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Text of the page (random words):
ent of how things haven t worked out as you intended often that s good you had one idea but god has worked things differently and it s all rather gratifying it goes the other way too you intended something to be one thing but events conspired to make it something else and now if you had the time over again you d do it very differently father paul the priest at the centre of netflix s midnight mass seems to have one of those moments towards the end of the series avoiding spoilers it s very much the latter for him he d envisaged one thing what actually happens is to say the least not to plan it s horrifying and ultimately deeply moving as his intentions spiral out of control midnight mass is for much of the time a slow considered watch i can t remember a show which allows quite so much time for a long discussion about what happens after we die and on other occasions aspects of theology centred as it is around a roman catholic priest on an isolated island it is also one of those rare shows which really seems to understand the church and faith which form the anchor of its drama although it does ultimately become something else it s fair minded and takes religion seriously research has been done and many of the little details ring true if you re a person of faith you will recognise yourself here as events take a horrifying turn however this is very much a show about how even the best intentioned of people can find events running out of their control turning into something far more sinister than they or anyone else could have dreamed of father paul is clearly a man of good intention and many gifts but so convinced is he of all this that he reads approval for his actions into biblical texts when a cool headed step back would see something different but he s high on the adrenaline of conviction and people in those states are hard to stop even when the alarm bells are ringing he s too busy and excited to hear them he seems to have forgotten a fundamental tenet of his faith that everybody including himself is prone to sin and our most basic motivations should always be interrogated his failure to do so means his dreams for the island community he pastors turn to ashes in his hands we all do it don t we we all have moments be they quiet conversations over coffee thoughts scrawled in a journal career choices or relationship choices when we re swept up in the excitement of a moment and fail to examine things closely enough unintended consequences may be unintended but that doesn t stop them from being consequences midnight mass starts with the dramatisation of one character s nightmarish moment of unintended consequences overtaking him to devastating effect the rest of the show tells the story of a whole community ultimately suffering for similar reasons in the light of a very different series of events we tend to venerate action and results such things are tangible after all they show us we have achieved something how often however are the actions and results mere noise convenient fillers of silence that have given us something to do when we should have been focussing more on who we are god is often more concerned with who we are than what we do the extent to which we are living a jesus shaped life as opposed to the smoke and mirrors we put out there to reflect ourselves and our actions better he s not fooled by momentary fruit midnight mass is a powerful reminder that we d all do a little better to stop look and listen rather more share this share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest share on facebook opens in new window facebook print opens in new window print email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on x opens in new window x like loading posted in leadership ministry tv tagged leadership midnight mass television leave a comment october 27 2021 by davidmeldrum squid game don t panic somebody has said that worrying is like a rocking chair it gives you something to do but it doesn t get you anywhere like all such statements there s both an element of truth in it and it s also unhelpful not doing justice to the complexity of reasons and circumstances that lead someone to worry a similar thing can be said about moral panic it give us something to do and feel but it often doesn t achieve much and obscures much of the truth of what s really going on not the whole truth certainly but no doubt part of it squid game is enormous and like other things that become seemingly overnight pop culture sensations moral panic has broken out around it you surely know its premise by now a south korean netflix show that tells the story of people in dire financial straits who are tricked into playing a series of childhood games the title is from a children s playground game of which i ve never heard with each other where people who lose the games are summarily killed as they seek a huge cash prize even if we take into account that netflix s method of counting views is notoriously undemanding in terms of what it defines as a view you only have to watch 2 minutes of something for it to be registered as a view in terms of viewing figures it is still enormous roughly twice the viewers of the second placed netflix show bridgerton the moral panic around squid game seems to be about both the extremely brutal violence and the reports of schoolchildren playing games inspired by the show in the playground and other associated social media phenomena i haven t seen any claims that any children have died or even used guns doing this in all honesty i m not too sure what that side of this moral panic is about school children have always and will always play games and those games will often include exclusion and bullying something which we always need to address a more pertinent concern is how easy it can be for children who are too young to see this show netflix accounts can be child locked but to be honest children will often find a way if they want to squid game is a show aimed at adults that a youth culture wave has swept up around it is in many ways a separate issue if it is an issue at all but the moral panic around the show obscures much of what the show is trying to do and what it s trying to do is important despite what you may think from a bald description of the premise this is not mindlessly violence yes it s brutal gory and shocking we do however get to know a lot about many of these characters especially as the show progresses through its 9 episodes we get to know them has human beings with weaknesses and strengths hopes and dreams most importantly this is a show about debt and financial poverty south korea has a crippling debt problem personal debt exceeds gdp by 5 it s an epidemic and it s getting worse a global pandemic will only have exaggerated it a show about people having to do terrible things to get out of debt is deeply resonant in its home culture in an honour shame culture the shame associated with poverty and debt is powerfully portrayed here the show s second episode gives an extended insight into the personal circumstances of some of the characters that has led them to this desperate place and in its own way its just as affecting as the killings themselves the show also fits in a broader tradition of extreme cinema television the exaggerated blood splatter for instance as well as the competitive violence recalling films like battle royale also