Meditation on Death

I guess it's fitting that I haven't posted anything since Grandpa's funeral, because I recently created a video for my class on grief, loss and dying, and it happens to concern this topic:

"Surrender on Iwo Jima" - Grandpa's Memorial

Eleven days ago, my grandpa died peacefully in Fresno, CA. For several years, I've known that it would be my responsibility to present something about him whenever his inevitable end came, and I fulfilled that unspoken obligation last Saturday. This is what I read to the approximately 200 people who gathered that day for his memorial service. It's a mere summary, and (as usual) I feel like I didn't say exactly what I wanted, but such perfection will likely never come. I suppose that's something we all have to live with. Anyways, Grandpa Bradford was a good man and well loved, more than I could ever encapsulate in a few short words.

I’d like to tell you a little bit about my Grandpa, and how I understand him and the life he led and now leaves to me, and us, as a gift:

Grandpa was one of the kindest, most friendly men I have ever known. He never withheld his love, friendship and encouragement from anyone. I have a bag full of letters that attest to the fact (which I demonstrated)—and this is just four years worth— I’m sure many others here today could share a similar stack of mail. In many of these letters, he voiced his desire simply to spend more time with me, to talk about school and life and Godly stuff, and usually over a bite of lunch. Looking back, I realize that I refused these requests far too often. It occasionally seems like we spend too much time preparing for life, rather than living it. Remember to embrace the loving Presence of others while the opportunity persists.

Several years ago, Grandpa asked me to be his “aide de camp”—that’s a military term for a personal assistant to a high ranking officer. Of course, I accepted, and over time, it became clear that Grandpa wanted to share a particular story with me, the story he wanted to call, “I surrendered on Iwo Jima”. So here’s that story in brief form.

In 1942, at the age of 22, Grandpa left his home in Oklahoma and joined the Marine Corps. He trained at the newly established Camp Pendleton in San Diego, then got assigned to an engineering regiment of the 4^th Marine division, which made its home on Maui, one of the Hawaiian islands. There he met Merle, a friend who left an indellible impression on my Grandpa, so much so that he gave the name to his first son, my uncle. In 1944, during the division’s first combat operation on a remote coral atoll called Kwajalein, Grandpa’s good friend Merle was killed.

As the war continued and the Marines drew closer to the Japanese home islands, the ferocity of the fighting only intensified, first on the island of Tinian, then Saipan, and finally, Iwo Jima. Though I have seen commendations and awards for his part in these battles, Grandpa remembers very few details from any of these traumatic experiences, perhaps by the grace of God. Suffice to say, it was a hellish time. On Iwo Jima, the ash-ridden rock where the famous flag-raising occurred, Grandpa reached the end of his physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual rope. On March 3, 1945, some two weeks into the fighing, in the middle of the brutality and despair of war, Grandpa made this simple promise to God: “If you see me through this, I’ll serve you.”

Apparently, God took up the offer, and Grandpa was not counted among the 7,000 American and 20,000 Japanese soldiers who died on that remote island in a five week span. However, it would take some time before Grandpa would fulfill his part in this “foxhole covenant”.

After the war, in 1947, during the same week in March that he had promised surrender two years earlier, he was involved in a major car accident that caused a concussion and the loss of the deltoid muscle in his right arm. He was in a coma for four days. When he awoke, Grandpa took his accident as a not-too-subtle hint from God and was baptized on March 3, 1947 in Texas. As Grandpa put it, “Our gracious Lord allowed me to surrender in 1945, and die to the flesh in 1947.” Two years to the day.

After his baptism, Grandpa was pointed to San Jose Bible College where he could “train for the new service.” But this his trials had not yet ended, because somewhere along the way, he suffered a major nervous breakdown and landed in the Sonoma State Hospital, where he experienced first-hand “the rudimentary days of California mental health” at the hands of “an ogre-type psychiatrist” who administered shock treatments. Grandpa had lost sense of time, and could not remember his own name. Eventually, his identity was obtained and, one day, Grandpa’s brother Don arrived to get him out of there. Grandpa says, the story of the Prodigal Son has become especially meaningful in view of these dark days of his life.

