they become the fantasies we keep to ourselves to make life bearable; the dreams they are essential. Without them we become zombies going through the motion, but where real life has departed. Sometimes like George Bailey the time comes to realize our fantasies were fantasy but our real lives are enough.

                For those with dreams, I can’t tell you what you should do. I have a dream. I don’t know what to tell myself. I enjoy writing. Occasionally I write a decent piece. Most of the time there are too many words and my editing is atrocious. Maybe with time I could hone the present mediocrity into something better. I’ve thought about retiring sooner rather than later to give the dream a chance. My work pays the bills. It is secure. I’m hungry to pursue my dream. My last blog got less than 25 hits but one of the most encouraging comments in a long time, from someone whose comments I respect. Less than 25 hits makes me realize that I am maybe Father Mackenzie darning socks and writing a sermon for Eleanor Rigby that no one will ever hear.

                I think of the two New Yorkers. One imagines going to school for a higher degree. It costs so much, and she wants to complete her studies if she starts them. Another has lived her dream, but the time comes when one gets tired of only with difficulty paying the bills. I can’t tell either of them what to do. For me, old age means with each year the possibility that sharpness of mind and ability to grow in creativity will possibly be lost if I delay throwing myself into the task. I’m not sure we should always pursue our dreams. I am sure that life without a dream would seem to me like no life at all. Life is sort of strange. There is that to like about it.

Connections of Patriotism

The Connections of Patriotism

 

            I ask one thing of the readers of this blog. Don’t stop reading after the first full paragraph. Give this piece at least two full paragraphs to help you determine if this is something worth your time reading.

            For many years my thoughts about patriotism were either negative or ambiguous. It seemed to me that patriotism often led to one people imagining themselves better than another people. Patriotism led to wars. It led to wars where we imagined our wounded and killed as martyrs for a cause, and those who suffered and died on the other side as either children of a false god, or semi-human barbarians. Patriotism seems often to be in collusion with propaganda, ready to hear good things about ourselves and believe the worst about others. There was even ambiguity about my negative feelings. Those who went to serve in our wars were often among the best young men and women from some of the finest families I knew. If a day came when one lost his or her life on the battlefield or in driving a jeep over a hidden exploding device – I knew I could not voice my opinions in the midst of their suffering. I knew I couldn’t voice my opinions because deep down I knew there was something more about these feelings of patriotism than my negativity could understand.

            I often wished I could talk myself into being a true pacifist. I was as ambivalent about pacifism as I was patriotism. I thought about pacifism and realized that it would be like one who enjoys a relaxing dinner at a nice restaurant on the Sabbath. If I were a pacifist I would be the man who sat enjoying the fragile peace forged by an army of soldiers, policemen, judges, juries, and statesmen. I would sit in the fragile peace served to me while I counted those who served me in this as what was wrong in my world. In my ambiguous thoughts I had to realize that however you, or I, or that other guy feel about patriotism; our thoughts and our sensitivities are aroused by living in a world that in military slang can be described as fubar! We are all caught up in this fubar world, trying to adjust to it and force adjustments upon it. (note: fubar = fouled up beyond all recognition, the polite version) We are all caught up in a fubar world. Today, while not resolving the ambiguities I believe inherent in our understandings of patriotism I have gone beyond having a truce with patriotism. Patriotism and I have signed a peace agreement. That is what I am here sharing with you this Memorial Day.

            I have come to realize that perhaps most everything around us is hidden from us. The iceberg visible above the surface is only a fraction in size compared to what is hidden below the surface. I pick up a bar of steel seeing it as a solid mass, when in reality it is a pool of molecules with electrons swimming in the vast spaces around the molecules. Or perhaps more to the point we once imagined that the difference between man and beasts is that man thought in rational terms and the animal acted on the basis of instinct. But how much do we as human beings act if not instinctively then innately based upon sensitivities to the reality of our human condition that lead us to instinctively sense a relationship to place, persons, and time. The instinctive nature of our perception of these realities are of course then translated probably only partially into the language of reason and thought.

            If what I just said doesn't seem to describing something real or important, let me explain a little bit more. I believe that in our human journey we have had to learn that our lives are connected to place, other persons, and time. These realities are of course not defined by patriotism, but patriotism is interwoven in its expressions with these realities. Patriotism like all other shared human sentiments develops songs and stories, images, celebrations and liturgies. We do this because we instinctively know that relationship to place, persons, and time is essential for our survival. This became part of our collective human instinct long ago. We feel the need in our sharing danger and in our survival to celebrate and to forge symbols. This is what we human beings connected to one another do innately. We create symbols, share stories and songs, contemplate images, create celebrations and feast, and compose liturgies to capture the beautiful, grievous and triumphant; because we sense a shared life in things. We create symbols of our connections whether in national flags, corporate logos, the header on am individual's webpage, or as members of faith reverencing crosses, crescents, or the Star of David. We symbolize and celebrate our connections. In patriotism we wave flags and when we wish to feel the solemnity of an occasion, or the pain of the flow of history where so much cost has been absorbed perhaps in our minds a worn frayed flag symbolizes more than a new fresh one.

