Lars is at once one of the more endearing and frustrating characters you can encounter in film. In the opening scenes of Lars and the Real Girl, we are introduced to a quiet and reserved guy who goes about life on the back row, making his way through his job, his church, his family, and what might pass for friendship without making too deep an impression. Because he offers so little, we get to know Lars primarily through the responses of others. We see his sister-in-law’s hunger to have him as a vital part of their family. We see the receptionist at work and the older ladies at church reach out to ask him about his life. We see the girl who shows obvious interest only to experience his awkward indifference. Taken together, we know little of Lars except that those he interacts with seem to like him, and so we can too.
With the character offered, we can let the squirming begin. His sister-in-law and brother are excited/bewildered when Lars shows up one night and says he has a new girlfriend and would like to bring her over for dinner and would like them to let her stay with them. Anticipating an exciting new chapter for the reclusive family member, they are shocked when he shows up with a life-size doll we had ordered off of the internet. They ran the gamut of emotions as they come to realize through the dinner that this is not a joke, and in fact Lars is fully convinced that she is real and is intent on cultivating a relationship with her.
The film navigates the awkwardness expertly. Lars is not interested in sex, and the chasteness in the relationship invites us to consider the nature of his delusion and his need for healing. We aren’t allowed to dismiss him, and in fact those that surround him refuse to. His family leads him to a psychologist, who convinces him of the need for them to meet weekly for his doll’s treatments. But as important as that relationship is, the key to Lars’ journey is the response from the community. His friends at work go along with the delusion, to allow him to engage socially in ways he has never done before. The church community embraces him and embraces her, finding a way to navigate the weirdness by emphasizing Lars’ place as a part of their family. His family feeds her, bathes her, dresses her, and goes to great length to incorporate her into their lives, all for the sake of reaching out Lars.
Over time, the community’s acceptance of the doll takes on comical dimensions. She eventually finds volunteer work in the community, and involvement that creates for her a life apart from Lars. While Lars has manufactured a relationship, the community essentially teaches him about the price of relationship, and the need to think unselfishly in our most precious relationships. While Lars created a relationship built around safety and control, he slowly comes to realize that relationships don’t function with that kind of control in mind.
For a film with a such a bizarre and often whimsical premise and beat, I was surprised to find how moved I was by its resolution. The community’s embrace of Lars and acceptance of the situation is tested in extreme ways, but the depth of character on display in their response was moving. Lars doesn’t experience a “Hollywood Healing” where everything is finally put together in his life, but he’s moved to a better place, and that movement is as gentle as the actions of those who served as its agents. We’re left with hope for his future, knowing that he has a remarkable community behind him.
Lars and the Real Girl was written and directed by two relative unknowns, Nancy Oliver and Craig Gillespie, but I hope the critical acclaim it has received invites more from them. I applaud their depiction of the church community, and find it an almost prophetic challenge to the real church. Can we be as accepting of the odd folks within our ranks? Is our church community the kind of place where broken people can walk through a gentle journey of healing? Lars is a remarkable picture of healing and the need for a community to embrace their broken people. At its best it offers a “gospel on display” that churches and Christians can and should find provoking as we reflect on our own community life, and of the powerful role that people play in each our healing journeys.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Putting the X Back in Xmas
Walking through the labyrinth of the catacombs in Rome, one comes across some of the earliest symbols used by the church. As people would gather and mourn their loved ones, sometimes because they had been martyred for their faith, they would carve expressions of their faith in the stone. One of the most common was what would appear to us as an “X” and and overlapping “P.” It was the combination of two Greek letters, “Chi” and “Rho,” the first two letters of the Greek word “Christos,” or Christ. For us, the most enduring symbol of the Christian faith is probably the cross. For the early church, it was most likely that Chi-Rho combination.