After recovering from this breakdown, Grandpa re-enlisted at the Bible College, met and married Grandma, and gave the remaining six decades of his life to his Lord, his family and every other person he randomly encountered. A man full of vitality till his legs could carry him no more, Grandpa approached every day with what he called a “gung-ho” attitude in service of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

So Grandpa surrendered on Iwo Jima, and I hope you catch the irony. In one of the most memorable military victories in American history, Grandpa was defeated. However, God’s victory did not come easily, and not without a cost. Grandpa loved the song “Amazing Grace,” and I think it’s because he identified himself so resolutely with the “wretch” described it, just as he identified with the prodigal who wanders from home, and later returns filthy, destitute and ashamed, but is met by a father who calls him “beloved” for no other reason than that he is a son.

Grandpa told me his story—and I tell it to you now—not simply because it’s a good story, or a sentimental one, but because it points to God, and to faith. Not the kind of insubstantial “believing-in-something” we often talk about, but a faith forged in fire; the faith of a wretch and a sinner; the faith of a person who will not cheapen grace, but embrace it as something costly; a faith that says, “I am useless, a wanderer and a wretch, and still God calls me ‘beloved’.” Thanks be to this God—Grandpa’s God and ours—who invites, rebukes, corrects, nudges, directs, orchestrates, embraces and loves.

I have one last thought Grandpa’s recent departure: I read somewhere this allusion to death as a “coming home.” Imagine yourself as a child, playing outside in the sandbox, or in my case, I imagine those long car trips home during which I’d fall asleep to the drone of the tires. And while sleeping, wherever you are, your parents gently pick you up and carry you into your home, and put you in bed. After an unknown time, you wake up in your bedroom, tucked away under the covers, maybe even in your pajamas. You don’t know how it happened, but you know you’re home. The thought came to mind while I watched Grandpa drift away last Saturday. It came as a sort of epiphany to me—perhaps the final gift Grandpa gave to me—that dying itself is not so hard. We fall asleep, and someday, we will wake up in God’s house. Always the bold one, Grandpa has led the way home.

Glen Bradford
December 24, 1919-March 1, 2008

Diagnosed

An interesting confluence of events brings me to the writing of this blog. First, I’ve had recurring nightmares this week. Second, my sister Lindsey passed on a Myspace blog asking for ten curious habits, goals or random facts about myself, which I just posted. Third, I finished Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out. How these three disparate elements sparked a light in my mind, I do not know, but here goes…

Since I don’t know when, maybe high school, I have had recurring “night terrors” or “walking nightmares” or whatever you want to call them. They follow a predictable pattern: 1) Someone or something is coming at me wherever I’m sleeping with the intention to kill me, 2) I freak out and try to escape danger, usually yelling “No no no!!” as I’m told, 3) I typically defend myself with my blankets and sheets, 4) I wake up, totally disoriented, my heart rate jacked, 4) I eventually figure out it was a dream, then have to remake my bed and fall asleep again, and 5) I never remember the details of the dream. Oy, that’s a mouthful!

My family and most of my friends have witnessed these episodes at least once. I’ve punched Curtis several times and Lito only once—which makes them special. I have tried to diagnose this… “thing I do” for some time to no avail. Then, I came across this little passage in Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out that seemed to offer the diagnosis I have been too blind to see:

“St. Basil, father of monasticism in the Eastern Orthodox Church, living in the 4^th century, was quite clear about the fact that even our dreams cannot be excluded from our spiritual life. When the question was raised to him: What is the source of those unbecoming nocturnal phantasies?” he said: “They arise out of the disordered movements of the soul that occur during the day. But if a man should occupy himself with the judgments of God and so purify his soul and concern himself constantly with good matters and things pleasing to God, then these things will fill his dreams (instead).”

Holy crap, St. Basil, you're a genius! I knew instantaneously this passage was written for me. So when my sister passed on the “10 strange things about you” challenge, one of my responses was that I have these sleep-walking nightmares all the time, and I thought, “Here’s a great opportunity to put a few things together (in blog form).”

To explain the above quote in its context, Nouwen contends that a primary aspect of the spiritual life is the movement from illusion to prayer, and this includes our dreams. What he means by that is: while we may have the appearance of someone pious, humble and selfless, we may interiorize dreams or fantasies wherein we “freely erect statues to honor our own martyrdom and burn incense for our wounded self.” In other words, we create “immortal images” in our day and night dreams. In dreams, we make ourselves into gods, setting up palaces to enshrine our glory. The only word for this inflated interior activity is idolatry, and Nouwen seems to think it plagues most people. I agree, because the I do this all too often.

