John Williams

A few weeks ago when Thomas and I went to the symphony we saw a upcoming concert advertised with John Williams conducting his own film scores, accompanied by footage of some of his films. We both thought, we just have to see that, but our hopes were dashed to find out that tickets were completely sold out.

Just last week though I wandered in to the Chicago Symphony Centre (downtown) to ask if there were any tickets which had become available. There were! In the upper balcony, without a guarantee that we would see the screen, but tickets nonetheless! Thomas said that seeing John Williams would be like seeing Mozart conduct his own compositions in his day. I think that people who got to tell their grandkids that they saw Mozart wouldn't have complained "but I couldn't see the painting on the back wall".

Today we went to that concert. It was beyond awesome. One of the greatest things I have seen / heard / done / been to in my life.

Williams has written the scores for so many of the most popular films of a generation, that most of the tunes were instantly familiar - Superman, Jaws, Born on the 4th of July, Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and of course, Star Wars and ET.

There was such a range of styles - from the triumphant fanfares of many of the above, to the celtic lilt of Far and Away, to the smooth jazz of Catch Me If You Can, to the exquisite beauty of Memoirs of a Geisha.

Bonus 1: A venerable old senator, Alan Simpson came on stage to narrate a passage from the novel The Reivers, while Williams conducted music from the film. I'd not heard of the book nor seen the film, but it was just delightful, and with the music I could imagine each scene as it was narrated.

Bonus 2: Music is such huge part of evoking mood in film. In Yr 11 at school we watched a section of Psycho without the music, and then with it, to see what a difference music makes (imagine the shower scene without the "eek eek eek"! Williams showed a chase scene from Indiana Jones without the soundtrack, narrating what musical devices he employed to emphasise the action, then replayed the film with the orchestra playing the score.

Bonus 3: We could see the screen (but we had cheap tickets anyway!). So we watched the finale - sections of Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders and ET accompanied by film clips.

There were repeated standing ovations - and 3 encores, including the CBS news theme which he wrote, which in Australia is the Channel 7 news theme, and The Empire Strikes Back theme.

It was such magic - to see Williams himself conduct, knowing that he himself dreamt up the music which has moved me and millions of people to delight and to tears. I may never have the chance to see such an accomplished composer live again.

Kentucky: Fried Chicken

A couple of weeks ago Brandon suggested we go away somewhere for the Thanksgiving weekened. We decided to pick somewhere completely at random, somewhere that neither of us had been nor were likely to go to in the coming year. We picked Louisville, Kentucky.

We we drove off on the Friday, through the industrial bleakness of Indiana, opening up into cornfields and wide, flat land down towards the Ohio River, which is the border between Indiana and Kentucky. Louisville is on the Ohio River.

Kentucky is famous for bluegrass rock music, bourbon, and KFC! I went in search of all three, and found the Colonel himself! Louisville was also home to Mohammed Ali and Thomas Merton.

But its a fairly boring little city - it makes me glad to be in Chicago (see next blog post for why).

But it was a great trip! I like roadtripping - just driving, watching the landscape change, and lots of time to talk and sing along with music in the car. Brandon and I had some great conversations. And the highlight - watching Ninja Warrior on cable TV late at night in the motel room!

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, which is always celebrated on the last Thursday of November. This all-American feast began as a Christian celebration for the pilgrims who, having endured a difficult winter the previous year, gave thanks for a moderately successful autumn crop harvest which would allow them to survive the coming winter. Thanksgiving is on par with, if not bigger than Christmas over here.

I have lots to be grateful for:

food, in a world where many people are hungry

a body which works properly, when so many are sick or disabled

friends and family who love me, when so many people are lonely

peaceful life in Australia and the US, when so many are oppressed or at war

the love and presence of God, when so many people have no sense of meaning in life

It sounds somewhat odd at times to say "thank you God that I have so much and others have so little". I don't believe that God specifically wills me to have and he wills others to specifically have not. But I recognise that even the basics of life can't be taken for granted, and that I need to have a stance of gratitude for every good thing, and that this stance must necessarily draw me out in compassion towards the many people who are deprived of all these things.

Right now, I am grateful for the opportunity to spend 9 months here in the US. I am privileged to be in a place with brilliant teachers and learners, with people who are passionate about God, God's Kingdom, and hopeful that the Catholic Church can play a useful part in it. I have experienced such a wide range of cultural and religious traditions which I hadn't been exposed to at home. I have made new friends. I have had new adventures. I have attended to my spiritual life and physical health much more than I have at home.

