Every year, I bring hot cross buns to an Easter brunch gathering of family and friends. Sharing food has always been sacred to me, all the more so when it’s around a spiritual event. I don’t know why I started bringing hot cross buns. We didn’t do it when I was growing up; maybe it’s my British roots, but it just seems the thing to do. (Good Friday is the traditional day, but Sunday is when we gather.) This year, for the first time ever, I am making my own, inspired in part by a recent spirituality of bread baking workshop at my church. Based on the test batch, I think it will work out fine.
The hot cross bun is not complicated to make. At its simplest, it’s spiced bread. Flavor and ingredient-wise, its noteworthy for a few reasons. First, traditionally it’s made with currants, an ingredient unknown in America except in its fellow British baked good, the scone. Second, it sometimes includes bits of candied fruit — the same atrocity that afflicts fruitcake and makes it wildly unpopular. (I prefer mine without, if you hadn’t guessed.) Third, it’s only lightly sweetened, which may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your tastes.
And of course, most obviously, there’s a big honkin’ cross on the top of it, usually made of white icing.
A pagan past
Hot Cross Buns
I started with this great recipe, then adapted it a bit, and rewrote the intructions to make things simpler. So here’s my recipe to make the hot cross buns in the picture. Enjoy!
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm milk
1 teaspoon sugar
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
4 Tbsp butter, softened
2 eggs
1/2 cup warm milk
3/4 cup currants
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
1 egg
1 Tbsp milk
1 teaspoon milk
3 – 5 Tbsp powdered sugar
Warm 1/4 cup of milk. Stir in 1t of sugar and sprinkle in the package of yeast. Let sit 5-10 minutes until foamy.
In a large bowl, whisk together 3 cups of flour, 1t of salt, all the spices and 1/4 cup of sugar.
Make a well in the flour and add the yeast mixture 4T of melted butter, 2 eggs, and 1/2 cup warm milk. Mix the ingredients well with a wooden spoon. Mix in the currants and orange zest.
Knead until well mixed; knead in an additional tablespoon of flour until the dough doesn’t stick to your fingers or the bowl.
Form the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 2 hours — the dough should double in size.
Press down on the dough to deflate it, then roll into a log and divide into 16 pieces. Form each piece into a bun.
Place the buns on a baking sheet, at least an inch apart. Cover it all with plastic wrap and let it sit for another 40 minutes, until they’ve doubled again.
Preheat the oven to 400°. Whisk together one egg and 1T of milk. Brush the egg wash on each bun.
Put in the oven on the middle rack and cook for about 12 minutes. Remove from oven, cool a few minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool more.
Whisk together 1t of milk and 3T powdered sugar. Whisk in additional tablespoons of sugar until it’s a little thicker than you think it needs to be. (As you can see from my picture, I didn’t go thick enough the first time.) After the buns are totally cooled, use an icing bag or a plastic sandwich bag with a corner snipped off to pipe a cross on each bun.
Behind the description, the hot cross bun carries a surprising amount of intrigue. Even to start to tell its history lands you in controversy. We know one thing: it began in England. When and why, though, is its first mystery. While some disagree, the hot cross bun probably was a tribute to the Saxon goddess Eostre, after whom this Christian holiday got its English name. Eostre was the goddess of light, and her name was given to the month of April, which marked the return of the dominance of light, as well as of birth and new growth. Eostre ties back to the German goddess of the dawn, Hausos, who is also linked to rabbits and eggs. While the specifics of Eostre are based on an account from St. Bede which scholars dispute, the link between the German goddess Hausos, the Saxon Eostre, and the later English name and customs of Easter seems obvious.
(While the English language uses the name Easter and modern German retains Ostern, all the Romance languages and many others use a name based on the Latin Pascha, or the original Hebrew Pesach. In other word, the Christian name for Easter in most languages is Passover. Chew on that one for a minute. A few others use a name based on the Greek Anastasia, which means resurrection. Slavic and Sami languages use other words, though Russian uses Paskha.)
The cross on the bun began as an ancient Gaelic symbol depicting either the four quarters of the moon or the intersection of earth (the horizontal line) and Heaven (the vertical line), the human and divine, the physical and the spiritual. These meanings for the cross don’t contradict its other meaning, they enrich it, and you find them in Christianity, especially Celtic Christianity, sometimes too.
The bun that couldn’t be squashed
Despite its pagan roots, the hot cross bun became so entrenched as a symbol of English Catholicness that when the Protestants took power they actually banned the bun. As with most government attempts to forbid something people want, however, it didn’t last long. A compromise was struck by Queen Elizabeth I, allowing them to be sold, but only during Christmas and Easter.
The fact that the buns are not very sweet — just enough to balance the favors but not enough to taste sugary — is seen as appropriate for Lent. The use of currents rather than raisins, though an accident of location rather than something intentional, furthers this, since currents are less sweet and less juicy. It’s possible that hot cross buns were sometimes made with the same flour used for communion wafers, though this might have been propaganda from the anti-Catholics. I was excited to learn that in Australia they sometimes substitute chocolate chips for the currants, so I made some that way too. (I don’t abstain from chocolate during Lent.) I must say, it felt wrong. Even though the overall effect, despite the milk chocolate chips, was still not sweet, chocolate just seems too… decadent.
There’s a superstuition that you can cement a friendship for the coming year by sharing a hot cross bun, saying, "Half for you and half for me, between us two shall good will be." If you ask me, I’d say that’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. But by all means, share hot cross buns with your friends this Holy Week, and consider those friendships holy and protected for the year ahead! If you’re inspired to try home-cooked buns, I’ve included the recipe I used. Have a blessed Easter.
I wasn’t going to write about The Hunger Games movie – I’m a huge fan of the books and had no advance screening, so I just went to the theater with everyone else on opening night as a consumer. But I have to share my reaction to concern expressed about The Hunger Games‘ violence which I’ve read in the days following the movie’s release. I was certainly very interested to see how they makers of the movie would deal with translating the book’s extreme brutality against and among children into a movie that children could watch. I am surprised they went as far as they did and think they came very close to the edge. There’s lots of blood, and a few of the children are killed onscreen — but the violence is never gratuitous.
Much of the criticism is from people reacting without bothering to understand, but Bo Sanders’ interesting post in Homebrewed Christianity caught my eye. Essentially, Bo loved the movie, but expresses some concerns raised by the fact that when he saw the movie there was cheering when a “good” character killed a “bad” character. It’s a thoughtful post and the comment thread is heady and interesting. Perhaps if anyone had cheered at the violence when I saw it, I’d have had the same reaction — as I did last year when I wrote about my repulsion at the celebrations over Ben Laden’s death — but I find nothing to criticize in The Hunger Games‘ use of violence.
