Category Archives: Faith and Culture

Avatar: What’s the Big Deal?

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Travis Griffith

Travis Griffith finally buckles under pressure to see Avatar, and shares his reaction to the film and its implications on spirituality.

My brother called it a “life changing experience.”

My mom said it was “an amazing insight into spirituality.”

A friend said it was just “a remake of Dances With Wolves.”

The pope called it “simplistic and sappy.”

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, said the film “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.”

Then Avatar won for best drama at the Golden Globes and now is a favorite at the Oscars, so I decided I had to experience the film for myself, make up my own mind and then share my thoughts with all my Relief friends. The overall take away: What’s the big deal?

James Cameron, the film’s director, said,

Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected, all human beings to each other and us to the Earth. And if you have to go four and a half light years to another, made-up planet to appreciate the miracle of the world that we have right here, well, you know what, that’s the wonder of cinema right there, that’s the magic.

Of course, that’s why the Vatican says the film supports a worship of nature and neo-paganism (which obviously is bad for business).

Here’s the deal: Avatar does indeed support a worship of nature. It also supports a love for one another and the importance of not judging other people, regardless of race or beliefs. In the movie, the Na’vi people have developed a vibrant, complex, and sophisticated culture based on a profound spiritual connection to their planet, one another and the encompassing spirit they call Eywa. The operative concept for the Na’vi is balance. Their lives express this balance in body, mind and spirit.

A review at movieguide.org said,

In reality, you are connected to the earth by gravity, not by spirit. The Bible tells us the earth will be burned up and there will be a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness reigns. We are stewards of the earth and its creatures, not brothers. We are accountable to God for what we do with the resources He’s given us.

The spirit world is not something in need of balance. It is a war zone where evil spirits want to drag you into lust, greed, anger, and depression while the Spirit of God seeks to rescue you from darkness.

Who's the more enlightened one?

So the hard-line Christians blast the spirit world with their “reality” of fire, fear and brimstone while lauding heaven as God’s Kingdom. Pagans reject heaven and revel in the universal energy of the spirit world. Who is right?

What if the Christian heaven and the pagan spirit world turned out to be the same place behind the veil, just with different marketing here on Earth?

Yet, the Vatican tries to protect its stake in religion while belittling messages like the one in Avatar. It would have been great to see the Vatican lead a discussion towards a more loving and accepting version of spirituality instead of calling the film’s relevant message “simplistic.” Some might even call the type of spirituality portrayed in Avatar as more advanced when compared to the archaic beliefs and practices of Catholicism.

In the end, all Avatar asks us to do is love each other and our planet so humanity can evolve into a place of unconditional bliss. That, after all, is the same ultimate goal many of the world’s religions have, they just all seem to call it something different. Catholics call it the Kingdom of God. Buddhists call it Nirvana. Avatar called it Pandora. Same damn thing, just with different paths that lead there, all as valid as the other.

As long as beliefs are based on love, who’s to say who gets to claim the correct one? I say choose what feels right to you, without fear of being judged for your beliefs by someone else.

If you’ve seen the movie and want to share your thoughts, or care to challenge anything I’ve said here, I’d love to have a discussion with you.

Love… to all.

***

Travis Griffith, who left behind the corporate marketing world, choosing family and writing in lieu of “a comfortable life” financially, is a former atheist trying to define what leading a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. captures only a fraction of his passion for fatherhood.

World Peace: All Figured Out

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Travis Griffith

Travis Griffith has a surprisingly simple plan for World Peace. Would it work?

Guess what I did this weekend?

Well, aside from watching my Cardinals get spanked by the Saints in the NFL Playoffs, I figured out the way to world peace.

Yeah, I know. And it wasn’t even that hard.

First, I was thinking about the reasons why humans on Earth fight with each other. The biggest reason, though certainly not the only one, is this: faith. Why? Because when humans have faith in a god alone, it makes them crazy. It makes them believe their way is the only right way, and others should believe it too.

