Baraka: The Other Soundtrack

This was originally posted at another blog of mine that was recently deleted by Google.

The film Baraka is easily in my top five films. My journey (though a bit longwinded) of discovery with it, if you’re interested, can be found here.

The novelty and naïveté has worn off but this film always take me back to that original burst of spiritual awareness that burst forth that year.

Anyhow, if you’ve watched the film and listened to the soundtrack you’ll notice immediately that the soundtrack is sorely lacking.

These are songs not included on the soundtrack and extended versions of some of the tracks from the soundtrack.

Add these songs to the soundtrack and you’re close to the soundtrack as it’s meant to be. You can find a straight audio rip of the DVD here.

The only thing not included here, and unavailable outside of the tidbits found on the soundtrack, would be the score by Michael Stearns (with an uncredited appearance by Lisa Gerrard during the scoring of one of the film scenes).

The Blu-Ray is available and it is, hands down, one of the best - if not the best - Blu Ray discs I've ever seen.  I've seen this on the big screen (though I can't say it was in its original 70mm format or not...was kind of stoned at the time...) and have seen it on video and DVD.  But the Blu-Ray...don't wait and don't settle for a bootleg from the web.
Part1//Part2

Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) - Jesus of Nazareth

If you tire of the self-help literature that is found under "Christian Inspiration" at your local chain bookstore, I recommend this book.

It's not an easy read. But it's an essential read.

The deeper I dig into Catholic tradition, the more treasures appear. If you are looking to deepen your faith and tire of the cheerleader Christianity so prevalent among churches today, the direction you need to go is to dig into the past.

Contrary to much popular opinion, the Bible is not a history book. To go back and try and figure out what the early church did simply by reading the New Testament is simply not enough.

The early church's history needs to be balanced out by the writings of the Church Fathers, the Second Temple literature and other pseudepigraphal works of the age along with some historical views of the culture in which Christianity emerged. Only then do we begin to get some semblance of what the early church was like.

The "Acts church" out of context has a tendency to look like an American church.

I consider myself to be fairly well studied when it comes to Christian history/theology (though obviously there is always much, much more to be learned). But within the first 50 pages of the book I've already been enlightened. It flows into a paradigm I already hold but the knowledge enhances this paradigm.

Consider:

"Both Evangelists designate Jesus' preaching with the Greek term evangelion - but what does that actuallymean?

The term has recently been translated as "good news." That sounds attractive, but it falls short of the order of magnitude of what is actually meant by the word evangelion. This term figures in the vocabulary of the Roman emperors, who understood themselves as lords, saviors, and redeemers of the world. The messages issued by the emperor were called in Latin evangelium, regardless of whether or not their content was particularly cheerful and pleasant. The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better.

When the Evangelists adopt this word, and it thereby becomes the generic name for their writings, what they mean to tell us is this: What the emperors, who pretend to be gods, illegitimately claim, really occurs here - a message endowed with plenary authority, a message that is not just talk, but reality. In the vocabulary of contemporary linguistic theory, we would say that the evangelium, the Gospel, is not just informative speech, but performative speech - not just the imparting of information, but action, efficacious power that enters into the world to save and transform." (pp. 46-47)

Adds a bit of power to the term.

Get this book. It is not a papal view nor is it a Catholic doctrinal work. It is the man Joseph Ratzinger's search for the face of the Lord.

Marx, The Bible and Capitalism

I am rereading Jose Miranda's Marx and the Bible for about the third or fourth time.  I discovered this book while working as an outreach worker for the homeless at Catholic Charities.  It was during this time I discovered, and grew to appreciate, Catholic doctrine, not only its significance for the early Church Fathers but for their teaching on social justice, often referred to as liberation theology.

I think what really is most significant about this theology is that it provides a valuable, and vital, critique of modern Christianity, especially the Western variety which is imbued with a spirit of individualism that often leads us astray from the essence, or outcome, of the theology of both the Hebrew Bible (primarily as highlighted in the Prophets) and the New Testament.  What the Bible teaches is not individual salvation, as such, but salvation whose end is community, restoration, reconciliation, love.  It is not a "me" oriented salvation; any "me" is only a means to and end.