What does this have to do with my stupid, embarrassing, occasionally injurious night terrors? Nouwen links the idolatry of our dreams to the illusion of immortality that flows out of it. Reading this, I suddenly realized the common element of these dreams: a powerful fear of death, and a desperate clinging to my life. While I cannot remember the details of these dreams, I always the very real sense of panic that I am about to die. Earlier, as I was taking down some brief notes for this blog, I thought of the Peter Weir movie Fearless, and the transformation from fear to embrace that Jeff Bridge’s character undergoes throughout. If you have not seen the movie, immediately rent it and watch it, then come back and finish reading this post. Yes, it’s that important. Anyways, I immediately pictured the plane crash crescendo that ends the film—hands reaching out for something unseen, bodies ejected through the fuselage, the ceiling tearing away like paper, faces cringing in the desperate attempt to hold on to life, and rays of light coming in like the fingers of God—and I joined these images to my dreams. There’s an important parallel here, I think. We cannot idolatrously cling to the illusion of immortality, but must learn to embrace life as gift. Nouwen writes:

“Patiently but persistently we must slowly unmask the illusions of our immortality, dispelling even the feeble creations of our frustrated mind, and stretch out our arms to the deep sea and the high heaven in a never-ending prayer.”

I have been fascinated by monastic spirituality and the classical Christian disciplines for several years, and the undertaking has been uneven and choppy. However, when I look back, I can see that the best sleep of my recent life came during an extended period of real discipline during the first few months after I moved to Pasadena. While I still did some weird stuff—and I think Nebyou could testify to that—my dreams were not marked by the same sense of terror. I’ll confess, I have really slacked in the area of spiritual discipline for some time, and now I want to get back in the habit. Thankfully, I came across a meaningful and simple discipline in Reaching Out, the Hesychastic “Jesus prayer,” which goes “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” This coincides with focused breathing and a “looking into the heart,” or a submersion into the center of our being. The prayer comes from the gospel accounts of the blind man/men who recognize Jesus as the “Son of David” and desire his mercy and healing. My hope is that I might be given even a portion of this “blind faith” and receive the healing touch of Jesus. May it be the same for you.

Personality Test

So, I was perusing my friend Kristin's blog which had a link to this free personality test, that I decided to take cause I was bored. Maybe I was too nervous answering all these invasive questions with black/white answers, but I'm not sure I agree with the results. I mean, I'm no online program, but I don't think I'm so much more "feeling" than "thinking," and I don't think I'm so musical. Maybe I should retake it. You tell me...

Top 10 of 2007

After speaking with Fuller’s resident film expert (and good friend) Eugene Suen about the best movies of the year and reading his list, I figured to compile my own list. Let me begin by saying, last year was a great year for movies. Of course, I have not been so exposed to such a wide selection of cinema from around the world as I have been in 2007, so that perception may be a little jaded. Additionally, I missed a bunch of movies I wanted to see, but to see them all, I’d probably need to become a film critic, which would likely make me into even more of a recluse. One thing I can say about 2007 is that many of our best filmmakers focused on very dark, even nihilistic, themes. I suppose that says a lot about the state of our world right now.

10. King of Kong

As I was browsing a list of 2007 films to refresh my memory, I came across this title and suddenly a rush of good tymes came rushing back to me. Perhaps the most unintentionally funny movie of all time, featuring a battle royale between a regular schmo who decides to challenge some pompous Donkey Kong champion a**hole for his title. The amazing thing is: you watch this thinking “who cares about a bunch of lame middle-aged white guys playing an 80s arcade game,” and by the end you find yourself strangely touched.

9. Sweeney Todd

I am not a huge musical fan. I think the Sound of Music is great, I enjoyed Hairspray, Chicago and West Side Story, but I can’t think of many others that really resonated with me. Then there was Sweeney Todd. Only Tim Burton could pull this one off: a grim, bloody and passionate musical adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim play. If you want to see impeccable staging, hear some memorable music and leave a musical more unsettled than you’ve ever been before, check this one out.

8. Once

My sister first told me about this little movie, and I later caught it on DVD. A remarkably simple DV feature that proves creativity, authentic characters and boldness make a great movie, not extravagant sums of money, effects and celebrities (for exorbitant, polished garbage like this, look no further than the latest Pirates of the Caribbean). Plus, the tunes in Once will probably be stuck in your head for days, and that’s a good thing.

