What really matters? Football, stock market, and mother

The advertising campaign for Godzilla (about 15 years ago) said, "Size does matter." The great monster could take out a whole city if it wanted, they alleged. The Hollywood crowd and the public were not too keen on their slogan and even less on the movie. Flop.

Others talk about education that matters or costs involved in a significant trade. The big slogan in some circles last year was "Black lives matter." Students in Australia just now are sitting their high school exams and many are alleging that "test results don't matter." 

Last night I was in Kansas City, and the team I've cheered for since about 1962, the Kansas City Chiefs, were in a tight battle with the Oakland Raiders on Thursday Night Football. I hoped my friend with whom I'm staying would record the game at his home so I could give myself to other matters as I was speaking at an evangelists' fellowship at IHOP. In fact, I didn't even think about the game, although I mentioned it once during my talk. There's a time for everything, and last night was the time to be in the moment with the people at the fellowship.

The pastor in charge of the KCEF and I went out to dinner after the meeting, and at the restaurant were several televisions broadcasting the game, but we didn't engage with it at all, but rather stayed in very good deep conversation about our lives in Messiah. 

I returned to my friend's home and it was already late. I didn't know how to use his three remote controls to find the recording. After several attempts, I gave up. I lay back. I slept. Then this morning I awoke and gave it a go one more time. Hooray. I sorted it all out and found the recording on his DVR. He missed the opening quarter of the game and almost all the fourth quarter, but what I saw was pretty good. At the end of the recording, I was disappointed as the Chiefs were ahead, but I didn't know the final result. 

Then the newspaper arrived and I found out that our team had lost in the last few seconds of the game. Oh, no! Disappointment again!

I got online and read a bit more of the results and a bit of sadness hit me. Even so, I have a life to live, so how do I put this in perspective?

Some would say, "Don't care about football." Others will live in the continual rehashing of the game and be armchair quarterbacks re-analyzing each decision and chiding the coach or specific players for their failures which caused the loss. My question remains this morning... what really matters?
Yesterday I watched the news as the stock market went over 23,000 for the first time ever and stock analysts were talking about why this happened. Then United Airlines stock took a serious hit and fell 12% in a day and the talking heads had their opinions about such and I wondered, "What does all this really matter?" 

Matter. Substance. Stuff. One dictionary described 'matter' as coming from the 12th to 13th century in the Old French word matere which in turn came from the Latin materia “matter, substance”, from mater “mother”. WHAT? If Mother is the root of what matters, how does that work?

Some would say I ponder too much. Maybe my own mother would say so. Still, consideration of this idea, what matters, or things that don't matter, is all about perspective and orientation. King David put things into good order as he realigned the roles of the Levites in Bible days. In 1 Chronicles in the Bible, we read this:

Now David built houses for himself in the city of David; and he prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched a tent for it. Then David said, “^aNo one is to carry the ark of God but the Levites; for the Lord chose them to carry the ark of God, and to minister to Him forever.” And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the Lord to its place, which he had prepared for it. Then David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amminadab, and said to them, “You are the heads of the fathers’ households of the Levites; consecrate yourselves both you and your relatives, that you may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel, to the place that I have prepared for it.  Because you did not carry it at the first, the Lord our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.” So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel. and the sons of the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders, with the poles thereon as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord. 

So it was David, with the elders of Israel and the captains over thousands, who went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the house of Obed-edom with joy. 

Now David was clothed with a robe of fine linen with all the Levites who were carrying the ark, and the singers and Chenaniah the leader of the singing with the singers. David also wore an ephod of linen. Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouting, and with sound of the horn, with trumpets, with loud-sounding cymbals, with harps and lyres. 

It happened when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and making merry; and she despised him in her heart. And they brought in the ark of God and placed it inside the tent which David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God. When David had finished offering the burnt offering and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord. And he distributed to everyone of Israel, both man and woman, to everyone a loaf of bread and a portion of meat and a raisin cake. (chapter 15 verses 1- chapter 16.3)

Matter. What mattered to King David was not the applause of the people nor even of his wife. He wanted to fix a mistake from the past, and he chose to seek God first this time. He wanted to get things right. And get what matters to the top of his 'to do' list.

Yeshua said something about this also. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

What were the 'these things?" They were lesser in significance to the Messiah. He spoke about them earlier with "Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’"

The stuff, the matter that fills the advertising budgets of the televisions and the newspapers are what we will eat, drink or wear. Yeshua said, "They don't matter." What he meant was "Put them in an order of importance." Care about the stock market; care about your football team, even care about your mother. But worry... not a good idea.

