Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, December 5, 2011

The Tree of Life




The Tree of Life Movie
Official Trailer (HD)







The Tree of Life - Lacrimosa
From the opening scenes







Lacrimosa (Requiem)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [lyrics]



The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791, during the last year of the composer's life. 'Lacrimosa' is part of that Requiem Mass and -for me- reveals some of the deepest feelings of human beings and one of mankind's biggest fears: Death.


Lacrimosa dies illa                                              Mournful that day
Qua resurget ex favilla                                     When from the ashes shall rise
Judicandus homo reus.                                    Guilty man to be judged.

Lacrimosa dies illa                                               Mournful that day
Qua resurget ex favilla                                      When from the ashes shall rise
Judicandus homo reus.                                     Guilty man to be judged.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:                                      Lord have mercy on him
Pie Jesu Domine.                                                 Gentle Lord Jesus.

Huic ergo parce, Deus:                                      Lord have mercy on him
Pie Jesu Domine.                                                 Gentle Lord Jesus.

Dona eis requiem.                                               Grant them eternal rest.
Dona eis requiem.                                               Grant them eternal rest.

Amen.                                                                       Amen.


Mozart's Requiem-Lacrimosa
lyrics+translation



Alert: Spoilers below

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If you want to go into Tree of Life as innocent as possible, you may want to avoid the section below and video to follow that discuss some of the themes running through the narrative.

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The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt). Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.Written by alfiehitchie


The Tree of Life is a 2011 American drama with experimental elements written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, and Jessica Chastain. Malick's film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and the inception of life on Earth. After decades in development and missed 2009 and 2010 release dates, the film premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or. The film received polarizing reactions in response to Malick's use of technical and artistic imagery, directorial style, and fragmented non-linear narrative.

My Review

The Tree of Life can be a tediously long movie at 139 minutes - even for one perhaps sympathetic with its larger-than-life themes. And when confronted with the conflicted human stories interwoven within, the film becomes as personally disturbing, as it is confronting, to our own life stories being lived out in the present tense. Especially when considering the several life angles being explored from the characters' perspectives. For myself, I found it hard to separate between the father's, or the child's, perspectives, each as tragically interlinked with sorrow as with failure, as they are faced with severe personal disappointment, conflict, and a chilling coldness - even numbness - to their loved ones and hurting family members around them.

As the film concludes it leaves one breathing a sigh of relief that it had reached some kind of resolution, however disquieting or incomplete, but at least moving towards some sense of personal comprehension and completion. And at the same time it leaves the viewer with the feeling of not knowing what to do with everything just witnessed on the silver screen. Mostly, the theater is silent, with small expressions of confusion flowing between dumbfounded viewers cloister within their inner sanctums of insanity, as we each filed out quietly, like ones leaving a morgue or a funeral, tragically torn by the grief and death witnessed and shared.

It is only in aftermath's reflection that one feels the better for having viewed the film's portrayals. A view that provides the hard-earned life experiences of individuals detailing personal bitterness and failure. Each uncomfortably absorbed by remorse and truth. And perhaps obtaining a small amount of self-conscious understanding - or dearly needed forgiveness - however ill-timed or belatedly received.

It also left me with the strong feeling that this film should be honestly viewed by every prospective couple contemplating parenthood. Or by every wronged child, now grown. So great its life portraits of our human frailties and misjudgments, aloneness and isolations, misguided plans and benighted resolutions, to that dream of life we had first believed in childhood's innocence and thought we could live. And yet, as the years roll by, we too share in despair's deep lack of unfulfillment when comparing life's once promised beauty until experience ruined its innocence.

This review then does not even begin to touch on the many dizzying thematic elements interwoven throughout the film's length and breadth. One that should first be worked-out by the film-goer before hearing the excellent insights gained from the actor's point of view (presented next, below). A video clip which helps to explain this dreadfully realistic film much better than I have. Leaving one with a deeper thanksgiving to its terrible truths and fearsome depths which we must every-so-often be confronted by in order to better appreciate this short life we are given by God to endure, and to make some sense of. A film that might help us be better human beings for having actively contemplated and discussed it with friends and family.

R.E. Slater
December 5, 2011


Los Angeles Times
May 25, 2011

Tree of Life is a pure mystery to most movie-goers out there.

Even those who've seen it from Cannes has vague and generally mysterious ways of describing it.

24 Frames posted this video which features Brad Pitt and other members of the cast talking about what Tree of Life is and what the production meant to everyone involved.

In three minutes I have a much firmer grasp on what Tree of LIfe may actually be about, as opposed to cryptic talk from anyone who's seen it.

Check out the short video below, and prepared to finally be enlightened.

Note: This doesn't contain spoilers, but if you want to go into Tree of Life as innocent as possible, you may want to avoid this video since it discusses some of the themes running through the narrative.


The Tree of Life Summary



The Tree of Life - Explained
Analysis by Bishop Fr. Robert Barron



The Tree of Life
(148 mins)