The Hunger Games does not glorify violence or desensitize people to it. It is a story of loss of innocence, and the intrusion of violence is a key part of that loss. As a commentary on brutality by an empire against its subjects and the vicarious enjoyment of others’ suffering, it would not work without showing any brutality or suffering.
Yesterday I watched a religious war movie that glorified violence. It held up violence done in the name of religion, honor and freedom as something praiseworthy; it nearly said that this killing was good. That is troubling. In The Hunger Games, on the other hand, we see some of the killers as disturbingly amoral, some as products of their conditioning, and in the few cases where violence is performed by one of the “good” people, it is sad and disturbing. The Hunger Games does not glorify violence or desensitize people to it. It is a story of loss of innocence, and the intrusion of violence is a key part of that loss. As a commentary on brutality by an empire against its subjects and the vicarious enjoyment of others’ suffering, it would not work without showing any brutality or suffering. To the extent that the movie (inevitably) toned down the violence in the book, it made a weaker statement. The fact that some people may watch its portrayal of vicarious viewing of violence and vicariously enjoy it is sad but inevitable. It doesn’t mean the moviemakers missed the mark.
I was troubled by one thing I saw at the theater when I viewed it on opening night: the under-10-year-olds brought by their parents. No matter how important the lesson, I think it’s wrong for prepubescent kids to see children getting killed. Especially with their parents’ endorsement. Even older kids and adults who are easily freaked out may be better of not going anywhere near it. I myself had the misfortune to be seated in front of a fiftysomething woman who kicked my seat any time anything tense or startling happened. I’d have been better off with kids behind me.
I’ve written here before about avoiding the fear-mongering of TV news, and shows like 24 which do the same thing with fiction, uselessly filling our heads with things to make us anxious. But that is not to say that we should live in a puffy-clouded world of denial. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn.” We should be upset when we see killing. And exposing oneself to thoughtful portrayals of the wrongs in the world can be an enriching and empowering thing, even if disturbing. I believe The Hunger Games is thoughtful and empowering. What do you think?
Let me add these additional comments about the movie, though they’re not about the subject above, since I didn’t write a review:
I think Jennifer Lawrence was exceptional; most critics agree, with the notable exception of my friend Tom Shone, who apparently was watching a different movie. Elizabeth Banks was great too. The rest of the cast was adequate. I was worried about Woody Harrelson, and he didn’t ruin the movie but a talented and inventive actor could have made the Haymitch character memorable; he is neither. Similarly, Cinna could have been amazing in better hands that Lenny Kravitz’s (and should have been over-the-top gay, which is definitely not the way Kravitz plays him.)
On the oft-criticized camera work, I defer to a friend in the industry, Tim Hickson, who nailed it with, “JJ Abrahms called and told me he wants his genre back.” I realize super-tight close-ups and shaky-cam are supposed to add excitement, but it was over the top.
Finally, the music was phenomenal. I’m so thrilled that instead of loading the movie full of predictable indie pop-rock, they did an amazing thing and brought in T-Bone Burnett to give The Hunger Games music appropriate to its Appalachian setting. It’s a dark, mournful alt-bluegrass delight of original songs written and performed by fans of the books — the Civil Wars, Taylor Swift, Arcade Fire and The Carolina Chocolate Drops stand out. I’ve been listening to nothing but the soundtrack for the past week and am nowhere near tired of it yet.
For most of the public history of alcoholism and drug addiction all the way back to Noah, the general impression has been that it is something that happens to men. Women might have gotten “in trouble” with prescription drugs or white wine, but it was men who were drunks. Men were sent to prison; women were sent to mental hospitals. Of course women were drinking and drugging and some of them were getting in serious trouble, just like men. But mostly it was happening behind closed doors. It just wasn’t proper.
In a groundbreaking 1954 article in Good Housekeeping, “Letter To A Woman Alcoholic,” writer Margaret Lee Runbeck appealed to female readers who were struggling with addiction secretly: “If I lived across the street from you and saw you gallantly but hopelessly struggling against your ailment and spoke to you sometimes when you couldn’t avoid meeting me, I’d not dare to tell you what I want to tell you now… I couldn’t tell you that I find nothing in you to despise or ridicule or preach at, for you wouldn’t let me speak about what is your fatal malady. We’d both pretend it doesn’t exist.”
The women’s movement started to change things. Through the 50s, 60s and 70s, as more and more women took charge of their lives and felt freer to express themselves, formerly taboo subjects were being talked about on the bestseller list and TV screens. But there was still a sense that the women doing these things were on the, shall we say, looser side of the spectrum.
A really big deal
Betty Ford used her bully pulpit as first lady to change the conversation. She was a really big deal. God only knows how many lives of addicts and cancer sufferers her actions have saved.
Then came Betty Ford, the first lady of these United States. First, she shocked the world in 1974 by saying out loud that she had breast cancer, something that proper women like her just didn’t do. Proper women would rather die, and did, rather than talk about their breasts even to their spouses and doctors. This one act has led to thousands of women getting checked in time and saving their own lives. Being a young boy, this event only crossed my radar later on.
But in 1982 I definitely took notice when Betty Ford broke tradition again and far more shockingly by publically admitting her alcoholism and prescription opiate addiction, something a proper woman like her certainly didn’t do. Her family had staged an intervention and she had gotten help, but rather than hiding the fact, Ford decided she wanted to create a rehab specifically for women.
While the Betty Ford Clinic has become a punchline of sorts thanks to all the female celebrities who have publicly announced their trips there in this day of too-much-exposure, even that is groundbreaking in its frankness. It is no longer a career-killer for a female celebrity to admit addiction.
Betty Ford used her bully pulpit as first lady to change the conversation. She was a really big deal. God only knows how many lives of addicts and cancer sufferers her actions have saved.
They tried to make her go
Help does not reach most alcoholics and addicts though, even today with all the openness. The addict must accept the help and do their part, and even then, some seem to struggle so much more than others. We had a few examples of female celebrities playing out their addictions in the public eye these last few years, but none more tragic than Amy Winehouse.