What really matters, most of all, is to seek God first thing today and tomorrow and each day of your life. Remember Him. Ponder Him. What is God saying and doing in your life just now? What is He saying to the world? What does He want for us and our mishpochah? 

That, dear reader, is the key to abundant life. What really matters is the pleasure of God. Enjoy Him today. He won't disappoint you like the airline stock or the 11 men and the coach on the field. Even your mother will fail you at times. But God will never disappoint you if you seek Him. And know Him. And love Him. 

Thank God it's Friday. 

Howard Hughes, Rules Don't Apply: A review

I'm not an expert on Howard Hughes. I didn't see the 2006 movie about Clifford Irving, the fake Hughes biographer, starring Richard Gere in Irving's role in "The Hoax." Leonardo de Caprio's performance as Hughes in "The Aviator" (2004) featured his earlier life in Hollywood and in the airline industry from the 1920s and 1930s. Warren Beatty's 'biography' of Hughes picks up and ends in 1964, so there is no overlap with Aviator. Beatty's super-involvement included producing, directing, writing the screenplay, and acting as the lead character. Let me highlight a few moments of the film.

Four main characters feature: Beatty as Hughes, Lily Collins as Marla Mabrey, Matthew Broderick as Levar Mathis, and Alden Ehrenreich as Frank. (For those who follow this blog about many Jewish concerns, the last three of these listed have Jewish ancestry). Other characters are played by the likes of Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Candice Bergen in more than cameo roles.

The ambling story concerns Hughes in conflict with the world: New York bankers (led by Oliver Platt), his own staff, and just about everyone. He makes Marla wait for her one-off appointment with him after her screen test. He makes us wait ... and wait. It seems interminable. Hughes doesn't appear as luminous as most would make of themselves if they were billionaires (or was he 'only' a millionaire?) In fact, he stays in the shadows most of the movie. The choice of lighting reminded me of "Citizen Kane" and even the mystery of Rosebud seemed to flashback on me in "Rules."

Beatty uses the ingenue Mabrey as a foil, and in the movie this Baptist woman is the daughter of Bening (Beatty's real wife). Too weird. Collins as Marla makes perfect sense. The real-life daughter of singer Phil Collins, has been in a few things, but this is her first major role. Her IMDB listing is here . And she's playing a starlet-wannabe coming to Los Angeles/ Hollywood for the chance of a lifetime. She comes from Front Royal, Virginia, still a rural town near Washington, DC. Her Baptist preacher has inspired her to know about virtues including sexual behavior and about abortion and such. Some surprises ensue as you might expect.

I will not spoil the ending, but will tell you that this is not an Irish tale. It's pure Hollywood. At least in its endings.

There was a momentous scene which seemed to turn the movie, but Beatty didn't stay black-to-white as I expected. In that scene he 'came out' and turned on a lamp near his darkened self. If I remember right, the background music of Mahler's 5th even changed its feeling. He caught a serious glimpse of his DNA-in-the-future, and that seemed to give him spark and lift. But Beatty didn't keep it going to my disappointment. By the way, for Donald Mitchell, perhaps the most important Mahler scholar writing today, the Fifth Symphony “initiates a new concept of an interior drama.” The idea of a programmatic symphony has not vanished, “it has gone underground, rather, or inside.” I wonder if that influenced the choice of the 5th throughout.

Perhaps Beatty saw in Hughes a great American enigma. A life of massive financial success and yet a life of wishing to be in relationship with his departed father. A desire to keep his father's legacy, or at least his name, in perpetuity. And utter dissatisfaction with those who disagreed with him, on any level, even about ice cream availability.

He lived as a recluse, see these facts about the real Hughes in this article from History.com I'm sure some of the real story influenced Beatty. And then there is the Hollywood add-on as per usual.

Hughes was a megalomaniac, but I'm not a psychologist, so probably shouldn't evaluate him as such with such little information. Still, Beatty made us think this in the very slow opening (at leat 45 minutes of the 2 hours) and Hughes' obsession with his own reputation and possible identification as crazy.