7. Juno/Superbad

I lumped these two together because they share many commonalities, despite some obvious differences. Aside from being quite funny, they both wind up being surprisingly “adult” movies and genuinely moving, especially Juno. While most high school flicks I’ve seen paint a picture almost totally incongruent with my own experience, Superbad played like a page out of my history book. Director Judd Apatow and screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg give us an accurate and de-mythologized version of adolescence, with all its awkwardness, insecurity and unintentional hilarity. Juno accomplishes much the same feat with less obscenity. Juno unflinchingly presents its characters as awkward and insecure, and makes no apologies or concessions, which I liked.

6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

With a title that reminds me of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and a style reminiscent of Terrence Malick, I may like this movie more by this mental association with two favorite directors than its own merits. A visually lush, mesmerizing and psychological/psychospiritual/spiritual Western that defies conventions and delves extensively with the nature of distinctively American folklore and the hero myths that characterize much of our narrative history.

5. There Will Be Blood

After I watched this, the latest effort by director Paul Thomas Anderson, I left asking myself, “What on earth have I just seen?” In retrospect, I believe it to be a parable about American capitalism and a tragedy in the same vein as Citizen Kane, a similarity that numerous critics and viewers have drawn. Daniel Day-Lewis gives birth to one of the most complex, rich and involving performances of the year that should garner him an Oscar, that is, if there is any justice left in the world. It’s a movie that keeps unraveling long after you’ve seen it. If it’s any indication what kind of movie this is, it’s bounced all over the place on this list in the course of a couple short days.

4. Ratatouille

Unfortunately, I did not see this one in theaters, which was a mistake. Director Brad Bird has yet to offer audiences other than a superb movie. If somehow you missed The Incredibles, watch it immediately, for you shall love it. Then, after you have become enamored, go rent The Iron Giant. Ratatouille displays the same visual dynamism as the other two, the same warmth, the same deep characters and the same sense of total satisfaction when all is said and done.

3. Into the Wild

Directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild may be the most sweeping epic of the year, without the accoutrements of a bigger, more expensive studio production. Based on the true story of Christopher McCandless who abandoned civilized life in order to wander the earth on a quest for a more authentic kind of life. I could really resonate with his impulse to drop everything and head for the wilderness, though I have never acted on that impulse with anywhere near the tenacity of this guy. A sweeping road trip film, the movie takes place in dozens of locations, and everything was filmed on location. As a result, Into the Wild feels very real, almost like a documentary. Fresh, invigorating, introspective, strange and passionate.

2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I probably don’t need to say much about this one since I just finished writing a blog about it. Suffice to say, it is one daring effort by director Julian Schnabel who crafts a movie about an artist struggling to create. The visual style crafted by Janusz Kaminski will surely spawn its copycats, and surely with less efficacy. A pioneering, emotionally involving, devastatingly beautiful and uplifting movie.

1. No Country for Old Men

The Coen brothers have crafted an intense, penetrating and sobering film that left me haunted for days after I first saw it, and left me affected as much the second time. No Country conjures analogies to the Coens’ 1996 film Fargo (which I consider a masterpiece, too), an ironic, occasionally hilarious and deeply disturbing movie. No Country paints a bleak picture without the humor. I labeled it a lament, or to be more specific, a lament for the vicious cycles into which humanity keeps falling. The film leaves me pondering what my country will look like when I am old, and strikes me with the determination interrupt the destructive circle before our children inherit a bleaker, more difficult and violent culture than the one we now know. Add to this a spectacular, unflinching performance by Javier Bardem that makes him one of cinema’s greatest villains of all time, and you’ve got one memorable movie.

Honorable Mentions - Here’s a few titles I either couldn’t figure how to place or failed to recognize their greatness.

• Silent Light (Stellet licht) – Carlos Reygadas

A slow-burning, meditative, earthy picture of Mennonite life. Not for the impatient filmgoer, however.

• Flight of the Red Balloon (Le voyage du ballon rouge) – Hsiao-hsien Hou

Juliette Binoche is great (as always) in this film that lingers on the ordinary and urges us to perceive the transcendent. Again, if you think a movie like Letters from Iwo Jima is too slow with too many subtitles, then Red Balloon probably isn’t for you… but you should see it anyways, just for that reason.

• Eastern Promises – David Cronenberg
  

Once again, Cronenberg subverts our expectations and plays violence like it should be: grotesque, unsettling and downright frightening.

• Zodiac – David Fincher
  

On of the least violent, most cerebral serial killer movies you will ever see.