ONE & Oprah converge! (We’ve got free movie extras)

June 3, 2012 by

Sit back! Grab a cup of coffee.
If you don’t have time now, then bookmark this page for a moment of pleasure and inspiration later in your day. (And please tell a friend? Perhaps click the Facebook button below?)

THE NEWS TODAY: Finally, ONE and Oprah are converging. Over the years, Oprah individually welcomed many of the religious sages who appear in this feature-length documentary film about the world’s diverse spiritual pathways. Now, Oprah has announced that she will broadcast ONE to the world on her OWN channel this year. Later this week, we welcome filmmaker Ward Powers to share the startling story of ONE’s creation and expansion as a message of peace.
Even before ReadTheSpirit was founded in 2007, Editor David Crumm was reporting nationally on this remarkable independent film production, which was created by first-time filmmakers and now has circled the globe in festivals and theaters.

TODAY’S FREE MOVIE EXTRAS: We’re giving you an All Access Pass, today, to dozens of inspiring extras from ONE that you won’t see on Oprah.
So, grab a cup of tea to sip. And, if you don’t have a moment now, then save this page for later!

ONE THE MOVIE TRAILER: GET THE BASIC IDEA

Let’s start with the basic Movie Trailer, so you’ll have an idea of this project’s origins and scope. Click on the video screen below to watch this short clip. (NOTE: If you don’t see a video screen in your version of this story, click here to reload the story in your browser.)

ONE THE MOVIE, AN EXTRA: SUFI MASTER LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE

On June 1, ReadTheSpirit featured our first in-depth interview with Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a major voice for peace and religious unity in the world. Llewellyn also appears in the ONE movie, but of course the original Powers interviews with him were far longer than the final length of ONE could hold. So, Ward Powers is releasing additional clips, this summer, including this one on the problem of suffering.

ONE THE MOVIE, AN EXTRA: CATHOLIC FATHER THOMAS KEATING

We also have featured Father Thomas Keating in the pages of ReadTheSpirit. Now, a world-famous spiritual figure for his innovative teaching on contemplative prayer, Keating is rare among spiritual sages for his depth of learning in science as well as religion. In this 4-minute clip about the natue of suffering in the world, Keating ranges widely from theology to contemporary science.

ONE THE MOVIE, AN EXTRA: FATHER RICHARD ROHR ON LOVE

We also have welcomed Father Richard Rohr to ReadTheSpirit, recommending his ongoing work on a variety of spiritual themes. Here, Rohr talks about the nature of “true love” and provides a definition that you may find very helpful to share with friends, yourself.

ONE THE MOVIE: DOZENS MORE EXTRAS

In preparation for the upcoming Oprah broadcast of ONE, Ward Powers has uploaded dozens of movie extras into a special new channel on YouTube. Use this link to the ONE Channel in YouTube to find links to a long list of these “extras” clips. The clips draw on spiritual wisdom far and wide, including Buddhist scholar and teacher Robert Thurman (yes, he’s Uma Thurman’s father), the Hindu-influenced writer Ram Dass, the Vietnamese-Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh—and many more.

You also can visit the ONE Project website, the home base for news about the movie, plus links to other showings, video clips and much more. There’s news on the ONE site, as well, about getting a copy of the movie for home viewing.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee talks about streams of prayer

May 31, 2012 by

In Part 1 of our coverage of Sufi mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s new book, Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism, we provided an overview of this inspiring guide to prayer, plus an excerpt—and we compared that with a passage from Celtic-Christian writer John Philip Newell.
Today, we let Llewellyn speak for himself in our weekly author interview with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH SUFI MYSTIC AND TEACHER
LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE

DAVID: If Americans recognize Sufism at all, they think of Rumi, Whirling Dervishes and Islam. But your branch of Sufism is distinctly different. Can you describe it in general terms?

LLEWELLYN: There are two schools of thought about Sufism. The traditional one you’re referring to is that Sufism is the mystical or esoteric school of Islam. Then, there is another school of thought that says Sufism is the ancient religion of the heart. That was the thinking of my own teacher. This belief sees Sufism flourishing under Islam, but also existing independently of Islam. In my view, Sufism is an expression of a living mystical tradition—the mysticism of love that appears in different times and different places. As long as there have been humans, we have had hearts—and this mysticism can arise within any heart that reaches God through love. In this way of thinking, we see streams of Sufism surfacing in many places. Some say that St. Francis of Assisi was influenced by a stream of Sufism.

DAVID: So, your branch of Sufism is distinctive. Now, tell us a bit about yourself. Let’s start with your unusual name.

LLEWELLYN: Llewellyn is a Welsh name. My family comes from the western part of England and also from Wales. I am 59. I was born in London in 1953. When I was born, there still was rationing in England. I grew up in a time of austerity. But I’ve lived in the United States for 20 years. I’m a permanent resident with a green card. I’ve thought of becoming an American citizen, but I feel too English to do that.

This particular stream of Sufism I represent had passed to a Hindu family in India. My own teacher, Irina Tweedie, went to India in the 1950s. Irina was born in Russia, educated in Europe and married an English officer after World War II. He died in 1954, which led to her spiritual quest. She joined the Theosophical Society in England. Then, in the late 1950s, she went to India and traveled there. She met her Sufi teacher, asked to take training. He asked her to keep a diary of her training and this became the spiritual classic: Daughter of Fire. She was the first Western woman to be trained in this Sufi lineage. Later, she returned to England and I eventually I became her successor. I am now the current lineage holder for this path.