south korean where a tidal wave of youth crime is addressed by taking a class of school children to an island giving them weapons and waiting for them to kill each other squid game also takes place on an island one of many parallels with the influential and troubling film the show pushes us emotionally in the context of a network of characters we grow to care about in predicaments that are painful and from which most of us would naturally turn away people in debt have made choices and deserve to be there to some extent we might say squid game presents us with the logical conclusion of that and a society that forces people to do anything to stay afloat so much of the show is designed brilliantly to demonstrate how people in such desperate need have agency and choice removed they are in uniforms of one colour often seen tramping the stairs of an escher inspired set of seemingly endless and aimless staircases grown adults are reduced to playing with marbles in a bid to stay alive people reduced to shadows of themselves by a system that self perpetuates and grinds up those at the bottom with scarcely a thought for who they are squid game is designed to ask us difficult questions you don t have to watch it of course no one is making you do so it s ok to be concerned about kids having access to violent content haven t they always not that this means it s not an issue but let s be sure to listen and to listen well one of the many extraordinarily well staged scenes of mass violence in the show manipulated by the games organisers takes place in a hall lit by strobe lighting strobe lighting can be a cliché of action films lazy and repetitive here it builds fear and uncertainty to stunning effect gradually a lone voice is heard one of the players an old man who suffers from dementia has found his way to a relatively safe spot on top of a scaffolding like tower amid the violence and flashing lights he plaintively pleads with the rest to stop to look at what they ve become in doing so it s not hard to think of a christian desert father atop a pillar or a john the baptist like figure preparing the way as he persists in speaking the violence slows to stillness for that day at least for a moment people start to pay attention he who has ears let him hear share this share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on tumblr opens in new window tumblr share on reddit opens in new window reddit share on pinterest opens in new window pinterest share on facebook opens in new window facebook print opens in new window print email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on x opens in new window x like loading posted in tv tagged netflix squid game tv leave a comment june 1 2019 by davidmeldrum firstimefriday bill murray and embracing the transcendence of the ordinary in the dark strange days after 9 11 when the skies over london were still eerily empty of the planes that would on a normal day noisily criss cross their white plumes overhead a story spread across the city there were it turned out variations on it but it went something like this a muslim man had unknowingly dropped his obviously full wallet on public transport somewhere in the city a fellow passenger saw this picked up the wallet and handed it to its owner he was very grateful and as he thanked the person in question he would lean forward and whisper to him or her stay out of names part of london on names a day date it s a classic urban myth it plays on fear and prejudice it s always a friend or a friend of a friend to whom it happened the actual people involved are always just one remove away these myths spread like wildfire across cities even before the internet and social media were in wide use and become accepted truths of course these days one can find few people who actually believed this myth but back in the day when most of us heard it most of us believed it at least for a few minutes for some of us such stories become a prism through which we view an issue the more light hearted ones become shared jokes which bind groups together in many cases the truthfulness of these myths isn t what s most important it s what they mean at a deeper level that matters the way they shape us and define our views of people or things urban myths are in that respect a close relative of what we now call fake news bill murray is an actor around whom a series of what appear to be urban myths have grown up and the 70 minute documentary t he bill murray stories life lessons learned from a mythical man available on netflix in some countries is the story of a film maker trying to get to the bottom of them establish their truthfulness and meaning it turns out that the myths around bill murray are mostly true he really did turn up to a student party and do the washing up he did join the engagement photo shoot of a random couple he did play kickball with some people in a park that one time he did turn up at a bar and start serving drinks behind it on they go the documentary is intoxicatingly cheerful it s the good natured story of a global star blessed with magical comic timing who has appeared in some of our best loved movies doing nice things for ordinary people what does it all mean the film maker wants to know i remember bono once being quoted as saying i see fame as a calling it s one of those bono isms that winds a lot of people up i understand that but i couldn t help thinking of those words when i was watching this film it seems that bill murray sees fame in a similar way if one has this ridiculous thing called a celebrity one might as well do something useful with it the logic goes bono takes that in one direction bill murray in another the roots of this seem to be in his improvisational comedy background as the film explains in improv the artist has to say yes and then move further down the road fear must drive you to new things in improv not weigh one down the way it does so many of us he has no entourage to bring with him no pr people to spin he s just himself improvising outside the performance space what s interesting is what this all means to the people murray meets one of his directors says he shows up not to take over but to be present one person who testified to one myth s truthfulness first hand said he made feel like a bigger person than i am i m not part of his story he s part of my story another says by action if not by word he s teaching us how to live it s an invitation not to live on autopilot but rather to live wherever the wind blows for the follower of jesus this all sounds a little like jesus speaking of how the holy spirit the essence of god guides us and works it sounds a lot like an invitation to embrace the opportunity to see transcendence and holiness and opportunity in the ordinary stuff of the day to day for ourselves and for those standing in queues with us at the next table in the car beside us what if we jesus followers saw those moments as chances to bring transcendence to others and ourselves in those ordinary moments what if we did so in such a way so as to not draw attention to ourselves with a lecture or sermon or the like but something more simple quietly paying for someone else s coffee for example i don t know how all this works bill murray is no jesus a quick read around online relates that many have found him hard to work with and that one ex wife mentioned abuse and addiction as a cause for her seeking divorce though these claims were later withdrawn in these...