"Avatar; Potential; Challenge; the Call"
A Sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
March 14, 2010
READINGS: ANCIENT & MODERN
Our first reading is based on a translation by Witter Bynner
from the Tao te Ching (dow de ching) by Lao-Tzu:
Existence is beyond the power of words to define:
Terms may be used but are none of the absolute.
In the beginning of heaven and earth there were no words,
Words come out of the womb of matter;
And whether we dispassionately see
to the core of life,
or passionately see the surface,
the core and the surface
are essentially the same,
Words make them seem different only to express appearance.
If name be needed,
wonder names them both:
From wonder into wonder
existence opens.
Our second reading is from the script of the movie, Avatar.
It is a from a scene where the dialogue takes place between Dr.
Grace Augustine, played by Sigourney Weaver, and Parker Selfridge,
played by Giovanni Ribisi. Slefridge is a company man for a corporation
back on planet Earth. He is dedicated to his company's mission of
mining, at any cost, an extremely valuable mineral from the planet
Pandora. Dr. Augustine's role on the mission is to work with the
Na'vi, who are the inhabitants of Pandora, in an effort to get them
to surrender this resource with the least amount of mechanical or
military intervention and violence. Dr. Augustine speaks:
GRACE: Alright, look -- I don't have the answers yet, I'm just
now starting to even frame the questions. What we think we know
-- is that there's some kind of electrochemical communication between
the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each
tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and
there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora --
SELFRIDGE: That's a lot I'm guessing.
GRACE: That's more connections than the human brain. You get it?
It's a network - a global network. And the Na'vi can access it --
they can upload and download data -- memories -- at sites like the
one you destroyed.
SELFRIDGE: What the hell have you people been smoking out there?
They're just... Trees.
GRACE: You need to wake up, Parker. The wealth of this world isn't
in the ground -- it's all around us. The Na'vi know that, and they're
fighting to de-fend it. If you want to share this world with them,
you need to understand them.
SELFRIDGE: We understand them just fine.
SERMON:
When I saw the movie, Avatar, last month, I thought, "Wow,
great sermon fodder!" It was packed with great theological
underpinnings and I was eager to unpack them. So I put it in the
sermon cue for this morning, the earliest time I'd be able to use
it. When I learned it had been nominated as Best Picture for the
Academy Awards, I thought, "Wow, one week after the Oscars,
I may be preaching about THE show of the year. This might be way
more timely than anything I've done in decade!" You can imagine
my disappointment when it didn't win… So maybe this is a little
less relevant than it might have otherwise been, but it is still
in the ballpark, or at least the box office.
I don't get to the movies all that often these days. Actually going
to the cinema seems to go in spurts and drabs and, for some reason,
it had been a while. So I was really glad we went and saw it on
the big screen. I enjoyed the 3-D, and the very cool new 3-D glasses
they gave us to wear. And I enjoyed the movie, at least much of
it. But before I get into that, I want to share a plot synopsis
of it, so that those who haven't seen it will have some idea of
what I'm talking about.
If you haven't seen it and you're afraid that I might spoil the
plot, I don't think that's really possible. I wish it were possible,
but the plot to Avatar is about as predictable as was the plot in
James Cameron's, Titanic. No one went to the theater to see that
film with any real hope that the big ship was somehow going to keep
from hitting the iceberg and going down. So the summary I'm about
to share of Avatar is from my own recollections along with considerable
help from a couple of websites I found online. So…
Avatar is an American science fiction epic film written and directed
by James Cameron. It's set in the year 2154. Humans have traveled
halfway across the universe to mine a precious mineral called unobtanium
on Pandora, a lush moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star
system. Expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence
of a local tribe of Na'vi-a sentient humanoid species indigenous
to Pandora.