DAVID: In describing your movement within Sufism, I tend to use the term “branch,”  but you use the term “stream” or “path” or “lineage.” Do you prefer particular terms for this process of handing off wisdom from the Indian Sufi teacher to Irina—and eventually from Irina to you?

LLEWELLYN: I prefer to describe this passing along of our wisdom as my “tradition” or my “lineage.” Through this particular lineage, we are part of the silent Sufis. That word “silent” distinguishes us from the Sufi lineages that use dance or music. For example, people are familiar with the Whirling Dervishes that stem from Rumi. But our particular lineage practices in silence. Our silent meditation of the heart is a silent remembrance of God.

DAVID: There wasn’t a single, “orthodox” Sufi movement. There were many movements, right?

LLEWELLYN: Yes, even in the era when Sufism was coming out of Islam, it was a movement of individual teachers or mystics who didn’t belong to any particular tradition. Small groups of disciples gathered around them. Out of those early Sufi gatherings, various Sufi lineages formed.

NAQSHBANDI LINEAGE: ‘IMPRESSED INTO THE HEART’

Click the cover to visit this book’s Amazon page.DAVID: I understand that your lineage stems, centuries ago, from what is called the Naqshbandi movement. In my own visits to Asia as a journalist, I did not encounter this particular lineage. But there is a lengthy Wikipedia entry about the 14th-century founder of this movement: Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari. We will share a link to that Wiki page, but I must caution readers: That kind of in-depth article can be almost overwhelming for American readers. What basic ideas should we understand about the Naqshbandi lineage—in broad strokes?

LLEWELLYN: The lineage focuses on the sense that one’s spiritual nature is bound into one, is impressed into the heart, the spiritual center of oneself. Most Sufi orders we see in the media do repetitions of the name of God in vocal forms. You can find audio recordings or film clips of these beautiful and very intoxicating rhythms. They do this as a group. But, in our particular path, we practice silently.

There are two paths I can describe in Sufism—one is a path of intoxication and the other is a path of sobriety. The path of intoxication involves Sufis gathering together and moving into a trance state through music or drumming or dancing or chanting. The Naqshbandi path is part of Sufism’s path of sobriety, because we don’t go into a trance state like others. This Naqshbandi path was one of the first paths to focus on psychological inner work. For example, we’ve always used dream work. Naqshband was renowned even his day as an interpreter of dreams.

When other Eastern spiritual movements crossed into the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of their early adoptees found themselves intoxicated with these spiritual disciplines. Some of these movements lacked a psychological component that could give them more balance.

FINDING A TEACHER; USING ‘SPIRITUAL DISCRIMINATION’

DAVID: Now you’re talking about one of the thorniest issues for Americans who want to explore Eastern religious traditions. Many of these traditions come through charismatic teachers who want to profoundly shape their followers’ lives. There are some wonderful accounts of these relationships—but there also are some serious complaints. What advice do you have about wisely selecting a teacher?

LLEWELLYN: I was fortunate. I was 19 when I met my teacher, who was not seeking power or money or sex. My teacher was an older woman and did not allow any of us to mess around or to get caught up in inappropriate projections on her as our teacher. She set the right kind of relationship.

I didn’t experience any other spiritual paths until I was in my late 30s and came to teach in America. Over here, it is sad to see that some Americans put too much trust in teachers who either turned out to be impure or who came over here out of pure motives, then wound up corrupted by money, power and sex. That was the reality for a lot of people and left a legacy of broken promises.

The biggest problem is the enormous amount of projection followers place on their spiritual teachers, something that was not fully understood in many cases and led to confusion and problems and, in some cases, to dangerous forms of guru worship. I’ve written about what it means to be a good teacher. And, I’ve had the experience of both being the student of a good teacher—and now being a teacher myself. So, I understand how difficult this is. It’s difficult to understand how a relationship that involves so much love can also be a completely impersonal teaching relationship. But, I have experienced that in my life.

Mainly, if people are looking for a teacher, they need to practice a lot of spiritual discrimination in choosing a teacher. You may think that you don’t need a teacher—and there is a lot of spiritual work you can do as an individual. But, there comes a time in these spiritual traditions when you do need a teacher to go further. For myself, I was 17 when I was practicing hatha yoga and I began to feel an awakening of powerful energies. When I began to experience these deeper spiritual energies, I needed someone who understood what was happening and could guide me. In these situations, you need to talk with someone who can say, “Yes, what you’re experiencing is expected at this stage.” They can guide you. They might say, “Perhaps, now, you should meditate less.” Or they can say, “Here’s a new spiritual practice you might try.”

THE SUFI DEBT TO THE POET RUMI

DAVID: I don’t want to leave the impression that most teachers are corrupt. Many do selfless, noble work. In fact, millions of Americans still enjoy poetry by the master teacher Rumi—and, after all these centuries, Rumi remains as inspiring as ever. How do you describe Rumi in relationship to your lineage?

LLEWELLYN: What is most important in the work of Rumi is that he brings this note of divine love into Western consciousness. Today, there are well-known Christian mystics and Western mystics, but for centuries mysticism was banished in most Christian and Western circles. This led to an enormous, unmet need in Western consciousness to reclaim this note of mystical love—the realization that love is more than something we find in a Hollywood romance. Rumi embraces all of creation in his passion for the divine. He has become the greatest poet of mystical love today.