Amy flaunted her impropriety. With her tattoos and crazy hair and makeup, she wasn’t trying to fit in. And hers was not a sudden unexpected fall. Winehouse was already struggling with addiction, depression, bulimia and self-harm when we first met her. Forgetting lyrics to songs, canceling gigs due to “exhaustion,” getting caught by paparazzi looking hung over and strung out with cuts and bruises: Some thought she was sad; many secretly enjoyed her blatant decadence. I felt some of both, but mostly I admired her stunning talent as both a singer and songwriter.
Some thought she was sad; many secretly enjoyed her blatant decadence. I felt some of both, but mostly I admired her stunning talent as both a singer and songwriter.
As if she wasn’t already flaunting her addiction issues enough, the apex of Amy’s commercial success came with the 2006 song “Rehab,” her only American top 10 hit, with the notorious chorus, “They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said, ‘No, no, no.’” Betty Ford may have built the rehab, but Amy wouldn’t go.
Winehouse was willing to take anything to get out of feeling the present moment, including inflicting self-harm. When she overdosed in 2007, she had a mixture of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, K and alcohol in her system. She did go to rehabs several times and reportedly stopped doing drugs two years before her death, but never managed to kick alcohol. It was simple alcohol poisoning that killed her at the age of 27 — with two empty vodka bottles by her side. It’s a tragedy to lose anyone so young, but I can’t help wondering what Amy might have created had she managed to get and stay sober and live to 93 like Betty Ford did.
Steve Jobs was never a corporate man. The early personal computer industry was an outgrowth of the radical back-to-the-land ethos and even the name “Apple” was intentionally folksy and home-brewed. For Jobs, the personal computer wasn’t a way to bring work home or improve the productivity and accountability of employees. His goal was always computer as appliance, computer as an empowering tool for regular people. He pointed to Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth Catalog, which I grew up poring through, as a key inspiration. The story of Apple’s products is a story of getting closer and closer to that vision. The infamous 1984 Superbowl ad set up Apple as the opposite of IBM’s (Microsoft’s) corporate mindset. The only thing that’s changed is that Jobs’ vision has won.
The day after Steve Jobs passed away in October, besides my column on him, Busted Halo bloggers Tom, Annie and Vanessa — a seminarian, a music journalist and a young mother — all posted about the influence he’d had on them. This is one of many testaments to the far-reaching influence Jobs’ empowering technologies have had. As I said then, I crossed paths with Steve Jobs’ companies and creations many times. The first personal computer I ever bought was a hard drive-less Mac 512. A few years later, I wrote a landmark PC Magazine cover article about the Mac’s operating system, and had a column about the Mac for several years after that. In the early 2000s, my burgeoning videography career was made possible largely by Final Cut, Apple’s groundbreakingly easy to use video editing software.
Jobs won
My benchmark of business success has always been Steve Jobs — as anti-corporate bad boy, as gadget guru, and especially as visionary of empowering technology. In his death, and reminded of his Stanford address, I am challenged by his example again. Are there things I want to be doing, ways I want to be living my life, that I’m not taking actions every day to make real? Well, yes. How about you?
I still find it hard to believe Jobs won. In the early 90s, when I was pursuing a semi-back-to-the-land lifestyle myself in rural Maine, raising sheep (and writing about technology), it looked like Jobs and Apple both had had their day. Apple had fired its founder and turned its attention towards the business market, but failed to make any headway. People, including Jobs, were saying, simply, “Microsoft won.” But when Apple hired Jobs back in the mid-90s, two things happened. First of all, he restored Apple’s foundational principles and empowering mindset, which along with his brilliant visionary mind gave us in quick succession, the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad. (There’s more about Apple’s technology in my earlier article.) Secondly, the internet changed the whole game. The internet is all about openness and interconnectedness, matching Apple’s strengths and undermining Microsoft’s weaknesses. Apple was briefly the largest company in the world just before Jobs died.
Some pooh-pooh Steve Jobs’ role because many of his ideas are borrowed. He didn’t invent the idea of the graphical user interface, where electronically stored data is turned into a visual desktop with file folders and windows, but when he saw it in Xerox’s labs, he knew how important it was. Same with the mouse; same with desktop publishing; same with simple cabling and networks and wifi; same with music players and smartphones; same with tablets. And same with what a little company called Pixar was doing with animation.
As Nino Amarena is quoted saying in Hedy’s Folly, the delightful new book about actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, “the inventive process follows a cascade of ideas and thoughts interconnected from previous concepts that for the most part lie separate, unconnected and unrelated… to suddenly or serendipitously see the connection between the unrelated concepts and put it all together to create something new.” Jobs did not “invent” the mouse or the graphical interface or the folder and file metaphor, but he saw how they could all fit together into a broader goal.
Empowering technology
For Jobs, technology wasn’t the end; it was just a means. Jobs’ inventions aren’t lowest-common-denominator compromises designed by committee and driven by marketing research. Rather they are powerfully simple, fun designs, exciting because they are empowering — connecting people with their own dormant creativity, with other people, with music, images and video, in new and intimate ways.
For Jobs, technology wasn’t the end; it was just a means. Jobs’ inventions aren’t lowest-common-denominator compromises designed by committee and driven by marketing research. Rather they are powerfully simple, fun designs, exciting because they are empowering — connecting people with their own dormant creativity, with other people, with music, images and video, in new and intimate ways. An early slogan among Apple Mac developers was “easy is hard,” meaning that to make something easy to use requires a lot of work and thought. Most companies, whether for cost savings or marketing advantages, try to cheat this truth. Jobs had the vision, and the drive, to stick to his guns. The fuel for that drive can be found in his Stanford commencement speech (linked in that earlier article), given soon after he almost died from the cancer that would eventually take his life: “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
While many people have looked to Bill Gates for his business brilliance, or Warren Buffet for his investing shrewdness, my benchmark of business success has always been Steve Jobs — as anti-corporate bad boy, as gadget guru, and especially as visionary of empowering technology. In his death, and reminded of his Stanford address, I am challenged by his example again. Are there things I want to be doing, ways I want to be living my life, that I’m not taking actions every day to make real? Well, yes. How about you? Steve Jobs said, essentially, that he tried to live every day as if it might be his last. Hate and fear and sloth have no place in that context. This is also the Christian message. It is impossible to live out perfectly, but it is worth trying.
