Discernment of Heroes - Week 6

[Sorry this is late; life has suddenly become quite busy.] This week we have three remaining questions derived from Matt Bird's insights into what makes characters work.

How might their first actions foreshadow their actions for the rest of the script? As personal discernment is concerned, there are two directions we can take this. First, how do your actions reveal who you are? That's a big question, but one worth asking. Consider thinking through a generic day: what do you do? How do you do it? What does this reveal about your priorities? Your approach? Likewise, consider also an actual day (say, yesterday). Sometimes our sense of how we usually conduct ourselves does not accord with very many actual days. Our actions can reveal a great deal about our moral choices. But I would add one note of caution here: habits can be very confusing. Aristotle says virtue is a habit, so I certainly don't want to dismiss its significance. But often we have grown up with certain habits, or acquired them unintentionally. These habits may be virtuous or vicious, but I think often they are of greater interest for the long-term impact they have on us, rather than what they tell us about our own moral decisions. If one grows up going to church every Sunday morning, this is a good thing and beneficial, but one ought not take too much credit for a practice bequeathed by parents. On the other hand, one who grew up spending weekends doing other things may have trouble consistently remembering to make time for church. The second person would do well to make such time, but ought not infer that his struggle, in comparison to the non-struggle of the person who attends church out of habit. In other words, I think our conscious efforts to shape our habits (which are, admittedly, powerful things) are at least as telling as the habits themselves.

Second, if we consider all of our lives a grand story written by the Master Storyteller, what do the events of our past suggest about our future? This has been a kind of recurring theme for us, as we asked about age, profession, and hobbies in the first week, and considered past secrets last week. The story of the nation of the Israelite nation, God's chosen people, constitutes part of sacred history; but with the incarnation of Christ and the preaching of the Gospel to all nations, with the baptism of believers into the priesthood, prophetic office, and kingship of Christ, all our lives are caught up into sacred history. Thus, just as the events of the Israelite past and the personal lives of the ancient prophets were signs of God at work among His people, so too the events of your life have been telling a spiritual story.

Moral center: Matt Bird asks, "What is the thing they just won’t do? This is an especially good way to define a villain." But it is also a good question to ask of ourselves. Hopefully there are lots of things we won't do (serial killing, grand theft auto, etc., etc.). The key to making the question meaningful is placing it in the right context. What won't I do at work to get ahead? What behaviors - generally accepted by my peers - are beyond the pale for me? For the Christian, our moral center should be God's law. Thus, examining our own moral center should prompt two stages of discernment: (1) What is my own moral center? (2) What do I need to do to better conform it to God's law?

You philosophy: Bird describes this as "an actual line of dialogue that sums up how they think about the world. Every character has a philosophy, whether they know it or not." This is similar, in many ways, to the one-line description we considered in our first week: some statements are more substantial than others. There are two ways to go about discovering your philosophic tag line. You could listen to yourself careful (a task that, in itself, takes some doing) and keep an open ear for something good. But you might also consider thinking about what you'd like your philosophy or worldview to be. If you're not expressing that now and again, why not?

And here, dear friends, I shall leave you, like Virgil leaving Dante. I have pushed this little thought experiment as far as I can take it. I now entrust you to the Holy Week liturgies which begin in a few days with Palm Sunday. Hopefully these meditations have helped you learn just a bit more about who you are and the hero God calls you to be. May the grace of Holy Week and Easter transform these natural insights into supernatural wisdom.

Discernment of Heroes - Week 5

This is our fifth week of heroic discernment here at the Guild Review, but since we started on Ash Wednesday, we're a week ahead of the official Lenten count. In other words, it's the 4th Week of Lent, which began with Laetare Sunday. Although Lent remains, with its sorrows and penance, the Church reminds us that Easter is coming.

With that in mind, we continue our questioning of the hero that each one of us is called to be. When Matt Bird writes scripts, he suggests several elements which we'll consider. Each of these makes good sense in terms of films, but will require some unpacking for practical discernment.

Secret you're keeping: Bird comments that "no matter what kind of movie it is, this can add a lot. Secrets make it a whole lot easier to add subtext to dialogue." I'd like to consider this in conjunction with a second matter... Secret being kept from you about your past.