I've just returned from a fantastic inter-faith service at the Rockerfeller Chapel with about 1000 people. I sensed the big-ness of God, and the goodness of this place, the Hyde Park neighbourhood of Chicago. Now I am going with Romana and Eldon to one of our lecturers' (Scott Alexander) family for a traditional thanksgiving lunch. Then we'll come home and watch the thanksgiving day afternoon football, and probably fall asleep on the couch, stuffed full of turkey and pumpkin pie.

Cold weather's a coming....

OK. It's Chicago. And it's the last two weeks of Autumn. So I should have expected it to get cold.

Today I went running in 38 degree weather (about 5 deg celsius). Pictured is everything I need to wear to run - wickable, breathable long sleeve hoodie and long pants, and gloves, which made it comfortable to run, and actually it was good running weather - still, no wind, and cool enough to be able to push hard. But it makes me wonder - what am I going to do in WINTER????

Actually the cold weather has advantages - you get to dress up. This me wearing the alpaca scarf given to me by the St John's Narraweena school board, and the lumberjack jacket I've borrowed from a guy here for the winter. And then wearing the yak-fur beaning Joel & Jenni gave me from Tibet.

Oops. I did it again

I swore I wouldn't do it again. But suddenly, I found myself just dangling from a plane at 13,000 feet, and all of a sudden I fell out, and free-fell for 7000 feet, doing numerous 360 spins, before parachuting down to a graceful and perfect landing.

This was all in honour of Todd needing to skydive before he turned 30. So 11 of us trekked out to the the outskirts of Chicago to a little town called Hinkley.

The great thing about tandem skydiving is that you know someone else is in control here - someone who has jumped over 9000 times and not died yet (perhaps the law of averages says that their luck is sure to run out soon....). So you're free to just enjoy the moment.

And what a moment the freefall is: about 45 seconds of every sense being acutely stimulated. The ground is too far away to matter. You're looking straight out at the horizon, then spinning around. The wind is almost piercing your face, stinging with cold, and you find out afterwards in the photos that your cheeks were flapping around like crazy. Yet its almost eerily silent, peaceful. Suspended. Weightless. There's a moment to know that you are completely alive, completely free.

Then the parachute opens, and its a gentle glide down to the ground.

I did skydive in 2001, but this was even more fun - with a a bigger group, so more revving up. And unlike last time I bought the photo and video - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BvXC2XtTU and laugh at me!

An ordinary week

They say time flies when you're having fun. But for me, my time in Chicago is immensely enjoyable, but is moving deliciously slowly. There is a wondeful rhythm of life here, with meals, prayer and lectures, but also so many different and interesting things going on which I think give texture to life here, so it doesn't just rush by, as ordinary life can.

Every weekday we morning prayer at 7.30 and Mass at 5pm.

So let me recap last week, as an example of an ordinary week.

Monday

Class: theological reflection in small groups

Australians and friends party for Melbourne Cup

then out to the city for spicy chicken wings with the lutherans

Tuesday
Class: Intimacy and defense mechanisms
Small group discussion
Therapy
$2 burgers at Bar Louie
Over to Jason's house to try out his new birthday hookah pipe
Chanted night prayer with the lutherans

Wednesday
Class: Practicum on skills for formators
Driving test - passed!
IRF social night

Thursday
Class: Dreams & spirituality
Dinner with our class for Tony's anniversary
Poker night (I came 2nd!)

Friday

Class: Understanding the psalms
Sabbath meal & prayer service at synagogue
Watch "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" with class

Saturday

Help with food pantry / soup kitchen

Public lecture by Sr Helen Prejean

Out for coffee

Sunday

Mass at local parish

Over to west side of city for Brazilian festival meal

Home and out for pizza

And the week ended with three friends and I having silent prayer before an icon of Jesus at midnight.

Somewhere tucked into the gaps I went to the gym a couple of times and had a couple of runs, prayed, and did homework.

I think the other reason that life isn't racing by is that I spend a bit of time praying, reading, journalling (for myself) and blogging (for you), and so I get to sit and think through events and ideas, rather than just have them race by as they do in ordinary life.

Like Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worthy of a human being".

Sr Helen Prejean

Sr Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in the film Dead Man Walking spoke at University of Chicago last night. She continues to be a passionate campaigner against the death penalty in America.

She spoke not just about the death penalty, but about a range of justice issues; poverty, education, health care & racism, which all feed into the criminal justice system. Some of the statistics are shocking: 1 in 3 African American men aged 20-30 have been through the courts & or prisons.

The startling comparison was made between slavery and the death penalty: the ten states who practiced slavery account for 80% of executions in America. Where ever there is a large enough black population to scare the whites, there tends to be the death penalty - an overwhelming majority of people executed are poor black men.

Sr Helen's goal was to raise in all of us an awareness of these interlocking issues. She shared some of her own story, which was documented in the film, to encourage us to do something, whatever that might be. To get started. When asked what keeps her going despite the glacial pace of change, she quoted Mother Teresa: "We are called by God to faithfulness, not to success".