The Way, written and directed by Emilio Estevez (Bobby) and starring his father, Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, The West Wing, The Departed), is rather obviously about the spiritual journey. The Camino de Santiago, called “The Way,” is a literal spiritual journey, a 1,000-year-old 500-mile pilgrimage route across the Pyrenees. The lead character Tom (Sheen) takes a physical journey to Spain and eventually on the Camino while also taking a spiritual journey starting with word that his son (Estevez) has died. Many of the other characters Tom meets along the way are on their own spiritual journeys, whether they are Camino pilgrims or not.
Despite being built around a religious pilgrimage, however, The Way is not a “faith-based” film; rather, it is a movie about a human story, and the human story. There is no preaching; there are no soppy scenes meant to tug at the spiritual heartstrings. Estevez’s writing reveals a sophisticated understanding of the beautiful brokenness of people, the glorious absurdity of it all. One of the overarching themes is how Tom gets thrown together with other pilgrims. Not only was it his intent to travel alone, but if he were to travel with others, these are definitely not the others he would choose. But it is precisely through struggling with each other’s imperfections that we are challenged, pushed outside our comfort zone, and, sometimes, forced to grow spiritually whether we like it or not.
The Way
Written and directed by Emilio Estevez
Starring Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, Yorick van Wageningen, James Nesbitt
PG-13
115 minutes
Release date: October 7, 2011 (limited); October 21, 2011 (wide)
I asked Estevez about this aspect of the film, and he said: “If we are honest, I think the first thing we’d agree on about ourselves is that we are imperfect, that we are these beautiful, wonderful disasters, all of us. We are. That’s the first step; acknowledging that you’re this beautiful wonderful mess. And yet, that’s how we connect to one another. We’re in a culture now that says, you can take this pill and it will make you happy, or take that pill and you’ll be thinner, or visit this plastic surgeon and change the way you look, and yet, none of that stuff makes you happy ultimately, because you’re still left with yourself. And I think, if there’s a theme in the film, it’s: How about being OK with exactly who you are. How about being comfortable in your own skin, being exactly this beautiful wonderful mess that we are, because God loves us no matter what we are, who we are. But why don’t we love ourselves in our imperfections. So that’s really the larger question in the film: How do we get to that place where we’re OK being exactly who we are?”
Maybe this aspect of the film stood out for me because I reacted so strongly myself. The motley crew perfectly captured a range of annoyingness. I found the overbearingly friendly Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen; Winter in Wartime) almost intolerable, and kept wishing Tom would get away from him. The too-clever and self-involved Irish writer Jack (James Nesbitt; Cold Feet, Bloody Sunday, Murphy’s Law, Millions, Jekyll) is like many a friend I’ve tolerated in my life. On the other hand, perhaps not surprisingly, I found the chain-smoking sarcastic divorcée Sarah, portrayed beautifully by Deborah Kara Unger (Crash, The Game, Combat Hospital) to be intensely attractive despite (because of?) her extreme brokenness.
It was a delight, too, to see a favorite actor, Tchéky Karyo (Full Moon in Paris, La Femme Nikita, Bad Boys, The Messenger, The Core), as the police captain, a small but important role.
A father and a son
A human story to which everyone can relate whether or not they’ve ever called their journey spiritual
The anchor is out-of-shape California doctor Tom. As the movie begins, he learns his estranged son has died while on the Camino. Traveling to France to retrieve the remains, he instead finds himself completing the Camino “with” his son, whose ashes he carries in his backpack.
It’s impossible to imagine what Tom would have been like portrayed by a different actor. Estevez wrote the role for his father and the entire project began with Sheen. He travelled part of the Camino with his grandson, Estevez’s son, while on a break from The West Wing, and encouraged Estevez to consider making a documentary. But Estevez wanted to take it in a narrative direction.
So Tom is Sheen and Sheen is Tom (though nowhere near as cranky.) In the same way, it’s impossible to separate the resulting film from the fact that it is a father-son production about a father and son. Though it’s not autobiographical, you can feel that energy in the writing and acting. And you can feel the love Sheen and Estevez have for the Camino and for talking about the spiritual journey; that love surges through the film.
Another theme of The Way is that the spiritual journey is not always what, when or where we think it is. Tom is a reluctant pilgrim. He has no intention of growing spiritually, or going on the Camino. But he finds himself drawn and pushed into it by events and by other people. The other pilgrims may have reasons they’re on the Camino, but they learn much more along The Way.
Watching The Way, I was reminded of a passage from the new David Brooks book, The Social Animal:
“We are primarily wanderers, not decision makers. Over the past century, people have tended to conceive decision making as a point in time. You amass the facts and circumstances and evidence and then make a call. In fact, it is more accurate to say that we are pilgrims in a social landscape. We wander across an environment of people and possibilities.”
All the characters in The Way are pilgrims wandering a social landscape, being changed by it.
Anyone who has walked the Camino will of course find The Way evocative and moving. Busted Halo‘s production editor, Joe Williams, who blogged about walking it this summer, said the movie made him want to go right back. The Way will easily join a short list of quality films that are enjoyed by spiritual seekers, a list that includes movies like Into Great Silence and Of Gods and Men. Moviegoers will get a taste of what the pilgrimage is like (though it understates the physical hardship of walking 500 miles.) The Way has the potential, though, to reach a much larger audience, thanks to its star power, its beautiful scenery and especially thanks to the fact that it is above all a human story to which everyone can relate whether or not they’ve ever called their journey spiritual.
For some, it will not be possible to separate the movie There Be Dragons from their views about Opus Dei, as it tells the story of that organization’s founder, St. Josemaría Escrivá. The majority of viewers, though — whose only awareness of Opus Dei is the absurd fictional albino killer monk in Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code — will find an inspiring and moving, if at times melodramatic and muddy, film about forgiveness and the choices people make in tough times.
It will be hard to walk away from There Be Dragons without admiring Josemaria. Much of the credit for this compelling portrayal of the future saint goes to British actor Charlie Cox, known for his starring roles in Stardust and Stone of Destiny — the latter a delightful film and one of my favorites of the last few years. (I interviewed Cox about the movie several weeks ago and you can read that conversation here .) It would have been easy to portray Josemaria as either too pious or too worldly, but Cox and writer/director Roland Joffé strike the right balance, giving the character both human vulnerability and the sense of someone following a divine calling.
But, ultimately, the film isn’t even centered on Josemaria.
There Be Dragons
Directed by Roland Joffé
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Rated PG-13
Opens May 6
Roland Joffé has said repeatedly that he was drawn to the project because it was a good and inspiring story, and that he was uninterested in the controversy. But Joffé has been attracted to controversial subjects before. His critically acclaimed 1986 film The Mission deals with the Church’s role in colonizing South American native populations, while The Killing Fields looks at the Khmer Rouge in 1970s Cambodia. And it seems to be with epic stories and foreign locales like these two and City of God that Joffé shines. He has struggled to find that winning formula for over a decade and with There Be Dragons he is back in form.
