The Shack: God is a Black Woman

William P. Young, author of the bestselling novel The Shack, and I have a bone to pick; he stole my idea. Since I started teaching in Memphis, and interacting with black people in a way I never have in my life, my mental picture of God has become a black woman. To be perfectly specific, I think of Tyler Perry's Madea character in Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

Why do I think God is well represented by the black woman? For one, I agree with Young's idea that God is too often visualized like a Gandalf character with proverbial stoicism. Shouldn't God have some dignity? To me, Gandalf the grey has very little dignity; he has lots of class but little dignity. However, a black woman, who is too often socially, intellectually, and dispensationally under represented, can truly hold herself with dignity in a way that no Lord of the Rings character ever could. Only a true underdog can hold their head up with stateliness because they know the bottom, and still walk tall.

I will support my idea that the black woman is the metaphorical beacon of dignity with something I've seen play out again and again in my school. Working in a low income community, the stereotype is that parents don't give a damn about their childs education. Most people I talk to think poverty equates to lack of involvment in school. My experience has been just the opposite. My school is primaly African American, and as far as I can tell most of my students are raised by their Mom's. If a kid is cutting up in class, I call home and talk to Mom, and rarely will I have a problem with that child again. Mom takes care of her child. Sometimes I am scared to these kids home because I fear for them; believe me when I say hell hath no fury. Yet, the fury comes with genuine concern for the child. These black women I know often work several low paying jobs just to make ends meet. They have a deep understanding of depravity, but maintain their cool through it all.

This is why I agree with W.P. Young, God is a black woman.

The Arrogance of Faith

"Jesus is/was/always will be,God. There have been many people who have lived their lives with great dignity, for the promotion of peace, who've taught by example...but they were not God."

I'm responding to this quote that came my way regarding my "Ghandi" article. I actually strongly agree with the latter portion of this quote. However, I think the former argument in it reveals an obvious assumption that we humans have access to celestial knowledge of the holy in so much that we can determine who is God and who isn't God. I think it's painfully arrogant to claim that any "I" has obtained this godlike information.

Yet I will concede that there is a sort of normative arrogance in making any faith statement such as, "Jesus is God." In fact, I think it's quite impossible to say anything concerning faith or the lack of faith without having some quantitative "arrogance" attached to it. I say this because every faith statement I make, whether it's a theistic or atheistic one, is derived by staking a claim to some divine knowledge whether that knowledge is divinely theistic or divinely atheistic.

Does this mean that I am being arrogant by claiming that the person that wrote the quote is arrogant? Probably so. This leads me to wonder at what point does an arrogant idea become "too" arrogant of an idea? I think that line can be drawn particularly when some person decides who is or isn't the "I am."

The Last Picture Show?

Young Love
A short comedy film
written by: Jocelyn Parker (10th grade student)
directed by: A.J. Stich

This movie signals my mini return to film making. Upon graduating Asbury College with a media communications degree, I escaped the life of an over worked and under paid video production assistant in urban LA and exchanged it to be an over worked secondary school teacher in urban Memphis. Ok, I guess I'm simply a sucker for cheap gigs.

Either way, I took a hiatus from film making, dropped my production companies website, and let Final Cut Pro sit gathering dust on the shelves...until March 2008. Over a year has passed since my last short, and I decided it was time to get behind the camera again.

With the help of many of my students at Kingsbury High, we created a film club of sorts and produced our first film. It was written by a girl in my tenth grade class, and I really liked her script. Honestly, this film was a bit of a stretch for me since it is a big step away from the quirky sophisticated dark comedies that have consumed my film arsenal for the past three years. This film takes me back to my roots, back to films like "Kung Fu Theatre 3" (There was never a 1 or 2), "A.J. Chases J-ED," and "The Four Square Mocumentary." These films were defined by a low brow, Garfield like slapstick comedy that seems to effortlessly make people laugh. That's cool with me. I no longer need to make the next "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" or "Pulp Fiction." No. My endless nerve bending journey to be Martin Scorsese has ended, and I've become my own.

This film is not a comedy that will provide streamlined inspiration to the next generation of film makers or will define the genre of "funny" for years to come. Rather, this film is a movie that a community will see and laugh at hysterically because their friends and family are properly projected onto the big screen and they sort of for six minutes look and act like movie stars.

In time, we will see where this style of film making leads me to. Future goals? 100-158 YouTube views...Eat that Wes Anderson...