Someone asked me "Did you like the movie?" And honestly I never quite know if I liked some movies until I sit down to write the review of it. This one is certainly in that category. What I liked was clear...the parts by Sheen, Bergen, Platt, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin... they all were subjugated to the great one. Beatty made it clear, in their deference, and their compliance, their opposition and their diminution, that Hughes was the greater. I liked the ingenue and her life choices she was continually forced to make. I liked the Radaresque Broderick in his subjugation to Hughes, until that one moment of confrontation. I liked the forward-thinking Frank, the chauffeur. I suppose there was enough in the movie to give it another look, down the road, on an airplane at 35,000 feet in a few months.

ABC News in the US gave it a moderate score, and finished with "When "Rules Don’t Apply" is good, it’s a delight. When it’s not, you just wish you were somewhere else." Oy, did I agree with that one!

And maybe then I will think of what I have to do to live in subjugation to my Greater One, the Almighty. No matter how I see myself in this movie, as I identify with one or more characters (at a time), I know that in the end, no matter how much I gain or lose, there is a Greater One. A God who gives of Himself that we might have life. I had a good relationship at times with my dad, but when I met the Eternal Father, the Lord God Almighty, I found my own darkness-to-light moment and the music changed from Mahler's 5th to Mahler's Resurrection!

No enigma now. Life comes and life lives on, because of the One who said of Himself (and which is a sign on one of the churches in the early part of the movie), "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." (Yeshua, the messiah quoted by his friend and biographer John) Thanks be to God.

Can the underdog win? NCAA and Easter.

It's that time of year in the US. They call it "March Madness" and it has to do with basketball. University basketball is thrilling, as thousands of young people stand and scream the full 60 minutes of action. This is finals b-ball, and the top 64 teams in the country vie for dominance, ending with the Final Four. Those teams will play in the finals on the first weekend of April in Houston, Texas. The tournament is a single-elimination affair with 16 teams in each of four divisions. The number one in each division plays the 16; 2 plays the 15; and so forth. Those rankings are decided by experts over the last few weeks of the regular season and finalised the Sunday before the tournament begins. It began this week.

Surprises are common as a team will get up over the predicted winner and the crowd will go wild. Such was the case yesterday and today as Yale beat Baylor, Stephen F Austin beat West Virginia, Hawaii beat California. And more are forthcoming.

Some outside the US may think of the Electoral process with primaries and caucuses as Madness. It certainly seems to be so titled.

And maybe a similarity is that underdogs may just win in one contest or another. I have an emotional investment in the basketball as my former uni, the University of Kansas, is ranked #1 and I hope for them to last through the Final Four and cut down the nets (gain the ultimate victory). I have nothing invested in the political process in the States, and it looks like the natural underdogs are long gone from the national contests.

But underdogs who win are great stories. In March Madness they are often titled the "Cinderella" team. That's a reference to the fairy tale of the hated step-sister who serves the others and has no chance in a million of gaining the prize, in her case, the prince. But as all good fairy tales, she does win the prince and they live happily ever after.

I think it's an American value, certainly a Jewish one, that we cheer for the underdog. We hope that little David beats the giant Goliath. We want the little Israel to dominate in the 1948 war against the entire Arab League. We want little Yale to beat big bad Baylor. There is a sense of hope for us, I suppose, when this happens. Not many of us are noble; fewer of great significance. We want hope for us to succeed in life and to at least have a good life. We may not want the ultimate victory of world dominance, but we want to be happy.

Maybe ours is the ultimate underdog story. When we see Hollywood celebrities who have everything end up with nothing, suiciding themselves, or leaving families destitute, what hope do we (really) have? When sports stars wind up with nothing, after having gained the world, what hope do we have?

The answer: The Ultimate Victor. Not in the NCAA men's basketball tournament (sometimes nicknamed "The Dance"). Not in the four golf majors. Not in the US presidential races. The Ultimate Victor was the ultimate underdog. Born in a little hamlet of a village on the back side of ancient Judea, Yeshua was a real nobody. Nothing of note about him. His parentage was from King David and before him the tribe of Judah, but that's about all he had as a claim to being a somebody. His adopting father was a carpenter, hardly a significant leader in the little community around the Sea of Galilee. Nazareth was another village, far from the political capital of Jerusalem, with little influence. This Yeshua was raised with little hope of being a somebody, and at 30 he entered into the public sphere, with little chance of gaining popularity. He taught a handful of men; they wandered from village to city to hamlet and had a little following. At times hundreds, even thousands gathered to listen, and on a Sunday before Passover he had crowds thronging to see him. But days later, those same crowds were counting him less-than-human, and hoping to toss him aside, yelling "Crucify him!" to the Roman leadership who eventually did just that.