Miranda's book scathingly critiques capitalism as the most oppressive and insidious system to have ever been devised, where slaves not only work willingly for their master but strive to participate in the very same system in which they are enslaved.  This argument against capitalism is not new, nor is such a criticism necessarily religious in nature (Michael Moore, anyone?).

It reminded me of a documentary I had watched many years ago PBS about the most dangerous company in America.  It is a shocking documentary and seems to reinforce such criticisms of capitalism.  Yet at the very end of the documentary there was a company that seemed to turn the idea on its head.  And the man behind the company that displays such a positive work environment was a Christian who used his faith to guide how he treats those who work for him.

So the question becomes this: is capitalism inherently bad?  Or is such a business owner simply working within a system which is hopelessly corrupt?  Can such efforts lead to a change in the system as it is or are such efforts individual in nature, driven by faith, and the goal of all religious?

I believe that any system is only as good as the individuals within it, though any system, given enough time, will ultimately serve those who are in charge of the system and they will maintain the status quo to protect what is theirs.  Capitalism.  Socialism.  Communism.  Christianity.  Islam.  No system is free from the devices and greed of men in positions of power.

But Miranda's book is a call to action, a call to rethinking one's faith and a call to rethinking one's community.

I challenge you to watch the documentary.  Here's the link:

A Dangerous Business

 It's only an hour long but it's quite thought provoking.  And I especially challenge you to read Miranda's book.

Marx and the Bible

The story was recently updated:

A Dangerous Business

Just something to ponder, to help us think outside of our little boxes in which we live.

Americanization of Rumi...PartFour

Part Four of the series on Americanization.  Below is a transcript of the April 23, 2009 broadcast of "Speaking of Faith" on NPR radio about Rumi, featuring an interview with Iranian scholar/academic Fatemeh Keshavarz.  Rather than my commentary, I'll let the transcript speak. 

Text highlighted in bold simply reinforces the point of sanitizing Rumi from his Islamic context.  By "freeing" him in this fashion, his words cease to have root and mean what we what them to mean.

Ms. Tippett: Welcome back to Speaking of Faith, public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas. I'm Krista Tippett. Today, "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi," the 13th-century Persian poet and mystic.

In recent years, English translations of Rumi's poetry by the American poet Coleman Barks have sold more than half a million copies in the U.S. UNESCO has declared 2007 International Rumi Year to honor the 800th anniversary of his birth. Rumi has been the subject of creative work by contemporary artists from composer Philip Glass to pop icon Madonna.

But such popular renditions of Rumi often give little hint of his Islamic identity. He was the son of a Muslim teacher, born in the center of Persian Islamic civilization. He spent time as the head of a madrassa, religious schools which were centers of great learning, at the same time that Western Europe had fallen into the dark ages.

Rumi's themes of separation and longing come straight from the heart of Islamic theology. There is no idea of original sin, but rather of a human tendency to forget and thus become separated from Allah or God. Islam imagines faith as zikr or remembrance of a knowledge that is embedded in human beings. My guest, Fatemeh Keshavarz, finds resonance in Rumi for the deepest challenges before the world and Islam today.

Ms. Tippett: I'd like to talk about Rumi's Islamic grounding and identity. That gets lost in 21st-century translations.

Ms. Keshavarz: Absolutely.

Ms. Tippett: Coleman Barks' translations are the ones that many people have read, that became popular, I assume. I was reading his introduction to The Essential Rumi. You know, he suggested that with a mystical writer like this, you know, he suggested that placing this person in historical and cultural context is simply not a central task. And he wrote, "My more grandiose project is to free his text into its essence."

Ms. Keshavarz: I think one thing that Coleman Barks has done, he has written Rumi's ideas in the American poetic idiom. He's made it accessible to the broad readership, and that should definitely be valued. And, you know, don't hear me saying anything else on that.