One of my first thoughts about There Be Dragons, though, was that it does not feel like a Hollywood movie — not primarily because of the Spanish locations and accents, but rather the slightly heavy-handed melodramatic style, epic scope and use of almost gimmicky devices. In one scene, for example, we see the two young boys, Josemaria and his fictional friend Minolo, who are to have profoundly different perspectives on life, through the two lenses of a pair of reading glasses laying on a desk, reminiscent of the opening scene of Joffé’s City of God, which was shot through a mixture of glass and reflections.
There Be Dragons does not feel like a Hollywood movie — not primarily because of the Spanish locations and accents, but rather the slightly heavy-handed melodramatic style, epic scope and use of almost gimmicky devices. But sit through this schmaltz, because once you get into the story, the film comes alive.
Lovers of the craft of filmmaking may be amused or impressed by some of these flourishes. For me they were sometimes moving, but often distracting. Most notably, there’s an axiom that if a movie begins with voiceover narration, run away. Not only does this film begin with narration; one of the characters introduced by the narrator begins narrating himself, this as the prelude to flashbacks that take us (finally) to the main story. Joffé opened both The Killing Fields and The Mission with narration as well.
I’m sure Joffé worried at a present-day viewer seeing the relevance of an historical drama and believed a modern character’s perspective would make it more accessible and interesting. I’m sure he also felt the need to frame the story for the viewer, explaining the setting of 1930s Spain. But these are things that could and should have been done through storytelling within the main story’s time and place. I found both the (two layers of) voiceover narration and the flashback setup distracting, and, as artistic devices, strained.
But sit through this schmaltz, because once you get into the story, the film comes alive.
Spiritual themes
There are several overarching spiritual themes in There Be Dragons. The first and most obvious is forgiveness: forgiveness by the modern-day son for his father; forgiveness by Minolo for himself; forgiveness by Josemaria and his followers for their persecutors. In one scene, after rebels kill a priest and Fr. Josemaria explains to his angry followers that the rebels “see us as part of a system which causes them pain and despair,” they balk and say the rebels are nothing but murderers. Josemaria asks, “What do you want to do to those swine, truthfully?… And wouldn’t you take pleasure in it? And yet, we’re no swine, are we?… No human being, not one of us, is free from human weakness.”
At around the film’s halfway point, we shift gears from this interesting story about the life of a saint to the Spanish Civil War battlefield. All three plots, Josemaria’s, Minolo’s, and the 1980s father and son wrapper, eventually tie back together, but the effect is of another movie taking over.
A second theme is the choices we make, especially in tough times, and how they affect the trajectories of our lives. Both Josemaria and Minolo face hardship and tragedy, as children and as adults. After Minolo’s father dies, Fr. Josemaria visits his old friend and encourages him to use his suffering to go deeper and find his dependence on God, as he has done. Minolo spits back, “Suffering has no purpose.” Instead, he becomes more and more bitter and jealous.
In our conversation with Charlie Cox , he said he hoped the viewer would see some of themselves in each characters, adding, “You’ll hopefully ask yourself, when faced with adversity, which of these characters do I tend to turn to?” Of his character Minolo, Wes Bentley told us, “He didn’t know who he was at all, and in that confusion was the basis of anger.” This contrasts starkly with strength of character, which Cox says he was told repeatedly was Josemaria’s primary characteristic.
The film also presents us with a foundational theme of Opus Dei. Josemaria describes his idea for the organization to an archbishop, who says, “It all seems rather Protestant — that God is to be found in the mundanities of daily life, outside holy orders — no vows, no habits.” To which Fr. Josemaria responds by throwing open the windows of the archbishop’s stuffy office to the light and sounds of city life, saying, “Well, Jesus spent most of his life working in a shop in Nazareth. God’s world is so full of goodness. If we do them for love, each daily task can give Him glory.”
Shifting gears
At around the film’s halfway point, we shift gears from this interesting story about the life of a saint to the Spanish Civil War battlefield, picking up Minolo’s role in the fighting, as Josemaria’s escape from Spain becomes a minor element. The remainder is basically a war movie with new characters and little relationship to the first half of the film. All three plots, Josemaria’s, Minolo’s, and the 1980s father and son wrapper, eventually tie back together, but the effect is of another movie taking over.
My own taste would have been for a smaller film about Josemaria’s early life, without narration, flashbacks and Spanish Civil War battle action — just two hours about how this future saint built what he built and became who he became. But then that movie would not have been made with a Hollywood budget.
Wes Bentley (American Beauty) delivers a solid performance as Minolo past, though the old-man makeup job for his scenes as 1980s Minolo left me unconvinced. Brazilian leading man Rodrigo Santoro (300, Che) and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) are appropriately melodramatic and beautiful in their roles as the rebel leader and love interest during the war scenes. And a small bright spot in the modern-day portion is Iranian star Golshifteh Farahani (Body of Lies, About Elly).
My own taste would have been for a smaller film about Josemaria’s early life, without narration, flashbacks and Spanish Civil War battle action — just two hours about how this future saint built what he built and became who he became. But then that movie would not have been made with a Hollywood budget. While flawed, There Be Dragons is an engaging exploration of human weakness and strength, and a glimpse into the early life of a modern saint, packaged in a way that gives it hope to be a hit movie. Some will be drawn more to the life of Josemaria, some to the father and son story, some to the best friends turned sour, while others will enjoy the war story; most will walk away satisfied, though none, perhaps, entirely so.
The video for Lady Gaga’s song “Judas” has premiered, ending weeks of speculation stirred up by several religious spokespeople who denounced it before seeing it. The video is set in a motorcycle gang; Jesus is the leader, Judas a thuggish member and Gaga is torn by her attraction to both. As a quick first reaction, I find it moving, both artistically and spiritually. What has always fascinated and frustrated me is the disconnect between the Gaga haters and what I, and some of my friends, see in her work. Many of my religious young adult friends love Gaga; most of the rest don’t have any serious problem with her. They understand what she’s trying to do, even if it isn’t their taste. This is true across Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals. So, what is it about Gaga that excites one devout person and intimidates another?