DAVID: If I understand your message correctly, you are saying that the truth—the reconnection with divine love—does not depend on any single religious pathway. A central theme of your new book is that this divine love can be found through a number of different religious traditions that converge in deep forms of prayer. Am I saying that correctly?

LLEWELLYN: Yes, I look at the deeper mystical practices that make all real mystics—whatever their religious path—into a brotherhood and sisterhood in which there are no divisions. There’s a lovely saying from Rumi: “God does not look at your outer forms, but at the love within your love.”

Care to read Part 1 of our coverage?
In Part 1, we provide an overview and an excerpt from Llewellyn’s new guide to prayer—and we compared that with a passage from Celtic-Christian writer John Philip Newell.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee: A Sufi master invites us to pray

May 28, 2012 by

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.This week, ReadTheSpirit welcomes Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a British-American Sufi mystic and teacher who is known to many Americans through his books, lectures and appearances in documentaries about interfaith unity. For most Americans, understanding Vaughan-Lee’s work is challenging. After all, the majority of us call ourselves Christian­—between 7 and 8 out of 10 Americans according to Gallup. Yet, more than half of Americans can’t name the four Gospels when pollsters ask. In America, George Gallup famously said, religion is “miles wide and inches deep.”

So, this week, we are introducing Vaughan-Lee to our readers in the U.S. and around the world—and we are drawing connections between his teaching and those of other religious voices we have featured in our pages. Come back later this week for our interview with Vaughan-Lee about his efforts to promote peace between the world’s religious traditions.

We asked readers what they know about Sufis, and many responded: “Wasn’t Rumi a Sufi?”
The answer is: Yes, and we have published stories about that famous poet, like this one featuring Rumi translator Coleman Barks.

Others asked: “Are Sufis the people who dance and whirl?” The answer: Yes, some Sufi traditions encourage dance and ecstatic whirling. But, Vaughan-Lee represents a “silent” branch of Sufism that practices quiet contemplative prayer perhaps closer to Catholic Father Thomas Keating than to Whirling Dervishes .

Today, we are recommending Vaughan-Lee’s new book, Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism. In less than 80 pages, he packs a concise and sturdy guide to global approaches to prayer that welcome everyone to pray—whatever your religious tradition may be. His teachings remind us of the work of Keating and Celtic Christian mystic John Philip Newell as well.

LLEWELLYN VAUGHN-LEE’S QUEST TO HEAL THE EARTH

A good example of Vaughan-Lee’s convergence with Newell is the chapter called Prayer for the Earth.
A brief excerpt from Vaughan-Lee …

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.In whatever way we are drawn to pray, there is a vital need to include the earth in our prayers. We are living in a time of ecological devastation, the catastrophic effect of our materialistic culture on the ecosystem. Our rivers are toxic, the rainforests slashed and burned, vast tracts of land made a wasteland due to our insatiable desires for oil, gas and minerals. We have raped and pillaged and polluted the earth, pushing it into the dangerous state of imbalance we call climate change. Creation itself is now calling to us, sending us signs of its imbalance, and the soul of the world, the anima mundi, which the ancients understood as the spiritual presence of the earth is crying out. … Those whose hearts are open may hear it too, the cry of the world soul, of the spiritual being of our mother the earth. …

We are the children and the inheritors of a culture that has banished God to heaven. Early Christianity persecuted and ultimately largely extinguished any earth-based spirituality, and the physical world became a place of darkness and sin. Then after the Age of Enlightenment, the prevailing world view that grew out of Newtonian physics framed the world as an inanimate mechanism we could easily master, indeed were meant to master; we simply needed to discover its laws to tame it to our own ends. As a legacy of that view we have developed a materialistic culture that treats the earth as a commodity that exists to serve our own selfish purpose. Our greed now walks with heavy boots across the world, with complete disregard for the sacred nature of creation. …

Our Western culture no longer knows how to relate to the world as a sacred being. Now the world needs our prayers more than we know. It needs us to acknowledge its sacred nature, to understand that it is not just something to use and dispose of. It needs us to help I to reconnect with its own sacred source, the life-giving waters of creation that can save it from destruction. It needs us to remember it to the Creator. We are needed now to reclaim our sacred duty as guardian, or vice-regent, of the natural world. …

There are many ways to pray for the earth. First it is essential to acknowledge that the earth is not “unfeeling matter” but a living being that has given us life. It can be helpful to ask ourselves: How would we like to be treated? Just as a physical object to e used and repeatedly abused? Then perhaps we can sense the earth’s suffering: the physical suffering we see in the dying species and polluted waters, the deeper suffering of our collective disregard for its sacred nature. Perhaps, if we open our hearts and souls to the being we call the world, we will be able to hear the cry of the anima mundi, of its soul. For centuries it was understood that the world was a living being with a soul, and that we were a part of this being, the light of our own soul a spark, a scintilla, of the light of the world soul. As a culture we have forgotten hat, but this understanding is foundation of the prayer that is needed now. Through it we make that connection conscious again; we help bring our light back to the world soul.