Some of us have been keeping real secrets from our employers, our friends, our families, and often even ourselves. I'm not talking about complicated aspects of your life that you've never explained to certain people because, well, it's complicated. I'm talking about those dark corners of our hearts that we wished didn't exist, the kind that make you feel the need to take a shower or get some fresh air just for having thought about. Such secrets often involve shameful sins, the likes of which we should take to confession before Easter. In other cases, our darkest secrets pertain to things that have been done to us. With God's grace, we need to confront those things. Sometimes that simply means being honest with yourself or forgiving someone you haven't seen in years; at other times it means a very long road to healing, one that will require extended support from family, friends, a spiritual director, or professional counselors.

One need only watch a few movies - particularly movies involving super heroes - to realize that not all secrets are dark. A fairly standard plot line involves the hero who does not know that he is a prince or that he has super powers. As Christians, we already know some of the most important facts about our past. We are created in the image of God and by virtue of our baptisms we not only have our sins washed away, but become Priest, Prophet, and King with Christ. That's some serious business! Still, the details involve some working out. Thus, let me propose two questions: First, what "secrets" about yourself have already been revealed to you? Think back to our second week, for example, when we considered "special skills". Was there a time when you did not recognize these? Their presence may have been revealed in a single epiphany, or gradually over time. How did that happen for you?

Second, what kind of secrets might be revealed in the future? You could say, "If I knew that, they wouldn't be secrets!" And you'd be right. So think of this as a kind of brainstorming. What hobbies do you have that might turn out to be more than hobbies? What interests did you drop years ago that you might pick up again? What further education might you pursue? Like all brainstorming, this should include a mixture of whimsy and practicality. Even if you're not likely to ever return to school, you can probably say with certainty that you could go to law school some day, but medical school is definitely out (or vice versa). Likewise, if you are married, a call to the priesthood or religious life is extremely unlikely - and would be unfortunate, in a sense, requiring as it does the death of your spouse - but the call to the diaconate or some third order, lay association, or covenant community is possible. Such brainstorming is not a crystal ball or proof of God's will, but it does help place things on your radar which might not otherwise have been there.

This relates to another element Bird discusses, the biggest shock coming. He comments that "whether they’re the hero or villain, everything shouldn’t go according to their plan. Make them improvise!" This makes sense for a scriptwriter because audiences want to see something that mirrors reality; everyday life is full of struggles, and if the hero has none, it is hard to empathize with him. Just as we can brainstorm about future possibilities, future secrets (in the good sense) revealed, it is worth also considering future downturns. What if I lose my job? What if the relationship I'm currently in doesn't work out? Asking such questions now, before these eventualities arise, offers several kinds of insights. First, having thought through some possibilities ahead of time, you may be able to better improvise if the need arises. Second, you may realize new directions you'd like to pursue. If the thought of losing your job makes you smile, consider a career change!

Finally, there is one more dimension to secrets: the good secret the hero keeps from others. Aragorn, for various reasons, does not reveal to everyone that he is the king; Gandalf often keeps his thoughts to himself, only telling people as much as they need to know. Think too of Mr. Darcy's conduct at the end of Pride and Prejudice. Often your good qualities or good deeds are known to you alone. Indeed, on Ash Wednesday Jesus reminded us to "beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.... When you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." Thus, we should not meditate on our hidden virtues in a way that is an occasion for pride. Rather, we should consider them so that we can lay them at God's feet and ask him how they might best serve him.

Today's image of Mr. Darcy and Lizzy Bennet, by C. E. Brock from 1895, comes via Wikipedia.

Discernment of Heroes - Week 4

In the first two weeks we mostly considered what you might call background information.  These are items that Matt Bird or other scriptwriters would use to craft a character.  Last week, when we considered roles, we began getting into the meat of a story, its plot.  This week we'll continue that shift toward our story arc.

In terms of discernment, the shift is similar.  For the past three weeks we have been essentially asking who you are or where you have come from.  This can be quite enlightening, but is, in some sense, water under the bridge.  The bigger questions we often ask tend to involve where we are going.

This may be the week where the fact that these reflections are essentially natural (or literary) and not supernatural (or theological) becomes truly apparent.  Why?  Because ultimately our future is in God's hands.  If you really want to know where you are headed, ask Him.  But grace builds on nature and God often speaks through the rational workings of our minds, so let us probe as best we can our own stories, and hope that divine light will aid our task.

