Picasso said, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." In that vein, the last month has been a veritable flood for my soul, eroding the sediments of selfishness that have accumulated over time.
Two things happened this year that just don’t ever really happen in my life. Maybe five times in fifty years, tops. In just the last month I’ve read a book that I immediately wanted to read again, and last night I saw a movie that I immediately want to see again. It is incredibly rare for me to want to reread a book or rewatch a movie and simply unheard of in my life that I would experience both at almost the same time.
The book, which immediately secured a spot in my personal top five all time, was actually written by a first time author named Allen Levi, whose day job is an attorney — and sometimes wanna be musician — from South Alabama, who currently lives near the Georgia/Alabama state line. Much like a baseball player who hits a home run in his first Major League at bat, Levi’s first novel spent three weeks in the number one spot on The New York Times Best Seller List. You’ve probably heard someone talk about “Theo of Golden” and if you haven’t, you’re about to hear someone talk about it a lot.
There has been only one other book that I’ve read which had such an immediate, profound, visceral impact upon me, “The Shack” written by William Paul Young — ironically, another first time author that sold over 22 million copies (placing it in the top 75 best selling books of all time). That book shifted something in me that would take decades to sort out, but it was one of the most influential things I’ve read to this day. Apart from the bible, I just don’t read things very often that change who I am as a person and who I want to be going forward. Theo of Golden had that effect on me.
I’m not going to recount the story or the plot or the characters or anything like that. There is already plenty of that sort of thing online, written by people who are much more skilled at that sort of thing. What I want to do is summarize what, in my opinion, is the overall message of the story.
Theo of Golden in general, and the title character in particular, is about the power that singular, simple acts of goodness and kindness can produce. My take away is that the author is wanting us to realize that the way to “make the world a better place” (as cliche as that might be), is to simply go about doing good. Do good when it would be easier to do nothing. Do good when you would rather do bad. Do good when no one else is willing to do it, and do good even of the recipient doesn’t acknowledge, appreciate, or even know about it. Do good, not for some desired outcome, for the desired outcome is that you simply do good. Just be a kind hearted person. That is not something that has to come natural to you or be instinctive to you, or be wholly altruistic in the moment. You don’t even have to enjoy or feel better afterwards (though I bet you will). The point is doing good and being kind is not about feelings, but choices and actions. Do good as a choice, because it really is just as simple as that…a choice. Now, the amazing thing about making that choice over and over again is that in time you develop a sort of moral muscle memory and it becomes more instinctive, though no less conscious.
Honey is my daily mentor in this. Cards on the table, being thoughtfully good has never come natural to me. It’s not that I don’t care about people or want to do good for them — and I do when it’s obvious it’s needed — but I am not very good at “picking up” on things. In this vein, Honey and I couldn’t be more different. She is constantly doing good for people on both a small and large scale, locally and far away, publicly and anonymously. She just goes about doing good and she genuinely enjoys it….most of the time. There have been occasions where I’ve seen her do good for those who’ve done her wrong or harm, and even though I know it didn’t necessarily “feel good”, she did it because that is who she is.
Whether it was this book or my wife, doing good for others makes a difference. It changes things, it changes people and it inspires people to do more of it in their own ways. Never underestimate the power of one person to make an impact on the world for good by simply doing good.
The movie, which immediately secured a spot in my personal top five all time, was Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey. I do not go to the theater to see movies twice — and I rarely rewatch movies at home, but I walked out of this film immediately wanting to see it again. In fact, my exact statement to my friend Jeremy was, “I want to watch this movie ten times and take notes and then participate in a class about it.” The list of movies I have that kind of an interest in is very, very short.
Let me get some of the obvious out of the way. Whether or not you like his films from a plot or story aspect, Christopher Nolan is an all time great filmmaker. What he puts on the screen is fascinating to look at and usually incredible audibly as well. From that perspective, this is probably his magnum opus. I kept noticing the choices for the score of the scenes, which is something I just don’t notice a lot unless it is overt like the Superman or Star Wars theme, and of course Jaws. Beyond that, I rarely notice those things upon first viewing, but in this film it was as if the score was actually a character in the scenes. What he did with the cyclops scene was something I’d never seen before and I thought it was brilliant, surprisingly loyal to the original in a way I’d never personally envisioned, and viscerally terrifying. The scenes with Circe were genuinely disturbing without being overtly gory, and made me feel like I was in a horror movie. The repeated theme of Odysseus stringing and plucking his bow was a subtle but significant detail. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, this film is one that needs to be seen in theaters to be appreciated fully. Now that I’ve got the film and artistry stuff out of the way, let me get down to what I was most moved by in the film.
As odd as it may sound, this 2,700 year old story, which is actually set around 3,200 years ago, is profoundly contemporary. Sure the set pieces and legends are ancient, but the message is as relevant as your news feed this morning. Isn’t that why ancient stories continue to be told and passed down, remade, discussed, and studied, centuries, and millennia after their origin? The great stories last because they are true, even if they didn’t actually happen. Modern man is obsessed with determining the “historicity” of these types of stories. Did this REALLY happen? Did it REALLY happen this way. Did it REALLY happen like this? We focus on these types of questions at the expense of the true meaning of the story: what is this trying to tell us? Too often we miss the “moral forest” for the “literal trees”.