JOHN PHILIP NEWELL FROM CHRIST OF THE CELTS

What’s the connection with Celtic Christian writer John Philip Newell?
Read our earlier interview with Newell, or consider re-reading his book Christ of the Celts. Here are a few lines from Christ of the Celts that echo Vaughan-Lee’s writing, but approach the same theme from Newell’s Celtic-Christian perspective. From Christ of the Celts …

I heard within me what the ancients call “the music of the spheres.” The Celts were familiar with this music. In the Hebrides of Scotland, it was common practice well into the 19th century for men to take off their caps to greet the morning sun and for women to bend their knee in reverence to the moon at night. These were the lights of God. They moved in an ancient harmony that spoke to the relationship of all things. And they witnessed also to the eternal rhythm between masculine energies and feminine energies that commingle deep in the body of the universe. …

Not only is creation viewed as good, as coming out of the goodness of God, but it is viewed as well as theophany or a disclosing of the heart of God’s being. Eriugena, the 9th century Irish teacher, says that if goodness were extracted from the universe, all things would cease to exist. For goodness is not simply a feature of life; it is the very essence of life. Goodness gives rise to being just as evil leads to nonbeing or to a destruction and denial of life’s sacredness. The extent to which we become evil or false is the extent to which we no longer truly exist. Eriugena and the Celtic teachers invite us to look to the deepest energies of our bodies and souls and to the deepest patterns and rhythms of the earth as theophanies of the goodness of God. And they invite us to see Christ as the One who speaks again this forgotten goodness, the Word that comes to us from the Beginning. He is the memory of the first and deepest sound within creation. It is an invitation to listen for the sacred not away from life, but deep within all that has life.

Read More: Enjoy our interview with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

A Kinder, Gentler Doorway into Huston Smith’s World

May 6, 2012 by

Click the cover to visit the Amazon page for The Huston Smith Reader. (Note: Cover image of Huston Smith may vary.)How can readers find their way into the realm of Huston Smith? This month—the gods willing—he will turn 93. Once the world’s most famous guide into comparative religion, beloved as a friendly gatekeeper for millions of curious Americans, Smith now is eclipsed by waves of other writers, filmmakers and teachers. In fact, given the explosion of the Internet and other digital media—the world’s great religious traditions now flow directly into our palms, ears and eyes 24/7.

Nevertheless, students who ask for an introduction to our world’s diverse spiritual traditions, today, are likely to receive a short list of recommendations including Huston Smith ranked with famous names like Smith’s friend Bill Moyers, Karen Armstrong, Stephen Prothero, and Philip Jenkins.

But, where do we start digging into Smith’s library of books? His overall body of work is not as fresh or as easy to sort out as the others. What’s more, these days, Smith sometimes is chided by critics for trying too hard to make the world’s religious communities seem more unified than they really are. Stephen Prothero certainly makes that point, among others. The most recent news stories mentioning Smith’s name in major publications like the New York Times reference Don Lattin’s 2010 book, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, which finally pulled back the veil over Smith’s own experimentation with mind-altering drugs in the 1960s.

Where do we turn to find the real Huston Smith? His legacy is not helped by the fact that he produced so many books. He wrote more than a dozen. Amazon lists 19 titles that are credited to Smith. Where do we start on that list? Are his earliest books still relevant? Or, what if we choose the more recent Cleansing the Doors of Perception, his 2000 book about the religious significance of drugs? That book is fascinating, but is it the best way to understand his major contribution as a scholar?

Now, University of California Press helps us all with a terrific sampling of Huston Smith’s work over many years in this new The Huston Smith Reader, edited and introduced by Jeffery Paine. It includes a very helpful 10-page Afterword by Dana Sawyer, who is working on a biography of Smith.

In 23 chapters, Paine gives us a coherent collage of Smith’s life story and passionate interest in teaching the world about the wonders of diversity. Some chapters excerpt autobiographical reflections by Smith. Other sections allow Smith to explain why studying comparative religion matters, for example, in an excerpt from his 2001 book Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief.

Yes, the book dips back into vintage Huston Smith, way back in the era when he first showed up on public TV and in then-popular magazines like Saturday Evening Post. A chapter called “The Revolution in Western Thought” begins in the tone of such early-1960s magazines: “Quietly, irrevocably, something enormous has happened to Western man.” Perhaps we all can forgive such a style, given the popularity of the Mad Men TV series . Certainly, we agree today that Western woman changed as well.

The Reader takes us through half a century of Smith’s work. Thank goodness, HarperOne gave permission for an 8-page chapter near the book’s conclusion, called “Reflections on Turning Ninety” from the 2009 Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography. This is a full journey through Smith’s life and thinking.

Thanks to everyone connected with this helpful new doorway into Huston Smith’s world! As a journalist covering religion for 30 years, I have interviewed Smith at length several times, collected his works on religion through the years and I can say: Smith’s own wise hand clearly rests on this collection. Thank goodness Huston Smith is still with us in early 2012.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Willis Barnstone talks about poets & the poetry of Jesus

April 25, 2012 by

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.In Part 1 of our coverage of Willis Barnstone, we published an overview of his new book along with some samples.
Also, we published a new poem that Willis wrote on the occasion of this interview.
TODAY, we publish ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm’s interview with Willis Barnstone:

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH WILLIS BARNSTONE
ON WORLD POETRY
AND POEMS OF JESUS

DAVID: You rank among the most prolific poets, so let’s start with a question about your poetry. You’re famous as the author of more than 1,000 sonnets. A new volume of them is forthcoming. How did you write so many? Are lines of poetry always swimming around in your head? Are your pockets stuffed with scribbled-up slips of paper? Tell us how you have written so much poetry.

