Tag: s. brent plate

I Love You, I Do.

Posted on by

We asked our Near and Dear to tell us something about today, the day when we celebrate love–or loss or absence or grief or joy or chocolate or the color red.  Valentine’s Day is one of those not-so-holy (or so-holiday) holidays we bump into on the annual calendar, on our way to spring, rebirth and Easter rising.  We didn’t really know what we’d get for our asking.

It’s an odd and fascinating assortment of reflections and observations from some of our favorite loves–our regular contributors, family and friends.  Happy Valentine’s Day!  We love you, we do!

 

“Month of Valentines” by Stacy Doris

“#MyGrownUpValentine” by Ashley Baxstrom with image by Angela Zito

“A Buddhist Valentine” by S. Brent Plate

“My Friend” by Jacob Glatstein, translated from the Yiddish by Peter Manseau

“A Valentine Offering” by Genevieve Yue

“My Wish this Valentine’s Day” by George González

“A Simple Dinner” by Anthea Butler

“St. Valentine’s Fallen Face” by David Metcalfe

“Heart in the Snow” by Mary Valle

“A Red Bagel” by Adam Becker

“The Gospel of Sacred Candy Hearts” by Amy Levin

“Be Mine” by Jeremy Walton

 

image: “Heart to Heart” by Angela Zito Continue Reading →

A Buddhist Valentine

Posted on by

By S. Brent Plate

 

Love is not a shepherd’s crook.

I am not the great shepherd

Reaching out to pull you in.

 

You cannot be my valentine.

I cannot possess love

We can only be possessed by it.

 

**

Valentine’s Day approaches and I am sitting in a room in a Buddhist monastery in the Hudson River Valley of New York. I’ve come to jump start my dying contemplative life, revive a withering body in order to reproduce a spirit, physically giving birth to a soul. I feel a long way from red and pink hearts and sticky sweet treats. Not above it, just removed, somewhere off to the side. Like I’m off the holiday commercial grid. Continue Reading →

Our Monsters, Ourselves

Posted on by

A review of W. Scott Poole’s Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting (Baylor University Press, 2011).

By S. Brent Plate

My first monster was a repeating nightmare of a headless man named “Johan” who lived in our hallway closet on Mayfield Street, San Bernardino, CA. I was about eight years old and, as far as I can remember, Johan was nicely dressed in a suit and tie. But he had no head. In its stead, there was a single flame that shot up from his collar like a Bunsen burner.

He scared me. He was spooky. Creepy. Other. (Who doesn’t have a head?!). But then I got used to him and I began to feel sorry for him, all shut in that closet and all and seemingly without many friends. In my remembered dreams I began to take him out of the closet and play with him, head or no. We played board games together. I think I even let Johan win.

We’ve all got our own “first monsters,” primal visions of the hideous and haunting. Scott Poole knows this, and that is the initial attraction of his recent book, Monsters in America. He challenges readers to confront their monsters, to call them up from the crypt of remembrance. They may be nightmares, or movies, or television shows, or ghost stories told around a campfire on a Girl Scout trip. Poole also challenges readers to review other people’s monsters, ones that might unsettle us a little. After all, we can get used to our own and need a little shaking up. Continue Reading →

The Religious Uses of Marshall McLuhan

Posted on by

by S. Brent Plate

In the midst of media hoopla about another technology being laid to rest–namely the end of the space shuttle program–there was a lesser-told story in the news this week about the centenary of one of the more technologically engaged and provocative thinkers of recent years: Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980). Coming from a background in literature, McLuhan has exerted a significant influence over media studies for decades since his death in 1980. Adequate bios and overview of McLuhan and his work can be found here and here, and an interesting 1967 New York Times piece is here. Douglas Coupland (author of Generation X, Life After God, and Generation A) recently published his own quirky biography, Marshall McLuhan (see a review at the National Post, here).

But what does McLuhan mean for scholars and students interested in religion? A few have outlined these facets, some pointing to McLuhan’s conversion to Catholicism; by all accounts he was deeply committed to his faith. Of more interest are the implications of his otherwise secular, media-oriented ideas on the way we understand religion itself. A broader query would ask: what does media have to do with religion anyway? An answer to which McLuhan strangely offered little. Some of the sporadic, direct engagements between media and religion were posthumously collected in The Medium and the Light.

It would be one of McLuhan’s own students, the Jesuit priest and St. Louis University professor Walter Ong, who laid out some of the ramifications of media transitions for the practices and understandings of the verbal dimensions of religion. Continue Reading →

Atheism vs Religion: Take 253: Matthew Chapman's The Ledge

Posted on by

by S. Brent Plate

Before you’ve even heard of this film, Bill Donohue has, once again, given it a ratings boost by rebuffing it on the Catholic League website. In between press releases on “Bishop Blasted over Gay Marriage” and “New York Times is Gay Crazy,” is a little piece blasting Matthew Chapman’s film The Ledge:

People of faith, especially Catholics, are used to being trashed by Hollywood, but they are not accustomed to films that promote atheism. Yes, there was “The Golden Compass,” an atheism-for-kids effort which the Catholic League successfully boycotted (in fairness, it was the book upon which the movie was based that triggered our response, not the screen adaptation). “The Ledge” is different in that its backers are selling themselves as the real pioneers: they expect it to be a ground-breaker.

The allegorical Golden Compass (2007) was derided by the Catholic League and many evangelicals who claimed it to be a pro-atheist stealth campaign. This was just two years after the allegorical Chronicles of Narnia, which upset some secular-minded people for being too heavy-handed in the Christian sub themes. Before that was Gibson’s Passion, then Scorsese’s Last Temptation, and the see-sawing controversy continues. I doubt The Ledge will make as big a splash, not because it doesn’t raise important issues, but because it lacks the big budget funding that really stirs controversy. Continue Reading →

Atheism vs Religion: Take 253: Matthew Chapman’s The Ledge

Posted on by

by S. Brent Plate

Before you’ve even heard of this film, Bill Donohue has, once again, given it a ratings boost by rebuffing it on the Catholic League website. In between press releases on “Bishop Blasted over Gay Marriage” and “New York Times is Gay Crazy,” is a little piece blasting Matthew Chapman’s film The Ledge:

People of faith, especially Catholics, are used to being trashed by Hollywood, but they are not accustomed to films that promote atheism. Yes, there was “The Golden Compass,” an atheism-for-kids effort which the Catholic League successfully boycotted (in fairness, it was the book upon which the movie was based that triggered our response, not the screen adaptation). “The Ledge” is different in that its backers are selling themselves as the real pioneers: they expect it to be a ground-breaker.

The allegorical Golden Compass (2007) was derided by the Catholic League and many evangelicals who claimed it to be a pro-atheist stealth campaign. This was just two years after the allegorical Chronicles of Narnia, which upset some secular-minded people for being too heavy-handed in the Christian sub themes. Before that was Gibson’s Passion, then Scorsese’s Last Temptation, and the see-sawing controversy continues. I doubt The Ledge will make as big a splash, not because it doesn’t raise important issues, but because it lacks the big budget funding that really stirs controversy. Continue Reading →