“When (Karl) Barth was hard-pressed by American evangelicals on whether or not every word of Scripture was inerrant, he addressed them as ‘My dear friends of the serpent’ and questioned why they were so intent on asking: ‘Did God really say?’ His point was that to insist on certain mechanics of inspiration is to try to ‘get behind’ the Word of God instead of submitting to it as God’s revelation to us. He saw that fundamentalists made a similar move as demythologists, effectively placing themselves above the text. Following Kierkegaard, Barth maintained that obedience to God’s revelation to humans is more important than arguments about inspiration and interpretation. Not that he rejected biblical criticism, but that he saw that it needed to serve discipleship. Once, following a lecture on Genesis, a woman asked him if there was a literal snake in the garden that literally spoke and he responded, ‘Madam, it matters not if the serpent actually spoke. What matters is what the serpent said.’ It’s been helpful to me to refuse to base my high view of Scripture on some sort of theoretical foundationalism and instead to seek to receive the living Word of God, mediated through the text and illumined by the Spirit. We follow a living Deity, not a word on a page.” (Andrew T. Draper)
More succinctly, “The greatest truth of the story of Adam and Eve isn’t that it happened but that it happens.” (Rob Bell)
In this vein, The Odyssey has much to say to modern man. In many ways the message of The Odyssey is the same at that of Theo of Golden, though a mirror image of it.
The Odyssey in general, and the title character in particular, is an illustration of the destructive power that cascades from the abandonment of simple acts of goodness. A recurring theme in the film — though not illustrated like this in the source material — is the gradual erosion and abandonment of “Zeus’s Law”. What they refer to as “Zeus’s Law” is a reference to something called “xenia”. The word xenia means “stranger” and derives its name from Zeus Xenios, the patron god of foreigners. In Ancient Greece, it referred to a concept of hospitality that focused on friendship, generosity, kindness, and good will, specifically toward travelers, foreigners, and guests, with the understanding that they could be one of the gods in disguise. It wasn’t just hospitality that you could or could not extend, it was considered a moral imperative. Xenia consisted of two basic rules:
1. The respect from hosts to guests. Hosts must be hospitable to guests and provide them with a bath, food, drink, gifts, and safe escort to their next destination. It is considered rude to ask guests questions, or even to ask who they are, before they have finished the meal provided to them.
2. The respect from guests to hosts. Guests must be courteous to their hosts and not be a threat or burden. Guests are expected to provide stories and news from the outside world. Most importantly, guests are expected to reciprocate if their hosts ever call upon them in their homes.
You may not be familiar with xenia, but you’ve very likely heard the term “xenophobia”, an irrational fear, dislike, or hatred of people perceived as foreigners or strangers. Even if you’ve never heard the word, you’re familiar with the attitude — all you have to do is watch a political ad or speech from most any self identified “conservative” political candidate and you will hear plenty of it.
The recurring theme throughout the movie is that their society has ceased to practice xenia, people are abandoning “Zeus’s Law” and only once it is too late does Odysseus come to the realization that civilizations fall for this very reason. When we are no longer willing to treat others the way we would want to be treated, things spiral quickly, and fissures develop at every level of the fabric of civilization. Hopefully this film will help us take notice of the cracks that are forming in our own society before it crumbles.
Who is to blame? We all are. Certainly tech billionaire oligarchs who play with civilizations like they are toys or a board game carry a lot of weight. Without a doubt unscrupulous politicians whose ultimate goals are power bear the brunt of the blame. But the truth of the matter is we allow these things to trickle down to us and influence our daily interactions with our family and neighbors. We pick up the phone and feed from the algorithmic slop filled trough where hate and lies and intentionally divisive rhetoric make up our daily digital diet, turning our once good hearts gluttonous and diseased with distrust of our neighbors. Though the content is carefully and intentionally curated to be addictive, hypnotic, and inflammatory, we choose to pick it up. The sheer volume of time wasted in this wasteland is bad enough, but what follows is worse. We regurgitate the vitriol that we’ve gorged ourselves on, back into the digital trough for others to ingest, and they do the same in a sick cycle of societal pollution. The way we have become comfortable speaking to and about one another is shameful and would be shocking to the 20th century versions of ourselves. In just over a decade, I have observed — and I’m sure you have too — the degradation of once firmly entrenched societal norms and expectations of decency and communal goodwill.
Like the suitors in the home of Odysseus, many of us have become parasitic performers all vying for attention, fame, wealth, power, and popularity. Regular people have become deformed caricatures of humanity, like the soldiers turned into pigs and other animals by the witch Circe. These wannabe “influencers” exaggerate, manipulate, and profligate, prostituting themselves so you will “like, follow, and subscribe”.
A wise rabbi once cautioned, “Whatever a man sows he will also reap” and another wise man cautioned that those who “sow the wind will reap the whirlwind”. This wisdom — like the source material for this movie — is over 2,000 years old. Not everything the ancients believed was right and remains, but what has lasted stood the test of time for a reason. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” (Aldous Huxley)
I want to close with some words of wisdom from two wise men, from two radically different cultures, one Russian and one Indian:
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
For me, the book and the movie both served as a wake up call. There is no excuse for not loving your neighbor as yourself, but there is a cost.
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