Tag Archives: faith

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Short Film Alert: The Arborlight

  By Karen Osborne August 17, 2015 , ,

“Garlic, herbs and rooster’s crow,
or far away the children go.”
— The Arborlight

thearborlightBrian Sutherland and Eden Campbell in “The Arborlight.”

How far would you go to save your child?

What would you do if you could not?

Those are the questions at the heart of The Arborlight, a breathtaking fairytale faith-versus-science story. Thomas and Liz’ young daughter, Elly, is fighting terminal tuberculosis, and although the doctor that attends to her is optimistic, Thomas grows more and more certain that Elly isn’t going to make it through. One day, while gathering flowers for his daughter’s bedside, he discovers a place that looks exactly like the fairy stories she loves so much, and Thomas finds he must choose between the approach of worldly medicine and the lure of something a little more magical…

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The Arborlight is filmed beautifully using RED cameras, and despite the fairytale cottage and medieval costumes, Thomas and Liz feel like modern parents in a very modern struggle. Modern medicine has come a long way from the bloodletting and surgery-superstition that Thomas and Liz took as gospel truth, but people still die all the time from maladies doctors and medicines still can’t touch, and people still look for cures beyond what modern medicine can provide — miracle potions and mail-order cures, shamans and prayer healings. In a way, it’s tragic to watch Thomas and Liz make the decisions they make, because modern viewers know that they really have no choice, that the bloodletting provided by the plague doctor is ineffective and cruel, and that both choices are going to be heart-wrenching and unfair.

It reminds me of Anna Mayer‘s beautiful video above, about a young teen suffering from a condition that she knows is going to kill her, and the wrenching feeling about how unfair that is. I thought of Emily a lot while I watched The Arborlight. Modern society judges people who, upon not finding modern medicine sufficient, turn to a place of faith and unreason, but like Thomas and Liz tell us in The Arborlight, it’s a question we’re all going to have to face. Modern medicine will eventually fail. None of us will live forever. What are you going to do on the day? What will you believe? What would you turn to? Can any of us really even know until we, like Thomas, Elly and Liz, are facing it?

Do yourself a favor and watch The Arborlight, a film by Philip and Kevin Harvey, starring Brian Sutherland, Lisa Coronado, Eden Campbell and Russell Hodgkinson:

Watch a behind-the-scenes documentary on how they filmed using the Movi:

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Read the August Third Order story, “A Tomb For Demrick Fauston,” by Fred McGavran!

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Are We Limiting God By Drawing A Line Between Faith And Science?

  By Karen Osborne July 31, 2015 ,

“Science is the slow revelation of God’s blueprint.”
(Bioshock Infinite, “God’s Blueprint,” Level: Fink Manufacturing, Date: April the 19th, 1908)”
― Hattie Gerst

15434391345_fe610af410The word of God, interpreted differently by different faiths.

I have never seen religion and science as disparate. I’ve always seen them as different sides of the same coin, different ways to see a similar truth. I grew up in a Catholic tradition where the Bible was not literally translated but instead viewed through the lens of history, tradition and the knowledge that men and women can sometimes be wrong, but that God is never wrong. So, while the moral, ethical and religious content of the Bible is nothing but correct (Jesus died on a cross to save all humanity from original sin), certain other, more metaphorical things might be… open to interpretation. For example: did God really create the world in seven days?

While biblical prophets and writers had the essential truths of salvation encased in the sacred Scriptures, in other ways they were woefully misinformed. They didn’t know about quantum theory or the reality of space travel, or even that the planet was round or that there was a planet; they knew only the truths of their time, so that’s how they interpreted God’s words and message. The author of Genesis only had the reference of the sun rising and setting over the hills of Galilee; modern authors, of course, know about the infinite darknesses of the space between stars. Must we keep God’s “days” as the ancient Judeans did? Might we be we limiting the God of quantum theory and sharks living in underwater volcanoes by saying that he created the world in seven sunups to sundowns?

t1larg.tatooine.starwarsOr however many sunups and sundowns might count on Tattooine?

Must science be presented as so disparate from faith? Can’t we wonder at the mysteries of the new dropleton found at the Large Hadron Collider and praise God for his unfathomable mystery?

I wonder: In the future, when people look back at us, in which ways will they shake their heads and mutter: “But — they didn’t know any better?”

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photo credit: My reward is with Me. via photopin (license)
photo credit: Sacred Heart via photopin (license)

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Fiction Alert: “Sounding The Fall” by Jei D. Marcade at Escape Pod

  By Karen Osborne July 27, 2015 , , , ,

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
— Gautama Buddha

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All roads lead to the same place…

Might an artificial intelligence also look for God? What might it mean if it does? Does one have to be a “good monk” to be an effective one? What is the role of faith in restitution and atonement? What is the role of religion in society — to detach from the world, or to involve oneself in it?

If you’ve been following Sacred Earthlings for any length of time, you know that these kind of delicious questions make our world go ’round, and when they’re packaged in a short story with gorgeous, clear language, all the better. We’d like to thank author Jei D. Marcade for writing her excellent “Sounding The Fall,” episode 499 at Escape Pod, published on July 20th, 2015. The story takes place in a future society overcome with technology and noise, sealed against a toxic world and ruled by tower-bound artificial intelligences. Into this environment comes Narae, a monk in an appearingly-Buddhist monastery, who has sealed erself out of society after an AI experience some would consider to be a truly religious one, and others might… well, I’ll just let you read the story, because I don’t want to spoil a story so well-constructed.

You didn’t read that pronoun wrong — Marcade eirself uses a gender-neutral pronoun in real life, as does this story’s main character. It forces the listener to view Narae’s actions not through the lens of gender, but through the lens of a greater humanity, with no recourse to explain her doings as “female” or “male” reactions. The choice to become gender-neutral is a very interesting choice for someone so devoted to higher truths; one may say that, when searching for God, something like gender does not even matter. The fact that Narae is painted as a truly human character, with the kind of human failings we could expect from someone struggling to understand a profound and life-changing experience, is even better. This is a very personal story, one that touches on beautifully epic thoughts while keeping the focus on characters you come to care about.

Hear “Sounding The Fall” at Escape Pod now.

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photo credit: Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial, Taiwan via photopin (license)
photo credit: Gaden Shartse Tibetan Monks via photopin (license)

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