But I don't think you can free people from the context in which they live, and I don't think even if you try to do that, that that serves a useful purpose. I don't see Rumi as detached from the Islamic context at all.

In fact, I see his work as actually and completely immersed in the Islamic tradition. I tell you, it would be hard to read a single ghazal, not even the Masnavi, which is expressly a work with theological and mystical intentions, but even a ghazal, it would be hard to read a ghazal and not find quite a few illusions to Qur'anic verses, to sayings of the prophet, to practices in the Muslim world, so I don't think we need to separate him from his Islamic context.

The way first I visualize this myself is that he goes through the religion, he lives it, absorbs it, and uses it in his way. So in the process, he self-births a lot of things. He changes a lot, reinterprets a lot of things, but he does not step outside of it. He lives in it. Let me give you an example.

Ms. Tippett: Good.

Ms. Keshavarz: You know that in his discourses — I try not to use the word "sermons" because "sermon" brings such a specific connotation that's probably not there. But the discourses are when Rumi is sitting in a local mosque, in the local gathering, talking to people. It's very interactive, it's very informal, and he kind of steps down the pulpit in a way and reaches out to the people and it's very poetic even though it's in prose and he didn't write it down. His students and, you know, people around him took it down.

On one of these occasions, he quotes a Qur'anic verse, if I might quote the Arabic, is (recites Qur'anic verse in Arabic). We — this is the royal "we," God — we stand down the zikr and we will be its protector. Now, the word zikr in Arabic means "remembers" and traditionally the commentators have defined the word zikr as the Qur'an itself, and they have good reason to do so because elsewhere in the Qur'an, the Qur'an refers to itself as zikr and remembrance, in part because humanity is described as forgetful, so the Qur'an is a way of remembering.

Now, he says the commentators have said that this verse refers to the Qur'an itself, that God says we have given you the Qur'an and we are — that I am the protector of it. And he said (foreign language spoken). That's fine. (Foreign language spoken), but there is this interpretation, too, that God says (foreign language spoken). "We have put in you a desire and a quest, and I, God, am the protector of that desire." That's a very different interpretation. First of all, it opens it immediately to all humanity.

Ms. Tippett: I think that there is something in Rumi's writing which is so large, so generous. I don't like the word "universal" because I think in some ways it waters things down. Ms. Keshavarz: I agree with you. "Generous" is a very good…

Ms. Tippett: Yeah. But it's easy to read this and also I think people from many different religious traditions can read this poetry or his discourses, or people who are not people of faith can read it and feel themselves addressed and feel their spiritual lives addressed.

Ms. Keshavarz: Yes. And I think sometimes people feel that if they take away or overlook the Islamic flavor of it, maybe that makes him more accessible, more theirs. I think generosity and openness is a very good way of putting it. If you're not rooted in the specific and in the small, in the local, you can never see the broader vision. You have to love a tradition and to be completely immersed in it before you can subvert it and transcend it. You have to…

Ms. Tippett: Before you can subvert it from the inside.

Ms. Keshavarz: Exactly. And you have to love it for you to think that I want to open it up, I want to make it better, and then go forward with it. And, you know, you can't break laws in an acceptable way unless you know them really well and practice them with tradition. That's the only time. And that's what I think he does. He's so well rooted in the Islamic tradition, so completely aware of the nuances, that he says, you know, 'Hey guys, we can open it up here. Look. Look at this. This is what you always thought, but now look one step beyond.' And he can do that precisely because he's rooted in the tradition.

Ms. Tippett: And I think it's true also that around the same time that Rumi was entering popular imaginations by way of poetry, there were images of Islam suddenly in the news in this post-9/11 world which were so very different from that. I mean — and, you know, you've written that Rumi is a true child of an adventurous and cosmopolitan Islam. And, you know, those are not two words that you would associate with headline Islam that we've had these past years.