Jake Sully is a combat marine who had been injured in battle, and
who is now paraplegic. The VA doesn't have enough money to repair
his legs, so he's stuck in a wheelchair. After his twin brother
is killed, Jake takes his place in the project on Pandora. Earthlings
the rare mineral unobtanium found there in order to solve the humans'
energy crisis. You probably detect the subtle metaphor used there.
Pandora is a hostile environment for humans. The air is toxic,
and the wilderness is filled with prehistoric-like savage beasts.
Scientists have taken the DNA from the indigenous Na'vi, and combined
it with human DNA to create avatars. The humans, in their quest
for unobtanium, can then move about the hostile surroundings using
their alter ego avatars.
Jake is taken in by the evil Colonel Quaritch to infiltrate the
Na'vi in exchange for an operation that would restore his legs.
Jake agrees, but he soon finds himself indebted to a beautiful member
of the Na'vi tribe, Neytiri, who saves his life after he is separated
from the his crew on a work expedition. She takes him back to the
"Hometree," which is the massive center - politically,
socially, spiritually and physically - of the Na'vi tribe.
To her great disappointment, Neytiri is directed by her mother,
who happens to be the spiritual leader of the Na'vi, to teach Jake
the ways of their people, as he is adopted into the tribe. As he
begins to learn the Na'vi ways, his outlook changes. Under Neytiri's
tutelage, it takes little time before Jake falls in love with her,
but it's a while before she reciprocates. The kind of standard stuff
stories are made of…
Jake wants to remain in his avatar persona, where he has, including
in his legs, far more than the normal range of human motion and
strength. Eventually he wants to protect the people from the annihilation
the colonel has planned. He learns of their incredible connection
and devotion to their environment, and to its spirit, named Eywa,
which is somewhat personified - or since we're talking about trees
maybe arborfied - by the Hometree, the Tree of Voices and the Tree
of Souls. Jake learns the connections, not only with the planet
and it vegetation, but with the wildlife as well. In fact, there
are neurological receptors that provide direct linkage between the
Na'vi and many of the larger animals.
Finally it comes to crunch time when the humans show up with mega-dozers
and begin to destroy the trees and everything else between them
and the unobtanium. The climax of the plot is a traditional epic
battle of good versus evil. The Na'vi fight against almost insurmountable
odds in an effort to protect their homeland and their culture. I
leave the outcome of the battle to your memory, if you've seen it,
or to your imagination if you haven't.
The scenery in the movie is spectacular, with mountains, waterfalls,
and jungle foliage - interspersed with fantastical plants and creatures
that can do all kinds of acrobatic and daring things. Even if you
don't especially care for science fiction or fantasy, it's an amazing
movie. The 3-D is far more realistic than previous attempts with
the technology, and at times you might even find yourself ducking
projectiles or reaching out to feel a falling leaf or touch a feathery
Atokirina, the seeds of the Great Tree. I'm not saying it's a must-see,
but I am saying that I'm glad that I saw it.
The entire movie was packed with theological underpinnings. The
first three quarters of it with values that I think most of us would
embrace. Some of the more salient principles that we might find
attractive include the refusal of Jake to throw in the towel after
losing use of his legs. This was no easy thing for this strapping,
macho Marine for whom physical strength had been every bit as important
as cunning in his earlier years. And then there was the exuberant
joy that he expressed, based in his experience of awe, over the
return of his ability to walk, through the functioning of his avatar.
In Unitarian Universalism we talk about affirming and promoting
the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part. The
Na'vi's world, which was based in the Hometree, stretching out,
through a neuron-like pattern throughout the planet, was a wonderful
visualization of that web. It did not only include plant life and
vegetation. It included all of the wildlife of Pandora. It provided
graphic detail to that spiritual/physical world some of us might
imagine. There is an outreaching, ongoing pulsation of collaboration
among the Na'vi and the environment of Pandora.