 

A worn flag can be a powerful symbol of connections

 

            Patriotism is connected to place. In our patriotic songs we sing of “purple mountain majesties”or “amber waves of grain.” We try then to imagine everything “from California to the New York Island.” As a child, before I doubted patriotism, my first patriotic feelings were felt as I thought of my nation stretching beyond what seemed to me to be an endless prairie horizon. To me this was the world. Lands beyond this perceived horizon of my prairie seemed another World away. Patriotism is connected to place.

Central Illinois – my initial patriotism the bigness of the horizon

               

            I suspect that patriotism is connected to our instinctive needs of survival as human beings. We are connected to place because we sense safety in the environment we know. It may be exciting to explore the world, but there is always relief felt coming home. Our ancestors knew danger. But in their local environment they knew which plants were tasty, or which less tasty varieties could still at least sustain life; and which could heal or kill. They knew where to keep a watch for poisonous snakes, or to spot the signs that a large predatory beast might be near. Home was where one felt confident of in his ability to safely navigate through the potential dangers involved in a place. There were places where we were home and other places where we understood we were out of our element.

            Patriotism is connected to our sense of a community that nourishes and sustains us. We might be rugged individualists in how we view ourselves, but we sense that life is made better because of the butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, teachers, policemen, doctors, farmers, cooks, waitresses, and store owners. We might take exception when someone says it takes a village to raise a child, but a child instinctively looks with eager eyes to learn the lessons of his village. Community is shared in common pursuits, meeting felt needs, speaking a shared language, enjoying stories together of falling in love, of fighting battles, of surviving hardships, of learning to embrace opposites. Patriotism is rooted in our innate understanding that we who are centered in our individualities really do constantly need others. We know from the earliest moments of our shared humanity that there is safety in community and dependence one upon another.

            Patriotism is also rooted in our sense that humanity in its community is a multi-generational endeavor. We are born dependent on parents who feed, clothe, and train us. We grow up fall in love, maybe bring children into the world, and begin to realize that now we must train these little ones because life is important and beautiful but fleeting. We think of what our parents gave to us and hope to give them at least as much for when they grow up and when we depart. This has become instinctive reality impressed upon our sorrowful human souls. We learn to value the existence of heritage; the relationships between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, parents and children. Our word “patriotism” is taken from the Latin root word “patri” which means fathers. Heritage has become a word describing the outgrowth of the multi-generational connections between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, parents and children. If in stories we seem to enshrine more often fathers and sons in a historical patriarchy – in our symbols we have also instinctively imagine an idealized mother bearing her light to the world. Instinctively we realize that survival of our humanity depends on connections of heritage.

 

 

            I have made peace with the reality of patriotism. It is part of our human condition. We are connected to place, always yearning for a home in a potentially dangerous environment. We are connected for safety's sake to others in a web of complex relationships. We are children of time in relationships with a heritage of parents born before us and children born to follow us. Patriotism isn’t necessarily the perfect word for describing all of this, but it is assuredly a phenonmenon connected to all of this. It is bigger than us. It is a mystery seen or understood only in part. We can do it better or perhaps even worse, but it is most assuredly a spiritual instinct serving us in our connections to time, persons, and place.

"Dig Two Graves" movie review

“Dig Two Graves”

A Movie Review

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I am not observant enough in watching a movie to write a movie review after seeing the movie only once. I was seeing the low budget independent film “Dig Two Graves” directed, co-written, and produced by Hunter Adams for the second time. I bought a ticket and entered the #2 theater where the movie was showing. I was the first one to take a seat, but I was a little bit early. I didn’t expect a large audience but was a bit surprised that no one else came to see the movie. I was an audience of one. I write this review with a sense of a mission. A movie can be low budget, not a classic, and yet worthy of our attention. I want to convince you that this is a movie worth your seeing. I suspect that the movie is almost not available to see in theaters now, but it is available through Netflix and Redbox. You might be wondering what it was that made me like this movie. Hey thanks for asking.

            We typecast movie genres. “Dig Two Graves” is described on one sight as “fantasy, horror, mystery.” Mostly it is a wonderfully told intergenerational human story framed with a dark supernatural background. This story being told is better than the cheap sensationalism often associated with such movies described by those genres. I am not going to describe it as a classic, but as I took this movie in a second time it dawned on me that Hunter Adams was using hints of dark supernatural forces as a backdrop to the drama of human beings struggling with their inner temptations; the temptations that seem taunted by reality until they either consume us or are conquered enough to move forward in life. Without necessarily defining the movie as a classic, this is story-telling using a background of the supernatural in that old way that Shakespeare, and before him the ancient Greek playwrights employed the supernatural not to draw us away from the humanity of the story, but to put a spotlight on the frail glory of our weak humanity.