Stated goal: What do you tell others you are pursuing?  For most of us, there are numerous answers to this question: a good job, a nice spouse, holiness, the ultimate home-brew beer...  The list could go on.  The key here is to consider what you tell people.  When you meet someone at work or at a party, what do you tell them you do?  If you are wrapping up one stage of your life (graduating, moving, etc.) and someone asks you what you're doing next, how do you answer?

Secret goal: What are you really after?  This is a classic movie element, the protagonist who has a goal he has not revealed to his love interest.  But it is worth taking a moment to consider the secret goals of our own lives.  In the first place, are the goals you tell others really the things you plan to seek?  In other words, are you being honest with others?  But, secondly, we can take this deeper: What are you really interested in?  One way to approach this deeper meaning is to ask yourself about alternatives.  If you could do things over again, where would you go?  What would you do?  If you had all the money you wanted, what would you buy?  Stripping away limitations sometimes helps us think about what we'd really like.  Often circumstances force us in a particular direction, and we tell ourselves we have accepted that new direction; and yet, we cling to some part of our original dream, working at cross-purposes with ourselves, pursuing both the conscious, limited goal, and the unconscious, unlimited goal.  That can be a lot of baggage, things we need to bring before the Lord.  But you can't give Him what you do not know you have.

Moment the audience decides to trust or loathe them: In some ways this is a restatement of the one-line description we met the first week.  What is the essence of who you are?  And when does this become apparent to others?  The opinions of others can be fickle, and ought not be sought for their own sake.  But I think the question here points to something deeper.  Why would an audience trust you?  Because you revealed your truly heroic side.  And what is that?  Ah, now we're getting somewhere.  If you are a business manager - not merely by occupation, but by vocation - the moment others trust you may be the moment you reveal not merely your competence and your drive, but also you humanity, when you sacrifice your own well-being for that of your employees.  For some of us, we can point to moments in our past when others saw us for the heroes we are called to be.  For others, that moment may not have come, at least, not in a big way.  But thinking about what it might look like in the future can be a useful thing, giving us a source of inspiration for our future actions.

Emotional Arc: How many emotional states do you pass through?  Bird clearly implied "in the course of the movie" to be added to the end of this question.  Our lives are, of course, much longer.  But it may be useful to ask the question for a variety of time intervals.  How many states in a given day?  A week?  A semester or year?  In the last few years?  The answers can tell you a number of things, not only about your propensity to emotional fluctuations, but also about patterns of your usual emotional arc.  And seeing patterns, in turn, allows you to get some sense for where you are now and where you are likely to be in the future.  Patterns can, of course, change.  ("Past performance does not guarantee future returns.")  But even if you deviate from established patterns in the months and years ahead, that change itself may be noteworthy.

Today's image from Star Wars comes via the Business Insider.

Discernment of Heroes - Week 3

This week we'll be exploring two basic questions Bird poses about all characters:

What role do you play in the story?  Hero, villain, love interest, friend?

Within this role, what is your type?

  

In some regards, Bird's questions don't fit with Christian discernment.  After all, we are all baptized priest, prophet, and king, sharing in Christ' own perfect fulfillment of those roles.  In other words, we're all called to be heroes.  But this is, in some sense, semantics.  Because when Bird uses the term "hero," he refers to not only to someone who defends justice and rights wrongs, but also someone who is the main character of the story.  And let's be honest: not everyone can be the main character.  But even if we cannot all be the center of attention, we are all called to do good.  And we are called to do this not simply at the natural level, but - by God's grace - supernaturally as well.  Thus, being a "love interest" or friend can be just as heroic and important as being the usual hero.

(I briefly considered writing about discernment of villains.  After all, we are all sinners, and thus struggle with that side of things too.  But most villains are super-evil, in ways that may not shed much light on our own temptations.  Moreover, really great villain characters are - in their way - quite lovable.  This might work in stories, but in the spiritual life the glamor of evil is nothing with which to trifle.)

When working on categorizing heroes, Bird asks an important question: Why categorize at all?

What’s the point? Are movies more fun when you pigeonhole the hero into a certain category? Not really. But I do think it can be a useful tool, whether for creating your own heroes or evaluating the work of others. First and foremost, it should remind us that not every “rule” for heroes can or should apply to each particular hero. Some heroes suffer a lot, some hardly at all. Some are proven wrong, some are proven right. Some start from scratch, others show what they know. In order to know which rules apply to which hero, it helps to figure out which type they are.