Some insist Gaga exploits Christian and especially Catholic symbols for shock value, rather than admitting they could be part of an honest attempt to wrestle with spiritual issues. I think some critics simply have trouble believing someone like Gaga could be sincere. Or perhaps it’s just the easiest way to dismiss her work. Don’t get me wrong. I cringed watching her dressed in a fetishized nun costume in the Alejandro video, which among her hits so far had the least redeeming value. But I do think she was sincerely trying to express something, to externalize her struggles through the imagery.
In the “Judas” video, Gaga (apparently as Mary Magdalene, though some story lines are blurred together in both the lyrics and the video) rides with Jesus in a motorcycle gang, while pining after bad boy Judas, a beer-guzzling thug who’s also in the gang. We see Gaga turning away from Judas in favor of Jesus again and again. At one point, she washes Jesus’ feet just before the most notable lines in the song:
I wanna love you,
But something’s pulling me away from you.
Jesus is my virtue,
Judas is the demon I cling to.
Lady Gaga’s creative director, Laurieann Gibson, described the creative process the team went through in completing the “Judas” video this way: “It was amazing because to have that conversation about salvation, peace and the search for the truth in a room of non-believers and believers, to me, that was saying God is active in a big way.”
This is not the stuff of pop music. It’s a cultural phenomenon. And that perhaps is where we get to the root of the problem some have with Gaga. Unlike any other current pop star at the global level, Gaga writes about, talks about and openly struggles with spiritual issues in almost every song she writes. Most shocking in our current culture, she mentions Jesus by name. In Judas, she says “Jesus is my virtue.” In “You and I,” about an old boyfriend she calls Nebraska, Gaga says, “There’s only three men I served my whole life / It’s my dad and Nebraska and Jesus Christ.”
So while some may like to dismiss her as disingenuous, it is exactly Gaga’s genuineness that is a threat. While an R&B artist singing crudely about sex is clearly defined in their role outside the spiritual conversation, Gaga dares to jump right into the middle of it. And while she’s there, with a bully pulpit speaking to millions, she dares to say things like, “I’m beautiful in my way, cause God makes no mistakes.” This is much more dangerous in some people’s minds than empty pop music. Gaga calls her fans little monsters, her way of saying we are all fallen, all flawed, and that it is the misfits of society who can teach the comfortable a thing or two about God’s love and compassion. And that’s what she’s doing.
When I talked last week with Charlie Cox about his role as St. Josemaria Escrivá in the movie There Be Dragons (written and directed by Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields and The Mission), to be released this Friday, May 6), Osama bin Laden’s death and the public reaction to it had yet to occur, and while Blessed John Paul II’s beatification was on the calendar, it was not a topic in our interview. It’s interesting then that we spoke of the central role of forgiveness in Christianity. This should not be surprising however, since, as Charlie Cox said in referring to the film, forgiveness is “always going to be key when you’re talking about Christianity at all, especially if you’re talking about a man who is canonized.” Nevertheless, recent events have made this interview and the movie itself all the more timely.
Charlie Cox, born in London in 1982, is best known for his starring roles in Stardust and Stone of Destiny, and will appear in the upcoming season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
Phil Fox Rose: First, I just want to say Stone of Destiny is one my favorite films of the last few years. It’s such a perfect little film, and you’re the driving force through the whole thing. But, even though that dealt with serious issues, there was a slapstick comedy element to it. It was a light film in many ways. So, how was preparing for this movie different than previous work you’ve done.
Charlie Cox: Well immediately, the first thing that became evident when I started researching this man — because initially I’d never heard of him, and I knew very little of Opus Dei and all that — was the immense amount of responsibility that I felt, in that, yes, the primary reason that we make films and TV shows is for entertainment purposes, but every now and again there comes along a project where there’s something more there and it’s not just about entertaining people. It’s not just about people losing themselves for a couple of hours in the movie theater. This story, and particularly this man, is of great importance to hundreds of thousands of people. If you look at those photographs from his canonization, you know, looking at 400,00 or 500,000 people who were able to make it to Rome, not to mention how many millions who couldn’t physically be there: that was an overwhelming feeling. I felt, this is not an opportunity for me to invent a character. I have to try and find some truth, and I have a responsibility to try and do this story and this man justice. That was the main difference that I noticed early in preparation.
We think of forgiveness as a very pious character trait… actually the interesting thing about forgiveness is that it can be a selfish thing. Because when one has resentments against other human beings or organizations or life in general, it’s really you who suffers from those resentments. The world doesn’t feel it, you do. When Josemaria would talk about this I think he understood that. I think he understood that the reason one must forgive is because that hatred and that anger and that resentment lives in you.
PFR: What did you do to prepare for the role?
CC: I do a lot of reading. I love to read. I love to read what I can get my hands on, whether that’s some of the stuff that he wrote or stuff that was written about him, or biographies. The book that helped me the most was a book by Pedro Casciaro, who is one of his early friend-slash-followers, one of the original members of the Opus Dei groups. He wrote a book called Dream and Your Dreams Will Fall Short, and he describes in detail what everyday life was like for them and little memorable moments that he had of Josemaria, and he talks about what he felt Josemaria was battling with and where his troubles lay. Also, the film company was very generous and they sent me on a mini-tour of Josemaria’s life, so we started out in Barbastro where he grew up, and then we went to visit Zaragoza where the seminary was. We then drove around and went to areas of northern Spain, in the Pyrenees, where he would have traveled through, caves that he spent the night in when he was trying to get to Andorra. And we crossed Andorra in the same area where he did. Then I went and spent about a week with two members of the Opus Dei, one of whom is an Opus Dei priest, at a kind of priest’s retreat-slash-church in Catalonia, and we just talked a lot — Father John and I talked a lot about Josemaria — and we prayed and we meditated and we got into a priest’s routine. I just got to know the character as well as possible — and then you hope that the script will do the rest for you.
PFR: About Opus Dei, it’s not that well known in the mainstream except for Dan Brown and some things some of its opponents have said. Did you have any qualms about getting involved in the project — about the potential controversy around it?