His crucifixion was insignificant as so many were already being killed in that same way, even a couple other criminals next to this Yeshua on that Friday morning. The sky turned dark, as if even heaven didn't notice, nor want to notice the scene. The Sabbath was coming, and most left as the ultimate underdog was laid to rest in a new grave.

Tears, sadness, weeping, malaise, disappointment abounded, as their hoped-for messiah lay dead, behind a sealed Roman grave.

Friday night. Saturday. Saturday night. Sunday morning.

As if out of nothing, the stone in front of the tomb was rolled back, the grave emptied and the underdog was risen. RISEN! He appeared to some ladies, then the 12, then to 500 after that death. What? This cannot be. But it was. #16 had beaten #1. Yeshua was risen from the dead. The Ultimate Victor had conquered death. Hosea the Jewish prophet said, "O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting?" (13.14) That triumph over the last great enemy, death, was accomplished by God's noble Son, Yeshua, whom many call Jesus. That's the ultimate victory. Death could not hold him; He rose from the dead. And He lives forever to make intercession for us. He died and lives to bring us into relationship with the Father. To bring YOU into relationship with the Father. Say "Yes" to Him now. Believe in Yeshua and you will have eternal life. Your existence will end one day, but your life will live forever if you do.

John the apostle and friend of Yeshua said, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith." (1 John 5.4) He's the Ultimate Victor who brings us the ultimate victory. Eternal life with God. "but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Yeshua the Messiah." (1 Cor 15.57)

Hannah, her sisters, Woody Allen and me

The year was around 1985. The scene was the Upper West Side in New York City. Specifically it was inside Leo's Barbershop on 73rd and Amsterdam. About 11 a.m. on a weekday. I was inside the shop and Leo was making me look decent. His shop was unusually empty. I was the only customer in the shop. It was eerie. Like most in his trade, he depended on a steady flow of customers to pay the bills and get ahead. He had been a barber for decades, in NYC mostly, but was originally from Italy. So that I was the only one inside with him on a normal workday seemed odd. I asked him about the reason for such.

He told me that Mr Woody Allen had hired the shop from midday and that I was the last customer of the day. Seemed that Woody had hired out the shop for a previous movie he made, and that he and Leo had 'a relationship' of sorts. I did note a photo of Woody on the wall behind me. And if Woody were going to take the whole place, I wondered what movie it might be. Leo didn't know.

A few moments later, almost on cue, two men entered dismissing the "Closed" sign on the door. It was Woody and an offsider, no doubt. Wow, here was a movie legend, producer, director, writer, and here I was getting my haircut under the cape, and under the efficient tonsorial wizardry of Leo. I really wanted to speak with him. I was, after all, wearing a "Jews for Jesus" tshirt like this one pictured.  And Woody is a famous Jewish man, and dealt with stories of angst and the search for meaning and such. But he was in a class way above mine...

So I let it go. He was busy anyway, discussing so many things with his offsider. Leo finished my haircut and he took the hair-capturing cape off me. I arose from the barber chair. And Woody looked at me, or rather my shirt. He looked away. Then he did a double-take, looking back at the shirt. And that's when I should have said something. But I didn't. I'm sorry to this day that I didn't. Regrets, I have a few.

I left and didn't think about this episode particularly again for months. Then the next Woody Allen movie came out entitled, "Hannah and her sisters."  (1986) It was a typical Allen film with a great cast (Mia Farrow, Dianne Weist, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey, Richard Jenkins, Carrie Fisher...) and the problems of life and the meaning of life. The Allen character in the movie is (mis)diagnosed with a brain tumor and he begins seriously even investigating religion and spirituality. He is, of course, a Jewish man in the role he plays, and his search for meaning actually takes him to the Catholic church and he seeks to convert. The scenes that follow are comic, real, disclosing and helpful for anyone who wants to know what Jewish people are thinking in this consideration of conversion.

After Woody meets with a priest, we see Woody on the Upper West Side. He goes inside a book shop and buys some items. That book shop was actually Leo's barbershop! The production crew changed things around and only used the front of the shop. Perhaps the inside shots were on the cutting room floor. I never knew. So the Woody character named Mickey, returns to his home and unpacks the conversion ware. What is inside the brown paper bag? What did Mickey buy at the Catholic book shop? A Bible, of course. And a crucifix (The Catholic version with Jesus still affixed to the cross). A loaf of white bread. A jar of mayonnaise.