Then of course, there was the unobtainium. Not particularly a theological
value that we might aspire to, but a very recognizable challenge
that we each face in our personal lives. In honesty, we all struggle
at times in want to be more, or better, or different, other than
we are. The movie asks us, as I hope we ask ourselves, to contain
our drive for the unobtainable within the context of gratitude -
for who we are, what we have, and what we are able to do. The movie
asks us to accept what is not, and to make the most of what is.
One of the pieces I found most endearing was a practice of the
Na'vi people. It was not as though they lived in la-la-land, where
everything was swell all the time. They had issues and conflicts
among themselves, just as we do. The difference is that they had
a means of helping them to get beyond their conflicts more quickly
than we sometimes do. It's one we might well learn from. When faced
with an interpersonal challenge or struggle, one Na'vi would look
deeply and directly into the other's eyes and say, "I see you."
It was something akin to the old Quaker greeting, "The God
in me sees the God in you." When that Na'vi said, "I see
you," it meant that they were looking through whatever was
happening with the other, into what held them in common with Eywa,
the spirit mother of them all. How many of us, in a heated moment,
find ourselves wishing there was a way to step out of the anger
and into our love for the other person. The truth is that there
is a way. It's not just something that happens though. It takes
courage as well as caring. It must always be a way that comes out
of our choosing and of our making. I see you.
Even as the drama leading up to the battle scene mounted, even
as the inhabitants of Pandora began working in collaborative, cooperative
ways to stave off the onslaught of the invading humans, I found
myself holding out hope that there might be some kind of imaginative,
creative and largely nonviolent way for them to win the day. My
hope was in vain. With all of the tangible and perceptible interconnections
at their disposal, the Na'vi and their beastie allies, had to resort
to the same tactics as the ones used by the Earthling invaders in
order to defend themselves.
I want you to understand what I'm saying here. The Na'vi were victims
and I'm not trying to blame the victim. In the real world, when
an oppressive power seeks to obliterate those in its way, those
who are oppressed are forced to review their options and then to
respond with the most secure route to survival. Where do they find
their potential options?
They find them in the tools they have at hand. They find them in
the resources around them. And primarily their imaginations and
ideas are guided by the metaphors and the mythologies of their culture.
My disappointment in the last quarter of the movie Avatar was not
in the Na'vi. It was in the failure of the filmmakers to imagine,
with all the resources they had at hand, a new and different path,
a nonviolent defiance and defense and solution to the onslaught
created by the invaders, who were created by those filmmakers.
How do we hope to change the metaphors, the mythologies and the
theologies of our culture, if even the visionaries of this age suffer
from such myopia, from such a failure of imagination? Avatar, with
all of its innovative technology and its grasp of the significance
of the interconnected interdependence of all things, could not go
that next step in imagining the creation of a mythology of a new
and nonviolent way of thinking, a new and nonviolent paradigm. Such
a mythology and theology I think, is one of the few ways that can
get us out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into as perpetrators
of violence against our own bodies, against our fellow human beings,
and against our planet.
We Americans live in the context of a mythology that tells us that
we are the greatest. In our own hymnal there are lyrics that read,
"We are off life, it's shining gift, the measure of all things."
This mythology is quite rampant and if it is defied by others in
the world, the American way is to stomp them out.
The movie Avatar might be able to help us see our greedy and violent
ways. I think that was one of its goals, and one that was well achieved.
But it fails to help us imagine a way out of those old ways. It
merely poses the old paradigm of violence as the threat and violence
as the answer to that threat. In order for the Na'vi to survive,
they have to pull off a military type victory. It's as though no
other option exists.
How do we hope to change the metaphors, the mythologies and the
theologies of a culture in dire need of transformation? I guess
we can't leave that up to others. Our poets need to dream. Our writers
need to write. Our filmmakers need to envision. And we need to have
faith.
We need to have faith that new ways are possible, and that we are
capable of living in to them. Doing the same old thing always gets
the same old results. Doing what is daring for the sake of goodness
is doing what has not been done; it is doing what must be done.
And that story is ours to dream, to tell, to write, and to live.
I see you. And I have faith in you.
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