Here’s a simple example that boils down the history of faith-based fighting into a brief exchange between characters. Imagine these people sitting in a beautiful café at sunrise, enjoying a latte and talking about faith:

The Christian: Jesus is the Lord and the only true path to God’s Kingdom.
The Jew: I don’t believe in Jesus.
The Christian: You are going to Hell unless you accept Jesus into your heart.
The Jew: That’s why we don’t like you very much.
The Muslim: Just don’t come to our land and say Jesus is Lord. Allah is the one and only God. And we’ll fight to defend Him.
The Christian: Christ is the world’s only savior and those who don’t believe will burn in Hell.
Elise (the pagan): Enough with Hell. Just love and worship the planet, and the people and nature around you.
The Christian, The Jew and the Muslim: You’re crazy. That’s worshipping a false deity.
The Muslim: You’re no better, Jew.

Pretty soon, the peaceful little café erupts in a firestorm of punches, hate, judgment and lots of spilled coffee.

Isn’t faith crazy?

Now, what if each of these people had faith in their gods, but also in each other? Maybe the conversation would go like this:

The Christian: I’m curious about what you guys believe.
The Jew: We basically believe what you do, but without the whole Jesus as savior thing.
The Christian: Fascinating. Tell me more.
The Muslim: We believe in a peaceful planet, ruled by one God, who we submit ourselves to.
The Christian: Sounds lovely.
Elise (the pagan): We worship our Earth and respect our gods and goddesses while exploring spirituality.
The Christian, the Muslim and the Jew: Still crazy, but hey, that’s cool.
The Christian: I’ll tell you what, I’ll pick up the bill this time. Nice chatting, friends.

Now the café is a place of love and acceptance. Everyone’s beliefs are still intact and each person had the opportunity to gain some knowledge. Would it really be that hard to expand this little café scene to the entire world?

Granted, on the world scene we’re dealing with spilled blood instead of coffee, but the solution is the same. Love each other. Keep faith in whatever gods we choose, but while working to restore faith in the humanity that surrounds us.

Why is it so hard for humans to accept people with different beliefs? Could love and acceptance truly be the keys to world peace? I have faith that they are. What do you think?

Love… to all.

***

Travis Griffith, who left behind the corporate marketing world, choosing family and writing in lieu of “a comfortable life” financially, is a former atheist trying to define what leading a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. captures only a fraction of his passion for fatherhood.

Special Relief Offer: Send us your 700 Club member card, we’ll send you a free subscription

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Christopher Fisher

In response to the recent comments by the Reverend Pat Robertson blaming the disaster in Haiti on the impoverished nation’s supposed “pact with the Devil,” many Christians are understandably distancing themselves from the very public Evangelical figure.

Mr. Robertson’s views are increasingly seen by Christians as anti-intellectual, bigoted, and not representative of mainstream Christianity in America . Relief: A Christian Literary Expression is willing to provide some incentive for persons who may be considering withdrawing financial support from Pat Robertson and his 700 Club.

700 Club members who cancel their memberships in protest of Mr. Robertson’s latest hateful comment will receive a one-year subscription to the journal–two issues of Relief–free of charge. Participants need simply to mail their 700 Club membership cards in two or more pieces to:

Relief: A Christian Literary Expression
60 W. Terra Cotta Suite B
PMB 156
Crystal Lake, IL 60014

You Won’t Find Any of That Here

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Michelle Metcalf

Relief welcomes new blogger, Michelle Metcalf. Today’s entry is her first in a series titled “Among the Irreverent.”

On my first day of ballet class, I showed up in a bathing suit and pantyhose. My mom didn’t get around to ordering a black leotard beforehand, and I don’t think we had the extra money anyway. I was four, but I distinctly remember anticipating what it would feel like to take off my coat and to not look anything like anyone else—the bathing suit was a white one-piece with bright blue, green, and red almost Aztec looking patterned lines of dots and zigzags. My pantyhose were also white, thick textured wool—the kind of pantyhose that little girls wear to church with dresses and black patent Mary Jane shoes in the winter, not the thin pale pink tights that ballerinas were supposed to wear.  I remember crying on the couch that was in front of the window at our new house while my mom gathered her purse and keys to leave. I still can recall the wet spot on the olive-gold velour saturated with snot and tears, and how I pressed my face into the cushions to muffle my sobs of dread.