WILLIS: No one has ever asked me that very sweet question. Well, for example, I was working on a poem when the telephone rang for this interview. (Now published in completed form.) I am always writing and I don’t mind interruptions. But, let me start by explaining that half of the poetry I write is formal, and half of it is free verse.

The first poem I published was actually in a French magazine. I was a 20-year-old graduate student at the University of Paris in 1948 at the time. Then, the second poem I published was a sonnet, a somewhat artificial piece of work. I wrote a few more sonnets over the years, but not too many. Then, 18 years before The Secret Reader, my main collection of sonnets, came out—I was riding in my car at night going up to Purdue from Indiana, when I began to think about two sonnets. I had a very bad recording device with me, but I tried to use that as I went along in the car. However, when I got home, the recording quality was so bad that I could hardly hear my own words. I wound up listening to it over and over until I could decipher each word. That was the start and, then, I planned to write a total of 25 sonnets. Suddenly, that became 100. I won various prizes with my work and eventually I got this letter from Knof, I think it was, asking if I wanted to publish these sonnets.

I decided to wait and I’m so glad I did because it took me many more years to finish all 501 that appeared in the first collection, The Secret Reader. After that was published, it took me a while to de-sonnet-ize myself, but I learned to do that, too. And, then, of course, I began to write many more.

Where do the words come from? You get a feeling, an emotion, and if it is genuine then you can write. Sometimes at night when I’m dreaming or perhaps while taking a shower, words may come to me. Then, I write with whatever I have handy. If I have a computer handy for writing, then I write on a computer. I like seeing the final form take place on a computer. But I write nine out of ten of my poems by hand because that’s usually the first thing available to set down my words.

WHO ARE THE POETS WE SHOULD REDISCOVER TODAY?

A 12th-Century illuminated manuscript looks back to St. John as the legendary Gospel writer contemplated lines in Greek.DAVID: Your work as a poet, translator and educator circles the globe. Back in my own undergraduate days in the mid 1970s, I studied under the poet Joseph Brodsky, who managed to master both Russian and English. But you’re accomplished in so many languages, certainly more than Greek and English. You’ve worked with Chinese, Spanish, French and other languages. So, this is a rare opportunity for our readers to hear from a master of world poetry: Can you name a few poets who we should seek out from other world cultures?

WILLIS: Oh, so many! People should read Sappho, Pindar, John Donne and, of course, Blake. They should read more of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson. And Borges, too. There are so many!

DAVID: The poetry of Jesus comes to us from Greek Gospels, so let’s focus on Greek poets. You’ve mentioned Sappho from the ancient world. How about more contemporary Greek poets?

WILLIS: Well, there’s George Seferis who won the Nobel Prize, I think at least in part because of the very fine translation by Edmund Keeley. And then, oh yes, C.P. Cavafy and I would have to recommend the translation by my daughter Aliki Barnstone.

DAVID: Great suggestions. I love Cavafy’s Myris Alexandria, which evokes this 4th Century pagan, named Myris, who winds up becoming part of the early Christian community. Myris dies and the poem is written from the perspective of an old pagan friend who looks in on the memorial rites. It’s haunting. I remember first reading and memorizing some of Cavafy in the early 1970s not long after some of the Keeley books on Cavafy came out. I still recall the opening lines of Myris:
When I heard the terrible news,
that Myris was dead,
I went to his house, although I avoid
going to the houses of Christians,
especially during times of mourning or festivity.

I realize it was Keeley’s rendering that we memorized as students, at the time. Now, we will also tell our readers about your daughter Aliki’s edition, The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy: A New Translation. In fact, I’m enough of a Cavafy fan myself that I’ll order a copy of that edition, too.

WILLIS: One good thing that my daughter did in her version is to place the poems in their chronological order. That’s interesting because, during his lifetime, Cavafy rejected some of his poems that later were found in Alexandria. But in the past, they were just put at the end of the book, regardless of when they originally were written. She puts them all together including the earliest poem, which is a wonderful poem about Julian the Apostate. Here’s a good example of different approaches to translation. Keeley did a splendid job on Seferis and Seferis is almost exclusively free verse. But, Cavafy is almost exclusively formal and what’s magical about his formalism is that he wrote this way in the best sense of modern poetry. My daughter’s translation of Cavafy restores more of the original music in Cavafy’s lines.

DAVID: One more question on world literature: Our readers have a long interested in China and writings like The Analects, which collected around Confucius. There’s even more interest in this today, given the growth of China as a world power and the recent release of a Hollywood-scale epic, based supposedly on the life of Confucius. It’s simply called Confucius, and it’s available in DVD and Blu-ray. But here’s the problem: I’ve seen the movie and it is full of high adventure, but it’s more Hollywood than actual precepts of Confucius. Then, if we turn to Amazon, we find hundreds of books on Confucius. You’ve worked on some Chinese projects, like Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei with your son Tony. Tell us what translations you recommend on Confucius.

WILLIS: Well, there are various people who have done them well and certain people who don’t do them well at all, so that’s a good question—but it’s also a difficult question. I would say that, for his time, Arthur Waley did a very good job on The Analects. But I would recommend others, like the translator Burton Watson who gave us his version of The Analects. And then there’s some wonderful work from Michael Nylan in books like Lives of Confucius: Civilization’s Greatest Sage Through the Ages.