CC: Not really, no. I only ever heard of Opus Dei from Dan Brown’s book, and I very rapidly discovered that what’s written in that book is seemingly based on no truth whatsoever that I can work out. It’s been a fair few years since I read that book. What was interesting to me is that when I talked to people — whether they be very familiar with Opus Dei or not, whether they were neighbors, or my parents or friends of the family — when people asked me what I was doing and I would say I’m going to do this job on Josemaria Escrivá and the Opus Dei, people’s reaction was very often fear-based. Their immediate response to me telling them that was, “Oh, be very careful of those people,” or, “Watch out.” Because I was researching the role and I was trying to be open minded about whatever people told me, I would always say, “Oh really? That’s so interesting. What do you know about them?” What was most interesting to me is that none of these people could back up their contempt prior to investigation with any sort of factual knowledge at all. It’s the most extreme case of contempt prior to investigation that I’ve ever come across. People have no clue about what it was at all. They just have an immediate instinctive kind of repulsion to it, and couldn’t back it up. It was really fascinating.
PFR: So then, what is the thing that you most want people to take away from your portrayal of St. Josemaria from seeing the film?
CC: My hope is that this film will not just appeal to Catholics or even Christians. My hope is that people will see the film, and regardless of whether you believe, regardless of your religious background, regardless of whether you consider yourself religious at all, or even an atheist, my hope is that you can watch this movie and walk away from it and say, “Wow. That’s an extraordinary story. I’m interested to know more. He was an extraordinary man.” — to be compelled to look at how this man approached the living of his own life, and what he tried to encourage others to do with the way they lived their lives, and hopefully see how you might be able to incorporate that into your own life, regardless, again, of your religious background. I don’t know how possible that is, but that would be nice.
I’m rarely even attending Mass on a weekly basis, so it was really enjoyable and interesting for me to get to throw myself into the religion that I was raised up in… I went to Mass regularly and I spent a lot of time with Father John… obviously when you’re doing that and you’re spending that much time with a priest, it starts to kind of segue into your own life… I’m still figuring out where that has led me now… and my relationship with the Catholic Church, and my relationship with God.
PFR: I know you were raised Catholic and still identify as Catholic. Many of Busted Halo’s readers are Catholics in their twenties and thirties, many are seekers. So, from that perspective and your own, how did playing the role, and learning about him through playing the role, affect your own spiritual journey?
CC: Well, you know, of all the questions that I’ve had to answer about the film, and this one has come up, this is the hardest to answer, for many reasons, but primarily because I’m still discovering all this. I feel like, in every area of my life, convictions for me of any sort, are dangerous, because I’ll believe something wholeheartedly, and then a few weeks, months or even years later I’ll realize that I’ve completely changed my mind about something, and that I don’t believe that any more, or that I’ve learned more since then. So, I don’t love to talk about my own religious beliefs publicly because, like I said, the more I know, the more I realize I know nothing — if that makes any sense. But, it was really enjoyable for me to — I haven’t been the most wonderful Catholic my whole life, meaning that I’m rarely even attending Mass on a weekly basis, so it was really enjoyable and interesting for me to get to throw myself into the religion that I was raised up in, and to learn more and to ask questions. I went to Mass regularly and I spent a lot of time with Father John, and would talk to him. A lot of it was about the movie and about Josemaria, but obviously when you’re doing that and you’re spending that much time with a priest, it starts to kind of segue into your own life, and you can’t help but start to grow and learn more about yourself and where you stand with it all. I know that sounds a bit confusing, but it makes sense to me. And I’m still figuring out where that has led me now, what that’s meant for me now, and what I’ve taken from it, and my relationship with the Catholic Church, and my relationship with God, or any of these things. I will certainly say I have benefited a huge amount from this period of my life where I got to immerse myself in it.
PFR: That’s wonderful. The movie certainly has some overarching spiritual principles that it’s putting out there. One is purpose and calling and how the two characters took such different life paths.
CC: I think what we attempted to do is show two people who grow up together and whose lives are affected by the same adversity, in this instance the Spanish Civil War, and the same troubles and circumstances, and through the course of the movie we see these two men make very, very different choices about how they live their lives — polar opposites in many ways — and hopefully most of us will identify with both of these characters. I think we have both of these characters within us. The hope is that we haven’t stereotyped either one of them too much. You’ll hopefully ask yourself, when faced with adversity, which of these characters do I tend to turn to? Do I look at these troubles and these problems and these adversities within my life and react with fear and hatred and anger, or do I attempt to see these as opportunities to grow, opportunities to help others and to maybe be of service in some way to humanity or to our fellow human beings? And again, whether the movie does that or not, whether that’s what your experience is, that’s for the audience members to say. That would be nice, if people could go, “Maybe I need to strive to think more about others and see how I can be of service to others,” rather than go immediately to “What about me?” when faced with difficulties.
PFR: You’ve talked about the role of forgiveness that’s portrayed in this movie.
My hope is that you can watch this movie and walk away from it and say, “Wow. That’s an extraordinary story. I’m interested to know more. He was an extraordinary man.” — to be compelled to look at how this man approached the living of his own life, and what he tried to encourage others to do with the way they lived their lives, and hopefully see how you might be able to incorporate that into your own life.
CC: That’s always going to be a key when you’re talking about Christianity at all, especially if you’re talking about a man who is canonized. Forgiveness is a major part of this movie. What is interesting for me is that we think of forgiveness as a very pious character trait — of those that have the ability to forgive evils or the wrongs against them as being in some way saintly or holy. And actually the interesting thing about forgiveness is that it can be a selfish thing. Because when one has resentments against other human beings or organizations or life in general, it’s really you who suffers from those resentments. The world doesn’t feel it, you do. When Josemaria would talk about this I think he understood that. I think he understood that the reason one must forgive is because that hatred and that anger and that resentment lives in you. It doesn’t live in the person that you resent. More often than not, those people don’t even know know.
PFR: That’s right. It doesn’t t live in them, and it only exists in the past except that you’re keeping it alive.
CC: Exactly. Exactly that. Personally, I think that’s really, really important because what scientists are discovering about nowadays about harbored resentments and harbored anger and the relation that those toxic energies have towards cancer and other diseases is becoming more and more apparent. My grandmother, ever since I was a small boy, would always say, “Don’t worry. You’ll make yourself sick.”
PFR: And now scientists are proving she was right. We knew it all along.
CC: Exactly. Exactly.
PFR: I know we’re about out of time. Just one last question. I’ve asked a lot of questions about the spiritual dimensions of this very spiritual film, but what do you hope this movie offers to nonbelievers other than a good story; what lessons do you think it has for them?
CC: Well, it’s a great question. The honest answer is, other than a great story, I don’t really know. I guess my hope would be that nonbelievers could watch this movie — you know I don’t really have any interest in converting people to or from any religions, or anything like that, that’s none of my business — but if a nonbeliever can watch this and walk away from it and say, “Wow. This guy was a cool guy. He was an extraordinary human being, and I think he had some important things to say that we can all learn from.” That would be a bonus, I think.
