Christian invisibility; Men have bouncy balls now; Standing O's at Cannes.
3 Things this week and a trickster poem
Happy Memorial Day weekend to my American friends and subscribers.
And wherever you are in the world, I hope you're able to enjoy family and friends wherever you reside. Thanks for spending some of your day with Things I Wrote Down.
I volunteered at a youth conference this weekend and witnessed a thousand energetic kids descend upon a church, pursue things of faith, and gather together. It was inspiring to see the hunger for truth on display (and amazing to see how much garbage can be produced by a swarm of teens).
Faith is alive in every generation. If you feel cynical about the future, attend a youth conference and your hopes will revive.
Now here’s 3 places I went on the web this week and a poem.
1. Christian Invisibility
George Barna, founded a research company to explore data that reveal trends about the depth of people's faith. At the time, religious research looked at how many Bibles were sold, church attendance and other superficial metrics, and less at what people believe, why, and how beliefs translate into action.
In an interview this week he talks about some of the trends that he’s noticing today as he looks at the landscape. It’s a US-based glimpse, but was quite interesting. He summarizes his concerns in a pithy phrase: "We've reached a time of Christian invisibility."
His insights in the article touch on the expansion of AI, floundering churches, and the increased vacancies of Christian leadership positions. It’s a sobering and important read.
His advice? Invest in children.
2. Bouncy balls, literally boys
A few weeks ago I shared an article about how our organs are just plastic water bottles now, because microplastics are showing up in the human bodies, everywhere. Barbie girl has been stuck in my head ever since.
Well, now CTV reports that plastic is showing up in testicles.
The levels of microplastic shards and types of plastics in human testes were three times greater than those found in dogs, and the dogs are eating off the floor. So it really puts in perspective what we’re putting in our own bodies.
- Toxicologist Matthew Campen
"Life in plastic, it's fantastic."
3. Standing ovations at Cannes
Maybe someday, in the future, when I can just write about films, I will do my own study that explores the correlation between the length of standing ovations after screenings of much-anticipated films at Cannes and their performance at the box office.
Standing ovations, by the minutes:
Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed (at $120 million!) futuristic film that critics are loving to hate, received a 7 minute standing O after it screened.
Furiosa, the new Mad Max film which will be a visual spectacle received an 8 minute standing O at Cannes. (But it’s Memorial Day weekend opening was really week, the lowest in decades (gulp).
Horizon: An American Saga (the first part of Kevin Costner’s partially self-financed multi-part Western) received a 9.5 minute standing O.
If you’re still reading and interested, the BBC has an interesting article on the standing ovations, asking, Why are Cannes standing ovations so weirdly long?
And Vulture has a break down of all the films with standing ovations, tracking which films and filmmakers received the longest. Reports differ, but it appears the longest ovation was 11 minutes.
No matter the length, I think it’s pretty cool for artists who’ve invested so much to bring a film to life (one of the most challenging creative tasks), recognized by peers and audiences.
It may not translate into love or dollars at the box office, but it sure can’t hurt.
A poem
I enjoy the the way the trickster appears in Indigenous literature, how it keeps people on their toes. I see it as a fascinating way to explore theophany.
Here's a trickster poem from work of poems entitled God/he.
I hope you enjoy it.
he's a trickster he’s a trickster smiles like a coyote at the moon mysterious as Manoah’s angel unable to share his name all this time biting the inside of his cheek to keep from announcing it once for all, shatter the world finds new disguise then covers the footprints left in the sand if only to have another chance to eat with man make him shrug his shoulders in pleasure at a whisper heart nearly shatters at the thought of one look into man’s eye to, for a moment, believe he stands in the garden again no thing between them witnessing the first time breath take flight in man move his tongue and shape a word ©️ 2024 Andrew Kooman