POETRY OF JESUS FROM KING JAMES TO TODAY

Ancient fragment of Greek Gospel of MarkDAVID: Turn to biblical poetry, our readers will recall that we just celebrated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible last year. Probably our most popular story in that series was: Can You Tell the Bard from the Bible? What do you think of the King James version? I gather from what you’ve written that you admire much of it.

WILLIS: Yes, I say that in the preface. I love everything they translate and it’s amazingly accurate given the bad texts they had to deal with. They were working with copies of copies of copies. For example, they had texts that were translated from the Latin Vulgate back into the Greek, and you can imagine what other kinds of bad versions they were using as their sources. Their best copies went back to the 13th or 14th centuries. Today, we have texts that go back centuries further.

Generally, they did not make mistakes in terms of misunderstanding things. But every translator changes each new version according to what’s politically or religiously correct at the time. And those translators did some of that, too. Overall, the magnificence of the King James Bible is both its glory and its defect. From that era, I would say that the Tyndale translation is much closer to the original, but it isn’t as easy to read as the King James today.

DAVID: We should point out to readers that your new Poems of Jesus Christ is actually from a much larger translation you completed. I would urge people to go ahead and order a copy of the new book, which I think is great for inspirational reading and small-group discussion. If they like the way you handle these lines, they should know that these texts also are part of The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas. Is that right?

WILLIS: Exactly. In the course of doing this book, I did look back at the Greek again and I made a few changes here and there. But 90 percent of the texts in this new book are the same as what you’ll find in the Restored New Testament. The prefaces to each book in this edition are all new. Some are based partly on the prefaces in the earlier book, but they are all freshened.

DAVID: I’ll close with a question we always ask: How do you describe your religious affiliation?

WILLIS: I am a Jew and there’s no secret about that. I’ve written about it in other books. Has that influenced my translations? I suppose that as a Jew, and knowing other cultures as well, I want to make it clear to readers of my translations that Jesus wasn’t a fellow from Kalamazoo—he was a person from the Middle East.

DAVID: That’s certainly a big part of the teaching that comes from the whole spectrum of today’s leading Bible scholars: properly remembering Jesus’s origins and context.

WILLIS: That’s right. But I also want to say that the distinction as a Jew does not define me. In fact, I try to tackle the vital questions of religious harmony vigorously and I prefer to do that without typing myself as Christian, Jew or Buddhist. I prefer my words to be read as neutral and fair. In fact, if I were to name an official denomination I’ve attended, I would have to list the Unitarians or, earlier in my life, the Quakers, based on my Quaker schooling.

The problem I’m trying to describe is the same issue described by John Shelby Spong, who has written about growing up in a community where he just assumed that Jesus must be a Swede.

I make no secret of my background. In fact, I wrote part of a book about relations between Jews and blacks. But I want to transcend these tribal associations. I think that is the great challenge we all face if we are ever to mend the hostilities between the religions of Abraham.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Before Hunger Games, there was a Battle Royale

March 30, 2012 by

From the grave, the late Japanese filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku must be laughing! Although largely unknown in the U.S., Fukasaku ranks among the most-celebrated directors in Japan. Until his death at 72 in 2003, he produced a long series of movies that grappled with tough issues such as organized crime and what Fukasaku perceived as his country’s disastrous thirst for violence. It’s not a stretch to think of Fukasaku in his prime like Martin Scorsese in his Mean Streets and Taxi Driver era.

Oddly enough, Fukasaku’s one big splash in American media came after his own death, when media writers began comparing Hunger Games to Fukasaku’s almost-never-seen cult hit from 2000: Battle Royale. The Japanese film never was released in the U.S., partly because Japanese-language films with subtitles rarely do well in the U.S.—but mostly because Battle Royale’s plot involves high-school students slaughtering each other. Produced one year after the Columbine massacre, American distributors had no taste for Fukasaku’s incredibly dark tale.

BUT, IS HUNGER GAMES REALLY A RIP OFF OF BATTLE ROYALE?

Despite a firestorm among bloggers who latched onto Battle Royale, the short answer is: No.

In an in-depth New York Times Magazine story last year, reporter Susan Dominus drew the same conclusion long before the Hunger Games movie was finished. In the course of a much longer story, Dominus wrote: “Each book involves young people selected at random and pitted against one another in a game of survival staged by tyrannical authorities. The parallels are striking enough that Collins’s work has been savaged on the blogosphere as a baldfaced ripoff. The authors share an interest in the mechanisms of state control, but their agendas clearly diverge.” In fact, Dominus reported, Collins had never read or viewed Battle Royale. What’s more, Dominus concluded: “Battle Royale played into Japan’s fears about a rise in youth violence; Collins’s heroes are, if anything, models of responsibility.”

As Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I now have previewed the new, exhaustive Battle Royale set, available via Amazon as Battle Royale: The Complete Collection. I agree with Dominus that the two tales serve quite different purposes, but it’s not fair to say that the Japanese teens are any nobler than the young warriors in the Hunger Games. The real differences are in the goals of these two stories.

Hunger Games is about class warfare and fears that the world eventually will not have enough resources for everyone to survive. Evil takes the form of wealthy overlords—playing off fears of the so-called “1 percent” who seem to snap up vast wealth in our world. In stark contrast, Battle Royale has nothing to do with these themes. Instead, disgruntled teachers and military leaders get so fed up with teen-age violence that they decide to transport dozens of 9th-Grade students to a remote island—and let them finish each other off. In the end, Battle Royale has more to do with Lord of the Flies than Hunger Games.