            The movie is ambitious. Two dark events take place at an old rock quarry become a deep water lake. In 1947 two law officers, a sheriff and a deputy take two bodies to the quarry and dump the corpses into the deep lake. The deputy (acted by Ted Levine) removes a necklace with a mysterious medallion from a woman’s body being dumped into the lake. After dropping the bodies, the deputy threatens the sheriff and lets him know that he will no longer be sheriff. The sheriff hesitates, tentatively reaching for his gun but seeing the deputy’s resolve backs down and removes his badge and casts it into the lake.

            Thirty years later, in 1977 a high-school aged boy and his younger sister ride their bicycles towards the lake. Older brother Sean wants to jump into the lake from a bluff overlooking the lake. He wants to convince his sister (Jake, shortened from Jacqueline played by young Tulsa actress Samantha Isler). While Sean sees the body of water as a challenge exhilarating to conquer, Jake sees the lake as dangerous. Sean invites her to take his hand. They will do this together. The younger sister timidly agrees to jump with her older brother, though obviously not comfortable with her decision. As Sean begins to run towards the lake, Jake overcome with her own fears pulls her hand away from Sean’s and Sean leaps alone from the bluff. Jake walks over to look down into the lake and begins to yell at Sean that it isn’t funny when he doesn’t show back up on the surface. As she waits and he doesn’t reappear, she begins to realize something dreadful has taken place. She runs from the scene and trips hitting her forehead on a rock when she falls. The rock will leave a scar on her forehead. The event will also leave a scar in her soul. A sense of survivor’s guilt takes over her life. Maybe Sean wouldn’t have jumped if she wouldn’t have put her hand into his agreeing to the jump. Maybe she should have jumped with him.

            Thirty years separated the two events involving a trio of persons whose bodies were lost to the lake. The remainder of the film will tell a story involving people whose lives were affected by the two events. The two events, thirty years apart have interconnected lives, sometimes only on the margins, and sometimes at the very core of their existence. Jake, after losing Sean to the lake, becomes withdrawn, grieved, and unable to be consoled.

            Then there is a seeming intervention of the supernatural. Three strangers interrupt her when after school she walks along a road where a tunnel is formed beneath a railway trestle. The strangers seem to know a lot about Jake. They tell her that Sean isn’t dead, only lost. He can be brought back if she does what they tell her. She is wary of the trio. The trio's leader throws a bag with contents at her feet. They perform some dark mystical power to the bag and its contents. Sean can be brought back but it will cost something. The lake will only give up a life if a life is cast into to it. Like an ancient Greek story, the supernatural element works with the aim of possibly undoing someone who has a character flaw that might bring about their destruction. Jake had placed her hand in her brother's hand when she didn't really want to agree to jump with him. The leader of the trio will put his hand out to offer a handshake covenant. Will she shake on a deal she doesn't feel right about? Does she understand that agreements have consequences? Perhaps a girl who is still in her tomboy stage of life shouldn't be faced with such dilemmas, but even if she isn't ready in life to make an adult's decision, she is being confronted with the necessity to make such a decision.

Jake meeting three strangers offering her a way to get her brother back

            Without giving away too much of the plotline in the movie, one of the most precious parts of the story told in “Dig Two Graves” is how in her times of trouble, young Jake is able to bond with her grandfather. She is struggling with her grief, and with the offer of the strange men. She flees from her parents who seem to her incapable of understanding what she is experiencing. She goes to her grandfather. He is a sheriff battling his own inner turmoil. When she arrives, he puts down the flask from which he has been drinking and she enters the house. He had survived the Second World War and by 1947 had a job as a deputy. Jake and her grandfather support each other, though they tend to keep their secret issues hidden. They go hunting together. Young Jake appears in the movie to be something of a tomboy. She wears hunting boots, guts a deer, and strikes fear into some of the boys her age. Is she up to facing what confronts her? She will need to discover resources to survive what she is facing or her life might be turned into a tragedy. Her grandfather doesn't know everything, but his memories scenes from his life in 1947 gives to him a hint where to start looking if he wants to keep Jake's back.

Tomboy Jake – she chooses to learn hunting, fate chooses to teach her adulthood.

            Two dark stories buried in the lake hewn from the old quarry are now driving Jake and her grandfather to the resolutions of their scarred journeys of what they left behind on that bluff overlooking the lake. Their journeys bond and divide them. They travel together but their focuses differ.

They journey together with their own privately held secrets

            I will not tell you how the movie ends. I will only say that a movie does not need a big budget, or household name stars, or the latest hot actress to tell a compelling story. I suspect if you see this movie, you won’t consider it a classic; but I do think most who see it will think it was something well worth the investment of eighty-five minutes of their lives, even if nothing is more precious to give than our time.