Ms. Keshavarz: I'm actually, you know, really glad you bring this up because I think one thing that's desperately needed at this point, to show the adventureness, the surprise, the play, the aspects of his work that now are not normally associated with that part of the world. You kind of think that, you know, people just — it's all religion, and it's religion followed in a fairly institutionalized and stylized and, you know, planned form. Not at all. I mean, he's playing with it all the time. So I think another contribution he could do for us right now, exactly in this post-9/11 environment, is to bring out that side of the Muslim culture, that contribution to the world."

Angry Christian Men

I suppose I could just call the post angry men but for some reason with the "Christian" tag you'd think there would be no anger or, when anger flares up, I know the well from which to draw the water that will quench the fire.

Yet that rage flares up.  Not everything causes the rage.  Rage is the result of the accumulation of judgments, the collection of things that seem unfair, a file cabinet in the brain of things that are wrong, things over which I either lack control or have no control.

When these build to a critical point, seemingly insignificant things are like a pin pricking a balloon.  Sure I blame erratic sleep patterns which is partially true as my ability to "hold it together" is weakend.  I blame the job, I blame other people's bad decisions that affect me, I blame the bills, I blame, blame, blame.

Ultimately, however, it comes down to control.  I am in charge.  The "I AM" isn't in charge; I am. 

In other words, I am unwilling to truly surrender, to truly trust, to truly humble myself before Another.  I say I do; I have the best intentions of doing so:; I may even, under the right conditions, actually do so.  But, by and large, my sense of happiness is dictated by my control over those things I cling to for safety - income, job, bank account, etc.

This may not seem revelatory.  It really isn't supposed to be.  But it is an acknowledgement.  I am afraid to surrender and it is this fear that is the source of the rage.  Rage flares up when fear is highest.  Fear of losing the job, fear of running out of money, fear of someone doing something which I judge to be a violation of some standard I impose.

In this state, there is no grace, there is only judgment, judgment which, if the tables were turned, I too would fail.

"Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." (Romans 2:1)

Ouch.

Intellectually, I know this.  Yet there is a blockage of the heart that does not allow this to penetrate deep enough that the smallest provocation causes my (emphasis my) little (emphasis little) world to crumble.

So where is the hope in this?  I've been reading the story of David and Solomon and the decline of the kingdom of Israel.  And have fallen in love with the Bible again.

Don't get me wrong.  I still have a critic's eye.  After all, to read the Samuel/Kings versions and the Chronicles version you'd have to do some fancy gymnastics to deny some discrepancies (e.g. who killed Goliath?). 

But...and a rather large one at that...in reading James Kugel's How To Read The Bible I have come to find that Biblical scholarship, even though it basically dismantles the inerrantist worldview, settles my mind by giving an honest explanation of these discrepancies. 

Kugel is a Jewish (that is, a practicing Jew) scholar.  This work presents the traditional view and the scholars view and leaves the final verdict up to the reader.  But it is one of the more honest works of recent memory and I just can't stomach much of what passes for Biblical scholarship in much of the Christian universe. 

How many books do we really need that does the "quote a Scripture, quote some famous person, quote a Scripture, quote some famous person" dance?

Balance this with Fred Kamer's Doing Faithjustice, a Catholic perspective on social thought, and a re-read of Nate Larkin's Samson and the Pirate Monks, and, once again, the muttness shines through.  A Jewish, Catholic, nondenominational book reading mutt.

And this does not belittle the Sacred in the Bible; if anything, with the mind at ease, it allows the import of the real message to shine through.

And my anger?  Still flares up.  IE crashed (I use Firefox at home...) while posting this and I got angry.  Irony indeed.

But I continue to read the Word and continue to try and pray, trying to swallow the pride that wants to rationalize it away or to make judgment on forms of prayer that seem phony and silly, as if God is Santa Clause.  Judgment.  Anger.  Pride. 

All symptoms of self-absorption and a need for surrender.

So to the Word I return, not as a critic, but as a Seeker.  I acknowledge my sinful, self-centered state of mind and do pray (if only in the heart) for God to move through me unimpeded by the Holy Spirit so it is Jesus, not me, that is displayed. 

Because, in the end, it isn't about me.  Or you.  Or any of us.  It is about Him.