Hunger Games is about harnessing popular rage so that we cheer our young heroes. That’s why the soundtrack features so many pop-music celebrites from Taylor Swift to Miranda Lambert. Moviegoers cheer the best of the young warriors—just as we cheer the young musicians ringing in our ears.

In contrast, Battle Royale is about the horror of unchecked violence. Evidence of that theme is in its soundtrack, which draws heavily on Bach, Strauss and Schubert. Fukasaku wants to bludgeon moviegoers with the stark contrast between the tropical Eden of the remote island, the beautiful classical music—and the carnage as kids kill kids for two hours. Think of the way Sergio Leone chose a graceful orchestral score for Once Upon a Time in the West (in which Henry Fonda shocked moviegoers by gunning down an innocent child) and the way Francis Ford Coppola jarringly corkscrewed classical themes into Apocalypse Now (in which moviegoers were shocked for many reasons).

No, this isn’t a rip off. Yes, kids kill kids in both movies, but the goals are worlds apart.

IS BATTLE ROYALE WORTH WATCHING?

Throughout the Japanese film inudstry, Fukasaku was showered with praise for Battle Royale—and his 1960s and 1970s gangster films came back into circulation on DVD. But—for a universal meditation on youthful violence, Lord of the Flies still stands head and shoulders above the rest in this genre.
If you care to see Battle Royale, available via Amazon, here are a few thoughts to consider:

NOT KIDS AT ALL: Like most major Hollywood releases about teens—from the hit TV series Glee to Hunger Games—these Japanese schoolkids are mostly adults. (Glee star Lea Michele, who plays Rachel, is 25; and Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence is 21.) Some online coverage of Battle Royale refers to the kids as “children” or “middle school students.” Nope. The film calls them “9th Graders” in the English subtitles and most of the main characters clearly are in their 20s.

NOT AS SHOCKING AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: Battle Royale’s cult following has raised the expectation that this is an absolutely over-the-top bloodletting. Again: Nope. Countless American films, including Hunger Games, have at least as much carnage. Perhaps if Fukasaku’s film had arrived in the weeks immediately following Columbine, the horror might have been greater. But, the sheer level of violence is—sad to say at this point in movie culture—not as shocking as it might have been a decade or so ago.

FORGET THE SEQUEL: Fukasaku might have had lofty aspirations as a director, but the Japanese film industry is not much different than Hollywood. Even after his death, a sequel was produced. It appears in this complete set, newly released, but the sequel is laughable at best—and well worth ignoring if you find some serious worth in the original Battle Royale. Let’s remember Fukasaku in his prime and generously forgive what was constructed over his grave.

SHOULD KIDS SEE BATTLE ROYALE? Obviously, teenagers are flocking to Hunger Games by the millions. The new Battle Royale DVD is not rated. Our ReadTheSpirit readers may be wondering if the film could spark a good discussion about violence. Our judgment is: Maybe this film is useful for discussion among the oldest teens or a college-age group. But, beyond those truly fascinated with Asian culture and milestones in modern filmmaking—who almost certainly will want to watch the new DVD set—there’s not much in Battle Royale to justify the pricetag.

As we say in our latest story about Hunger Games: Want more? Join the millions who are going back to see that hit movie, once again.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Mei-Ling Hopgood: A million ways to raise a happy child!

March 8, 2012 by

In Part 1 of our coverage of Mei-Ling Hopgood’s terrific new book on global parenting, we told readers about her life and we shared some surprising examples from her book about parenting ideas, unusual foods and popular toys around the world. TODAY, we introduce Mei-Ling in our weekly author interview with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm.

Note on photos, today: We asked Mei-Ling to provide us with more than the typical author photos. Since she’s now the author of what critics are calling the kinder-gentler global parenting book, we asked for family snapshots—so we could see her in action. Above, today, Mei-Ling and her husband Monte toted Sofia in a backpack during an Asian trip. Below, you’ll see that, as the family lived in Buenos Aires for a number of years, they regularly cheered on the home team—like families around the world. Sofia wanted her Mom to deck her out in Argentina soccer regalia during a world cup competition. The blue-and-white banner they’re displaying is a headband that Sofia proudly wore around the apartment.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH MEI-LING HOPGOOD
ON ‘HOW ESKIMOS KEEP THEIR BABIES WARM’

DAVID: Your book appears at a perfect time, because newspapers and magazines nationwide are paying front-page attention to the Tiger Mom and Bebe books. Now, top publications are saying that your book is the kinder-gentler alternative to learning about global parenting. What did you think of the Tiger Mom book?

MEI-LING: I thought it was entertaining and funny. I read it when I was finished writing my own book, so it didn’t affect anything I wrote. I considered writing about it in my book, but then I thought: No, that’s not what I’m doing in my book. Her book reflects some of what I found in Asian parents, too, but she wrote about this in her own memoir-ish voice. Now, I know, people either love her book or hate her book. I think that’s because she took these things that do happen in Asian culture and showed them going to extremes. She was concerned that her own children weren’t right in their own mother culture. I like her book, and I think a lot of people who are debating it probably haven’t read it.

DAVID: How about the Bebe book? Your thoughts?