When did the letter “X” come into use to represent Christ? The evidence isn’t clear, though most trace its origins back to those early days of the church and this Chi-Rho symbol. What we do know is that as early as the 1400’s, when Johannes Gutenberg was first introducing the printing press, its use became widespread as one of many abbreviations that were highly valued in a day of high printing costs. X was widely used as an abbreviation for Christ, and terms like “Xmas,” “Xn,” and other derivatives were quite common and considered entirely appropriate.
One would think that 600 years would be enough time to get used to an idea.
I usually try to stay out of a lot of cultural wars, finding most of them just too exasperating and often silly. But one has come home for me in the last few weeks, and seems like it may be worth taking a break from reviewing films to comment.
Our church is holding a Christmas celebration this year. Striving to make better inroads into our community, we have done a lot to try and build up our annual tradition and add features that might be of interest to our neighbors, things like a petting zoo and a visit with Santa. We’ve been trying to get the word out, spreading the word with door hangers and public notices. And of course we’ve used the marquee on our property, which is where we got into trouble.
Having limited space with a lot to communicate, several of our postings over the past few weeks have talked about our “Xmas Celebration.” One would have thought we had posted “Happy Birthday Satan” on Halloween. I wouldn’t say we have been inundated, but there have certainly been several calls from usually less than gracious people offended at our posting. Despite our efforts to educate them about their faith’s own history, our callers are usually pretty much locked into their assessment that our church is set on “taking Christ out of Christmas.”
The topic fascinates me on several fronts. As my comments at the beginning might suggest, to anyone who strives to appreciate the rich and diverse history of the Christian faith, the debate itself is fundamentally flawed. The use of “X” to represent Christ is very much a Christian symbol. It’s ours, and using it offers us the chance to echo and honor the very earliest days of our faith and the people who, often in the face of great persecution, were used mightily by God to pass on a faith that endures across the world thousands of years later. It is a wonderful connection to a remarkable past that we should seek to honor and celebrate. In the midst of a season that offers us many positive and negative things to be shaped by, I’m glad to point to such a rich tradition that is there to shape us, and challenge the historic amnesia that pervades the church.
Of course even if the symbol didn’t have such a rich tradition, it strikes me that the debate is still remarkable silly. Reading an article the other day, the writer had observed a busy person working the checkout at a retail store. Handing the customer their package, the clerk offered “Happy Holidays,” to which they got a terse, and indeed merriless, reply “It’s Merry Christmas!” I expect that this person probably would have called had they seen our sign as well.
What’s the issue? We live in a diverse culture. Many celebrate Christmas, including many who do not worship the Christ for whom the holiday exists, but many do not. Do we want to see a culture where people feel compelled to pay lip service to a faith that they do not subscribe to? The media allows Chevy Chase and Bart Simpson to tell us about the “true meaning of Christmas” (as Bart would say, “We all know Christmas is all about the birth of Santa”). In that context, shouldn’t Christians (excuse me, Xns) seek to invest the holiday with greater meaning, so that people might encounter the real “reason for the season.”
Admittedly, there is a ridiculous hostility on the other side of this cultural war, too. In this camp, advocates are pursuing a “naked public square,” where symbols of any faith are stripped from public places. Pushing back against this is worthwhile, but the response requires a bit more subtlety than we are seeing. Our battle is not for empty symbols in the public square, but instead a context where we can have a robust and meaningful conversation about the coming of our Lord.
The way that Christians need to respond is of course complex and necessarily variegated. But at times it may mean that we appreciate the use of symbols that represent Christ in quieter ways. It is what Eugene Peterson speaks of when he calls Christians to practice “subversiveness” in their culture, offering a message and a lifestyle that quietly offers an alternative to the culture without having to stand in opposition to it.
So I guess we need to put the “X” back in “Xmas,” practicing a greater appreciation for symbols, and looking for quieter ways to express our faith and message in a culture inundated with hostility. One thing’s for sure, the non-Christians that saw our marquee wouldn’t care one wit about the “X” on our sign or the one whom the “X” represents until they see the lives of the people who put the “X” there.
Merry Xmas!