PFR: I appreciate your time, and it will be interesting to see how the movie does.
You could probably compile a similar list any year, but this struck me.
Mark Linkous, who performed mostly under the project name Sparklehorse, was widely respected and actively involved in numerous interesting projects in indie rock and ambient music. At 47, he was close to completion of a new album last March when he shot himself in the heart. It’s reported that he was very drunk when he killed himself.
Andrew Koenig was Boner in the 80s TV series Growing Pains. It’s not unusual for child stars to struggle with their adult careers, compounded in this case by having a famous father, Walter Koenig (Chekov in Star Trek: TOS). But Andrew had seemingly made the transition to behind-the-screen work and last August he had several projects in the works, an acting role just completed, and ongoing work in human rights activism when he took his life at age 41.
Alexander McQueen had been head designer at Givenchy, replacing Galiano, before striking out on his own and eventually joining forces with Gucci. He was one of the brightest and best-known stars of fashion. While his company was in debt, he would certainly rebound from it, and as if he needed any further validation of his relevance, his latest muse, Lady Gaga, had just catapulted to the top of the music and fashion worlds, wearing McQueen designs all over her videos and appearances. He struggled with depression and was known to abuse drugs, having overdosed twice in the past, and his own mentor committed suicide two years earlier. In February, at the age of 40, McQueen hanged himself in his closet.
I see time and time again people whose lives seem wrecked slowly rebuild their hopefulness, taking small positive actions in faith until they are once again glowing with life. Call it grace or call it hard work, it’s a miracle every time. To destroy the chance of turning things around by taking one’s own life is a terrible crime against nature.
Add to these David Foster Wallace, a gentle soul who I had the pleasure of meeting and a breathtaking talent — one of my key creative inspirations — who in 2008 took his life in the middle of a brilliant career at 46.
These four people, who had contributed much to the world; who could be gratified by the lives they had touched; who seemed to have a passion and a calling; who had more accomplishments to point at than most of us ever do — each took his own life, a heinous act of nihilism, in his 40s. This past year saw the campaign, “It gets better,” telling kids struggling with bullying to stick it out, saying that once you grow up, you can put all that in perspective and move on with your life. Well, many people struggle with depression and hopelessness as adults too. In some cases, they struggle with a downturn in their success. But just as often, there is no such downturn. Some struggle with clinical depression. Some don’t. Some with addiction; some don’t. (Though a striking number do deal with addiction.) The only common denominator is that each of these talented, gifted and successful people was overwhelmed by life and saw no way out, no hope of things getting better.
I see time and time again people whose lives seem wrecked (in reality or in their own minds), whose outlooks are bleak, slowly rebuild their hopefulness, taking small positive actions in faith until they are unrecognizable as the men and women I met a year before, because they are once again glowing with life. Call it grace or call it hard work, it’s a miracle every time. To destroy the chance of turning things around by taking one’s own life is a terrible crime against nature. I mourn the loss and the suffering of these men.
Still struggling to find a Christmas gift for someone? Consider these suggestions we’ve made recently.
If you have someone on your list who would appreciate a book, we’ve highlighted two gorgeous options recently that are easy choices.
The Saint John’s Bible is an amazing new illuminated bible we featured last month (Meeting Scripture Through the Illuminated Word) and it has been reproduced in seven gorgeous coffee table volumes, following the classic sections of the Bible. The first six are available and each can be purchased separately. Whether as a treasured home bible, a collection of sacred art, a tool for lectio divina, or all three, it’s hard to imagine a better gift for the right person.
Author Judith Dupré contributed an article to Busted Halo recently that was based on her new book, Full of Grace: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art and Life — which is filled with thought-provoking essays and a trove of Marian art. This beautiful volume mixes classic and modern art renderings of the Virgin Mary with 59 essays by Dupré ranging in topic from Mary’s Jewish roots to the roles of women, from Our Lady of Guadalupe to Mary’s relevance in 21st-century life.
Full of Grace is widely available in bookstores. You will find The Saint John’s Bible volumes in some specialty bookstores, but the big chains generally don’t keep them in stock. All these books, however, are readily available through Amazon with arrival by Christmas. Sunday is the last day to order with free shipping, and Monday with regular shipping, but there are high-priced rush shipping options through the 23rd.
We’ve also talked in recent weeks about options other than regular gift buying.
Both Brittany Janis, in 5 Ways to Celebrate Christmas Without Spending a Dollar, and our blogger Vanessa Gonzalez Kraft, in a recent post Gift Conspiracy, zero in on annoyance at thoughtless gifts, and they offer a way to get rid of the consumerism but not the gift-giving: by giving something of yourself — either making the gift or turning a service you provide or a joint activity (like tickets together for a show) into a gift. Think about it; which would you rather receive from a loved one, a junky item destined for regifting, the garbage can or long-term storage, or something that came from their heart? Why wouldn’t others feel the same about gifts from you? (I’m assuming your answer wasn’t “junky item.”)
You don’t have to avoid buying all gifts, though. In addition to the idea of joint tickets, Vanessa also celebrates the thoughtful gift: when you give someone something they actually want, not because they asked for it outright, but because you noticed the need or remembered hearing them mention it long ago (not as a hint dropped for Christmas but as a genuinely unconnected remark.) It can be very moving to receive a thoughtful gift like this and realize the person has been paying attention to you.
In a new installment of our podcast Facts of Faith, Frs. Larry Rice and Dave Dwyer discuss other alternatives to regular gift giving. Fr. Larry talks about making a donation to charity, giving the person a card explaining the gift. Or if you are in a situation where you need or want to give relatively generic gifts, he suggests fair trade products — handcrafts and food items made in sustainable ways and with the maximum possible income going directly to the farmer or craftsperson who made the gift. Catholic Relief Services and many other organizations help facilitate fair trade marketing.
Both Vanessa and Fr. Larry talk about the campaign Advent Conspiracy, which encourages a little bit of each of the things mentioned in the posts above. It has the involvement of 1500 churches and faith-based organizations around the principles: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All — keeping the focus on the meaning of Christmas, spending less on disposable or unwanted gifts, giving more of your time and resources through homemade and thoughtful gifts, and showing love of strangers by giving more to charity.
We hope these suggestions help with any gift planning you may still have to do. And all of us at Busted Halo wish you a blessed Advent and a very Merry Christmas!