Our first ballet lesson would be a lesson in leaping. The ballet term for this is grand jeté, “big thrown step”. The instructor, Miss Beverly, had this oven mitt with eyes and teeth and short little legs that looked like an alligator, which she placed in the center of the studio. We lined up against the dance bar along the back wall each waiting for our turn to make a running jump over the oven mitt. She called this activity, “the swamp” and I quickly got the gist: run and grand jeté, or be eaten.

Suffice it to say I am feeling faint echoes of the aforementioned experience as I begin this first entry, maybe even about writing in general. Full disclosure: there has again been some crying on the couch. Not to mention recurring fears of being devoured alive.

Mostly, I fear that I don’t or won’t have anything interesting to say. Should I be funny? (I can be funny, but should I be funny? What if it is perceived as snarky? So should I be more serious, reverent? Like, should I throw in some Bible verses as epigraphs and quote Thomas Merton and Wendell Berry a lot? I can do that. I can. But do I have to?) And what kind of impression do I want to make for my first impression? (I mean, you never get a second chance to make one right? How’s that for pressure?))

One would think that my graduate degree in creative writing would somehow be serving me right now, at least in terms of providing some sort of it’s-just-a-blog-not-a-thesis- kind-of-confidence as I begin.  OK, and for the record, I just want to say that I absolutely did NOT Google “How to Write a Blog Entry” or scan eHow articles for instruction. (And even IF I did do this, it would have most likely only been helpful in the form of procrastination time disguised in the name of “research”.) More importantly, you would also think that, by now, I would’ve already incorporated the ballet class metaphor: the predictable tie in to the grand jeté, the lesson in leaping as perfect segue into leaping into the world of blogging. I could, I guess; but I just can’t.  You won’t find any of that here. Turns out, I showed up then the same way I do now–dressed should I accidentally fall in.

*     *     *

Michelle Metcalf often wonders if her hesitancy to dance wildly at weddings with the rest of her friends is somehow linked to the alligator in ballet class, but she’s not sure. She’s also become slightly more accustomed to not always dressing like everyone else. She lives in Cincinnati, OH with her husband and dog.

The Haiti Earthquake: Sending Love, not Judgment

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Travis Griffith

Travis Griffith reacts to the Haiti earthquake and the troubling reason Pat Robertson has for why it happened.

The devil doesn’t exist anymore. I got rid of him.

I say that, and people will call me crazy. Yet Pat Robertson can go on TV and claim that Haiti suffered a horrible earthquake because its people made a pact with the devil.

And people believe him.

If you want to watch the video for yourself, you can do so here.

The earthquake in Haiti is a tragic event that has claimed an untold number of lives. The people there need all the compassion and love they can get, and I for one am trying to send what I can to them.

The people in Haiti do not need to be told they brought this among themselves. Maybe a reader can clarify for me, but I don’t see how Robertson can call himself a man of God while claiming that humans deserved this earthquake by rejecting God and accepting the devil. That’s an arrogant claim that degrades the whole of humanity, not just those who are suffering in Haiti at this very moment. I don’t believe for a second that God would unleash his wrath on one of the poorest countries on Earth.

I contend that God doesn’t even have a wrath. God has love, for all of humanity.

Robertson’s latest claim is a stunning and sickening example of what is wrong with religion, and only proves that a more compassionate, loving form of religion is due on this planet.

Even the parts ravaged by poverty, death and earthquakes.

Love… to all.

***

If you would like to aid in the relief of the earthquake in Haiti, please visit  World Vision, Edeyo, Red Cross, or text “HAITI” to 90999 on your cell phone to send $10 to the American Red Cross.