No wonder Woody did a double-take on that barbershop day. His film character Mickey was going to convert to Jesus and here I was inside the shop where it would happen wearing a shirt .... well, you get it.

It's not too late for the real Woody Allen to write me. I promise not to be shy and avoid his email.
I promise to answer his questions, if they persist or linger at all.

And I promise to answer yours as well. Like why the white bread and mayonnaise? Like why search for meaning and give up before you find it? Ask, you just might get an answer that works.

Life changes and photography

I was tagging some photos from the past on my Flickr page and saw this shot I took of my neighbors as they celebrated their success in the chamber of commerce voting in Bondi Junction. It was only two years ago when the voting took place and they were elected a very successful operation in the area. The ladies gathered in front of the sign, like a red carpet gala, and I shot the picture. All good.

The hair salon continues now in a new location about 100 metres from the old one, and is even bigger and has continual clientele. Only what struck me was the staff is-- with one exception-- completely new. Only the owner/ operator continues (she's in the middle) and the others have moved on. Now I understand that society is more mobile than when I was a child, but 80% turnover in 24 months?  Is that normal and if so, what are the implications?

The Murray (River) Pioneer in March this year published a fairly dull editorial which however included this sentiment, "Take Zombie movies, for example (because we’re going to need all the training we can get when the apocalypse rocks up). They show – the writers’ interpretation of – how people put in such an extreme situation would change. They’d change the way they think, the way they act, the way they react and what they believe in. They’d find a way to carry on.
If we each looked back a year, we could see that there were people in our lives who have since moved away, or become less prominent in our day-to-day activities.
That’s not a reflection on you or them, it’s just life.

In high school there’s a certain stability, an expectation that you will see the same people every day, for years. And when it came to the final few days of school we all made promises that we would always keep in touch – promises we eventually broke, at least with some of our classmates." (Murray Pioneer, "When people move out of our lives", March 26, 2014)

Sorry for the length of that quote; I felt it needed context. The issue of the in/out nature of people and our lives is complexifying, not simplifying life for us all. 

My friend Mark McCrindle lives and works in Sydney. Mark's website . He is the senior researcher and guide on so many trends and perspectives in the social world that he's the go-to guy for most Australian television networks and radio outlets. He is constantly demonstrating statistics of the mobility of society and thus the need for people to adjust from 'we all know this' kind of conversation to a more initiating and welcoming concern. 

I like Mark and appreciate all his hard work and the reality of life changes continues to strike me. People change; situations change; interactions continue to change. Life is only static for a person when he is buried. On the golf course some of the men with whom I play have this saying when asked about their life. "At least I'm walking on top of the ground, and not parked underneath it." Makes sense that if we are on top, that things will ever evolve and amend and grow and change. "That's life!"

That said, why do we hold on so dearly to things as if they do not change or do not have to change? Why are we surprised when people tell us their child is 15 years old now? Our surprise is usually based on our own thinking that we have not aged, why would anything else age? We are surprised when we see a new photo of a former dashing young Hollywood celebrity who hasn't aged very well at all. Because we see the images of that person on film or television when they were 25 and now they are near 45, and the film didn't age, we think the person shouldn't have either. 

When the Amish or ultra-Orthodox Jewish person turns away from a photographer, it's because of a desire to keep (and help you keep) the 3rd commandment (out of 10). That's this one:  "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth." (Exodus 20.4) The locations of the photo shoots are limited to nowhere, neither in heaven above or on earth or under the earth. Fairly comprehensive. Of course, the God who told us that, also told us to "let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you," and included in that building (Mishkan) were angels (Exodus 25), almond blossoms and branches (Ex. 25). Later on in the Temple of Solomon God wanted a building which included images of Cherubim and twelve bulls outwardly displayed(1 Kings 6:24–29; 2 Chronicles 4:15). 

Obviously as Francis Schaeffer rightly commented in "Art and the Bible", the use of images did not necessarily mean the Israelites were worshiping them. Having an image is not idolatry. But bowing and worshiping it; that's idolatry. So I continue to photograph the ladies at Headoffice Hair Salon over the years Hair salon photos and each time I see a new crew I'm reminded...make the most of today. Help people in my life today. They may not be there tomorrow. Or I may not be. Life changes. Make the best of it.