When did the letter “X” come into use to represent Christ? The evidence isn’t clear, though most trace its origins back to those early days of the church and this Chi-Rho symbol. What we do know is that as early as the 1400’s, when Johannes Gutenberg was first introducing the printing press, its use became widespread as one of many abbreviations that were highly valued in a day of high printing costs. X was widely used as an abbreviation for Christ, and terms like “Xmas,” “Xn,” and other derivatives were quite common and considered entirely appropriate.
One would think that 600 years would be enough time to get used to an idea.
I usually try to stay out of a lot of cultural wars, finding most of them just too exasperating and often silly. But one has come home for me in the last few weeks, and seems like it may be worth taking a break from reviewing films to comment.
Our church is holding a Christmas celebration this year. Striving to make better inroads into our community, we have done a lot to try and build up our annual tradition and add features that might be of interest to our neighbors, things like a petting zoo and a visit with Santa. We’ve been trying to get the word out, spreading the word with door hangers and public notices. And of course we’ve used the marquee on our property, which is where we got into trouble.
Having limited space with a lot to communicate, several of our postings over the past few weeks have talked about our “Xmas Celebration.” One would have thought we had posted “Happy Birthday Satan” on Halloween. I wouldn’t say we have been inundated, but there have certainly been several calls from usually less than gracious people offended at our posting. Despite our efforts to educate them about their faith’s own history, our callers are usually pretty much locked into their assessment that our church is set on “taking Christ out of Christmas.”
The topic fascinates me on several fronts. As my comments at the beginning might suggest, to anyone who strives to appreciate the rich and diverse history of the Christian faith, the debate itself is fundamentally flawed. The use of “X” to represent Christ is very much a Christian symbol. It’s ours, and using it offers us the chance to echo and honor the very earliest days of our faith and the people who, often in the face of great persecution, were used mightily by God to pass on a faith that endures across the world thousands of years later. It is a wonderful connection to a remarkable past that we should seek to honor and celebrate. In the midst of a season that offers us many positive and negative things to be shaped by, I’m glad to point to such a rich tradition that is there to shape us, and challenge the historic amnesia that pervades the church.
Of course even if the symbol didn’t have such a rich tradition, it strikes me that the debate is still remarkable silly. Reading an article the other day, the writer had observed a busy person working the checkout at a retail store. Handing the customer their package, the clerk offered “Happy Holidays,” to which they got a terse, and indeed merriless, reply “It’s Merry Christmas!” I expect that this person probably would have called had they seen our sign as well.
What’s the issue? We live in a diverse culture. Many celebrate Christmas, including many who do not worship the Christ for whom the holiday exists, but many do not. Do we want to see a culture where people feel compelled to pay lip service to a faith that they do not subscribe to? The media allows Chevy Chase and Bart Simpson to tell us about the “true meaning of Christmas” (as Bart would say, “We all know Christmas is all about the birth of Santa”). In that context, shouldn’t Christians (excuse me, Xns) seek to invest the holiday with greater meaning, so that people might encounter the real “reason for the season.”
Admittedly, there is a ridiculous hostility on the other side of this cultural war, too. In this camp, advocates are pursuing a “naked public square,” where symbols of any faith are stripped from public places. Pushing back against this is worthwhile, but the response requires a bit more subtlety than we are seeing. Our battle is not for empty symbols in the public square, but instead a context where we can have a robust and meaningful conversation about the coming of our Lord.
The way that Christians need to respond is of course complex and necessarily variegated. But at times it may mean that we appreciate the use of symbols that represent Christ in quieter ways. It is what Eugene Peterson speaks of when he calls Christians to practice “subversiveness” in their culture, offering a message and a lifestyle that quietly offers an alternative to the culture without having to stand in opposition to it.
So I guess we need to put the “X” back in “Xmas,” practicing a greater appreciation for symbols, and looking for quieter ways to express our faith and message in a culture inundated with hostility. One thing’s for sure, the non-Christians that saw our marquee wouldn’t care one wit about the “X” on our sign or the one whom the “X” represents until they see the lives of the people who put the “X” there.
Merry Xmas!
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