The same may be said of our own lives.  We are all called to heroic lives of faith and virtue; we are all called to be conformed to the perfect image Christ.  But we live that out in different ways, emphasizing and expressing different dimensions of who our Lord and God is.  Thus, although we all aim to be "little Christs" (to borrow C. S. Lewis' phrase), we all look quite different, and live out our lives in different ways.


Bird proposes nine different kinds of heroes (and a couple sub-types), based on the three following questions:

Are you qualified?  This question, reflecting Bird's background, is story-specific rather than existential.  That is to say: you might be qualified in one circumstance, but unqualified in another.  Movies tend to only show one circumstance (ie, the super-spy doing spying, not failing horribly at accounting).  Nevertheless, there is an important reminder here: Heroes are not always qualified.  Thus, the special skills we considered last week, though important, are not the final word.  God routinely uses the weak.

Are you on the job?  There are two fairly literal ways to read this question.  First, are you currently employed?  Second, at any given time, are you at work?  In and of itself, this is uninspiring, but the implied reminder is that God can use us at all times, wherever we are.  Sometimes we focus on getting back "on the job," when divinely-written adventures await us right where we are.

Are you in you element?  In other words, are you comfortable?  Again, remember: God calls us to be heroes in both comfortable and uncomfortable situations.


In short, we would all like to be "The Pro at Work," the hero who is qualified, on the job, and in his element.  But "The Worst Possible Pick" - and everyone in between - can be a hero too.  Of course, God does not call us all to be all types of heroes.  Some people, for whatever reason, are more often called to missions for which they are not qualified; these things just find them.  Maybe you are such a person.  Or maybe God is calling you in a more obvious direction, one that corresponds to your skills.  Look at your life and consider not merely what your gifts and talents may be, but also where God leads you and how He asks you to use them.

Finally, a brief word on love interests and friends.  These are generally helpful folks who support the big fellow with the flashy cape.  That kind of support can be as essential as the major deeds themselves.  It is worth asking, "What kind of friend am I?"  This may vary from one relationship to another, but chances are you often fill the same role in your relationships with different friends.  Here are a few types of friends and lovers Bird proposes.

1.  The Conscience

2.  The Mentor

3.  The Helping Hand

4.  The Total Bad Ass (that is to say, the sidekick who really helps our hero fight his battles, or even fights them for him)

5.  The Best Friend Seen in a New Light (specific to the role of lover)

There are doubtless other ways that we can be friends and supports to the heroes in our lives.  But Bird also reminds us that friends and lovers can also be stumbling blocks: corrupters, weasels, objects of envy, or nymphomaniacs.  So when you're considering the type of friend or lover you might be, make sure you're always seeking the good for others. 

Today's image of Indiana Jones comes via the Daily Mail.

Discerning the Hero Within

With Lent just around the corner, I wanted to let you know that I am planning a series of posts designed for introspection and discernment this season. I will be taking as my jump-off point Matt Bird's Hero Project on his Cockeyed Caravan blog.  I hesitate to call these reflections "spiritual," since (a) I am by no means a spiritual director and, (b) they are drawn from a blog of a man for whose theological or spiritual bona fides I cannot vouch.

So what will these reflections be, and why?  The format will be simple: a few questions about oneself each week, for consideration.  The why is a little more complicated.  Bird is a script writer and film critic.  His musings on heroes approach philosophical questions, though from a dramatic angle.  At the heart of things, he wants to know what makes a hero.

All this is relevant to a Christian seeking self-knowledge in light of God's calling, because God calls us to be heroes.  Christianity is not about nice people sitting around and generally being nice to one another.  It is about amazing creatures - hybrids of spiritual and material substance - who are created good, who fall into evil, are rescued, and are then commissioned to share in the work of their rescuer, Jesus Christ, the Hero Par Excellence.

Bird's work asks about the relationship between heroes' strengths and weaknesses, the different kinds of heroes, and how the hero discovers his or her calling.  As Bird explains:

Anybody can become a hero, but they can’t become a hero by doing what anybody would do. They have to succeed because of something unique about them, not just because you put them up in a tree and threw rocks at them.

I intend to pose questions which allow readers to examine these matters in their own lives, and in a way that might be fitting for Lent.

Today's image was found here.