MEI-LING: The difference between their books and what I’m trying to do is that their focus is on asking: Who is the better parent? What kind of parenting is superior? As a result, those are the headlines that jump out of their books. That doesn’t mean their actual books, if people stop and actually read them, say that the French are the only superior parents or the Chinese are superior. in fact, Amy Chau says that it was the headline, not the book, that touched off this firestorm about what she wrote.

In my book, I tried to look at how parents around the world do these things and my question is: What can we learn from each other? It’s way too short sighted and unhealthy to say that one culture has it nailed when it comes to parenting because we’re talking about a lot of factors that form our styles of parenting—society, culture and history. That’s one reason my book is very different than the other two. In my journeys and investigations, I learned that there are a million ways to raise a happy and healthy child. We don’t have to claim that one culture is superior. We can learn from each other.

DAVID: The Washington Post wrote that parents today face “a minefield of insecurity and doubt.” Your book “should put any uptight mom at ease and convince her once and for all that there is no one right way to raise children.” Your book, in that sense, is the “no guilt” parenting book. Do you agree?

ONE-WAY APPROACHES TO PARENTING ARE NOT HEALTHY

MEI-LING: I was very conscious as I was working on this book that there were people who wanted me to write a book that said: This is the best way to do things. In marketing a parenting book, that makes things easier. A lot of parenting books do say: This is how to put your baby to bed. There’s one way. Or, this is why the French do better. Or, this is how to make your family life better. But I think that’s just too simplified in our complex world. Each family and each culture has a different belief system and environment. Sweeping statements about a single way to do things are not healthy.

DAVID: But your book certainly isn’t just a lot of colorful stories. You do draw some conclusions and share some pointed critiques, right?

MEI-LING: By turning a critical eye on my own parenting and parenting ideas, I’m also turning a critical eye on the larger American dialogue on parenting. I wouldn’t say that my book is all that “kind.” I’m not trying to give us a touchy-feely picture of everyone linking hands and singing: We are the world! I’m arguing that we should put our experiences into a global context. No, I’m not up there at the level of Tiger Mom in the tone of what I’m writing, but you will find a real critique of the American culture of parenting.

MARCH OF U.S. PARENTING: DIAPERS IN CHINA, TOYS IN AFRICA

Click the book’s cover to visit its Amazon page.DAVID: One of those critical points you raise—and readers will find this conclusion drawn in other press coverage of your new book, as well—is about the dominance of American culture around the world. Readers may think that our culture is somehow on the ropes, especially after the other books have made headlines, but the truth is that American culture and products and parenting assumptions are marching their way all around this planet.

MEI-LING: American voices and ideas and products related to parenting are resonating everywhere, as I say in my book. One of the most striking conclusions I draw after all of my research is that this idea of a globalization in parenting is very, very real. At this point, it’s mostly driven by American voices and Western marketing—and it’s reaching every corner of the globe. Our products, our advice, our diapers—all of it is reaching places you couldn’t imagine. In China, for example, I was struck by how Chinese parents traditionally handle potty training. In the past, they’ve handled all of that differently than American families, but now? Western-style diapers are booming and China is becoming one of the world’s biggest markets for diapers. Strollers now are popular in places that have never had strollers. Little tribes in Africa now have manufactured children’s toys.

DAVID: I recall a reporting trip I made to Bangladesh some years ago. I was part of a group of journalists who went way up the main river to visit a world heritage site—a village that produces a beautiful, traditional fabric on hand-operated looms. This place was a little Eden. But, when we talked informally with parents there, they immediately said that they hope for a day when they can own microwaves and TV sets. And I assume disposable diapers, too.

MEI-LING: That’s it exactly! People around the world still have distinct, traditional views about parenting, but those assumptions and practices are changing. People everywhere are willing to listen to other voices, to try other products.

AMERICA’S OWN PATCHWORK QUILT OF PARENTING

DAVID: This diversity of parenting styles isn’t simply in remote villages in Africa and Asia. It’s right here in our American communities, right?

MEI-LING: Yes. I was doing a radio interview about the book and they opened the phone lines to listeners. The callers were wonderful and some of those calls came from immigrants to the U.S. and the next-generation sons and daughters of immigrants, too. They shared with us some of the things they do differently in their homes. When we talk about different global perspectives on parenting, we’re talking about millions of families right here in our own country, as well.

DAVID: Our readers know this, if they pause for a moment to think about it. We just published a new story about the Amish, for example. That’s a fairly extreme example of a different culture within the U.S. But, stop to think about all of the religious and ethnic communities across our patchwork quilt of a country.

MEI-LING: Even within a single small city in America, there are so many different populations if we look closely. I’m living in Evanston north of Chicago now, and in my building two Israeli families live above me and an English family lives beneath me. There are people of nearly every ethnicity in my daughter’s preschool. Lots of different languages are spoken. Our country is extremely diverse—more diverse than most of us realize. This new book isn’t just about exploring the world; it’s also about appreciating the diversity all around us.

Read Part 1 of our coverage of Mei-Ling Hopgood’s global parenting book.

Remember: How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between) is on sale now at Amazon.

You’ll also want a free copy of Seth Godin’s new book about revolutionizing education.

Care to read more about worldwide peacemakers?

ReadTheSpirit publishes “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” by Daniel Buttry, a collection of real-life stories about the men, women and children who are taking great risks around the world to counter violence with efforts to promote healthier, peaceful, diverse communities.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.