Hermann Hesse

This week I read one of the best books I've ever read, "Narcissus and Goldmund" by Hermann Hesse. The writing is concise and powerful. Hesse can evoke a mood or the passage of time with just a few phrases.

It was recommended to me by my friend TC for whom it is his favourite book.

It's the story of two young monks in 14th century Germany (dating is by reference to the Black Death) who form an extraordinary friendship, despite being very different in temperament. One leaves the monastery to live an adventurous life, the other remains in the monastery.

Each are literary foils for each other. Each becomes richer through having known the other. I resonate strongly with one of the characters, but am drawn to grow in the direction of the other. It's also the best depiction of intimate platonic friendship I have ever read.

Reading it picks up on theme in other books and films I've really resonated with - The Lord of the Rings, Fight Club and American Beauty, and also touches into my sense of being called when I took two years out of the seminary.

Have you read it? Tell me what you thought.

License to drive

Hooray! I passed my driving test!

Illinois doesn't accept any overseas driving licenses, so I had to do the whole applying for a license thing from scratch. I had a week of practicing how to drive on the wrong side of the road with a couple of patient friends. Was nervous about the driving test, but it went OK.

Now I can rent a car for the Christmas break - there's no public transport where I'm going - an Indian reservation on the border of South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Johari Window

Today in class we looked at the Johari Window, a tool for self-awareness which can be of help in formation ministry. I remember we did it in seminary.

The principle is a grid with 4 boxes representing what I know and don't know about myself, and what about me is known or unknown to others.

The goal is to increase your "open" window, reducing the blind spots (things you know about me but I don't), through feedback in relationships, and to reduce the hidden window (things I know but others don't) by gradual self disclosure.

As a lesson in how to use it, there is a website in which I can choose a number of words to describe myself, and then others can also pick what words they would use to describe me. I'd like to invite you to do this for me. The congruence or dissonance between how I see myself and how others see me serves to show what my blind spots might be, and what parts of myself I might need to work on expressing more.

There are two separate exercises - one for positive traits: http://kevan.org/johari?name=jim1972mckeon , and one for negative traits: http://kevan.org/nohari?name=thedarksideofjim . Be brutal! It will only take 5 minutes. You can leave your real name, or you can just put anonymous, or better, make up a name like Zaphod Beeblebrox.

The Art Institute of Chicago

Today I visited the Art Insitute of Chicago.

It's a truly awesome place, dwarfing the Art Gallery of NSW, my only other major experience of an art gallery.

It's far too much to take in during one visit, so I bought a yearly pass (so good to be a student again for the discount!) so I can go back again and again to drink it in.

It was amazing to be in the present of so many original Monets, Picassos and Renoirs. But there was also incredible 9th century Chinese sculptures, and 2500 old Greek and 4000 year old Egyptian relics, some in remarkable condition.

TC and I went to one of the museum lectures whcih explained so much more than I could ever discern on my own. We looked at "Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat, an impressionist painter who, like Monet used a style involving delicate patterned brushstrokes, but he overlaid it with smaller points of contrasting colour which was a feature of his work. I recognised it as the picture which transfixed Cameron (Ferris' friend) in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The Gospel of Matthew

This week we had two days of lectures by the world renowned biblical scholar Fr Don Senior, who is also president CTU (our college). I was reading his scripture commentaries when I was in seminary, so was really excited to hear him teach. He effortlessly poured out an introduction to and outline of the major themes of Matthew's Gospel.

A key structures to Matthew's Gospel is that there are 5 blocks of teaching, punctuated by 5 blocks of miracle accounts. Matthew focuses much more more on Jesus as teacher, and as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, while Mark's gospel focusses more on Jesus as healer and wonder worker. They're both true, its just the nuances of how to tell the story.

We focussed on The Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7, which is the most unique piece of Jesus' teaching, with little direct parallel in either the old testament or other ancient writings. We looked at the seemingly impossible high ideal which Jesus sets, and then various responses to how we are to live it, all of which somehow reduce the imperative of the message. Don Senior's interpretation though was that Jesus meant all of what he said seriously (love your neighbour, forgive, etc), and what he is presenting is "what it looks like when a child of God is overtaken by God's grace". He emphasised that Jesus is showing us who we can become, how it is possible to act, even though he offers limitless forgiveness for us who will likely not live it out most of the time.

We also looked at how Matthew emphasises that for Jesus the measure of righteousness isn't what you say but what you do, evidenced in several places throughout the gospel, but most strongly in Matt 25 with "whenever you did this (fed the hungry, clothed the naked etc) to the least of my brothers and sisters you did it to me".

I am now rereading the whole gospel, encouraged by this and many other insights.