Chicago 2010: Cleaning the Bean

August brings the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit; followed by a time back home of catching up with various jobs off the guilt list.

This year’s GL included another bit of cleaning — reconditioning the disshevelled fish tank in our front hallway, but that’s another story...

From GL to GLS —

Chicago was in fine fettle. Every year I think there cannot be a new angle to photograph on Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, and every year I come back with another thirty new angles! Look on the cleaning of the bean in glorious clean early morning light as a metaphor for the whole trip.

For a start I realise that learning about leadership is something worth giving a couple of days of regular sustained reflection to, among friends. I will comment separately on what I think I’ve learned this year in particular, but if life is a “school for the Lord’s service,” a period of structured reflection and learning helps, I find, to sharpen up the whole pattern of my work.

People this side of the pond sometimes seem to think it’s clever to be superior about US Evangelicals. Some of them, of course, are doubtless the most appalling people — but then so are some UK Anglicans, and others. Lay all that stuff aside, engage the irony over-ride, and there’s plenty to learn and to enjoy. The warmth, honesty, openness, empathy and positive faith of many US Evangelicals I meet refuses to be bound by all snotty stereotypes, and brings its own honest inspiration.

I found worship this year, especially on the Friday of the Leadership Summit, brought me directly to where my journey in faith began forty years ago — faith in Jesus Christ. I see I have 2.4 days of Bach in my iTunes library to enjoy back in Blighty, but at for a couple of days a year it does me nothing but good to learn and throw myself wholeheartedly into an American Evangelical environment. It’s also good, every year, to catch up with Anglican friends from the Diocese of Chicago. We are sometimes prey, this side of the pond, to a rather flat and stereotypical view of the Episcopal Church, and it’s good to be disabused of that by contact with real people. Real people, real faith, is the great reality checkpoint.

Houston we have a problem...

VoxPop from the streets of Chicago in 2008 brings good news and bad news.

Good news is that 2,000 years into the resurrection, many people actually get it about Jesus, in spite of the distorting glass Christians have so often been in our blindness, folly and fallen nature.

Bad news is that the distorting glass is often bottle green and six foot thick.
“We preach Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake.” Really? How?

video h/t Bethany

Brancusi: Reductionism and Reality

New in Chicago is a newly opened Modern Wing of the Art Institute. It was very good, among other things, to catch up with what Cy Twombly has been up to over the past decade or so.
The wing in itself is a something of a work of art — clean, light and unassuming, drawing attention to exhibits and not itself, with some fabulous occasional views when you catch a glimpse of its extraordinary architectural context:

The generous display space being allocated to foreign modern art seems to have triggered a walk-out by two famous Chicagoans since 1930, the Grant Wood American Gothic couple.

They have now decamped with their suitcase to a 3-D pitch downtown by the Tribune building, renounced Grant Wood for John Seward Johnson, and re-Christened themselves “God Bless America.”

The Art Institute has two fascinating Brancusis — Suffering of 1907 is very clearly the work of someone who worked, even if only for a few weeks, in Rodin’s Paris studio.

Meanwhile, Brancusi’s slightly chunky but essentially graceful Golden Bird of 1919/20 is a real beauty that wonderfully prefigures his more famous Bird in Space works from the later twenties.

The latter apparently so annoyed a 1920’s dumb literalist / simple materialist customs officer that he refused to acknowledge it could mean anything artistic and reclassified it as an industrial chunk of metal — after all, that was all it could be proved to contain, so what else could there be to it?

Brancusi himself had a slightly more nuanced and grown-up way of seeing reality that is a challenge to cloth-eared reductionism in every age — Il y a des imbéciles qui définissent mon œuvre comme abstraite, pourtant ce qu'ils qualifient d'abstrait est ce qu'il y a de plus réaliste, ce qui est réel n'est pas l'apparence mais l'idée, l'essence des choses — (“Some idiots call my work abstract, in spite of the fact that what they call abstract is actually the most real of all — not the outer appearance, but the concept or essence of things”).

Chicago: Trumping others’ Aces

Daniel Burnham, Great Architect of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, said something very sigificant about Chicago that became his motto in life and work: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.”

Given the number of prominent signature buildings pressed together in Chicago, it is no mean feat to build something that shows up from all sorts of different locations and angles, and still stands out from the crowd. With his recently completed Trump Tower, Adrian Smith of Skidmore Owings & Merrell has managed to pull it off — something to do with the Blue colour, I believe, the distinctive shape, and its marvellous use of a small but key location in the city.

In an age which sometimes seems to have lost its nerve about everything, self-confident forward looking architecture seems like a gesture of faith, certainly compared to lame pastiche.

Hoovering up Crime and Johnny Depp

Public Enemies, like every gangster movie, contains dirty rats, and requires us to be sufficiently open to a Robin Hood point of view to hope secretly that the dirty rats get away with it. We are fascinated by damaged people and evil, but faintly slimed for taking an interest at all. Actually we know the world would be an infinitely nicer place without Bonnie and Clyde, or whoever, but can’t help wondering why they did it. We identify with them as a means of reassuring ourselves we are really not at all like them. And people, especially sixty years ago, loved to see authority made an occasional monkey of, as long as we don’t get mugged on the way home. That’s where the fun and fascination would end.

For those who miss James Cagney Jr and wonder when comes such another, Public Enemies is a beacon of fun and hope. This movie is tough and occasionally nasty, repellent but not revolting. Some may not even notice Michael Mann’s decision to make the movie on HD Video rather than the stuff you take to the chemists, but I was fascinated by the result.

With HD-V there's more detail on the plate, and what I can only call a slight dark steel, bluish sheen around night scenes in the woods or down the dives of Chicago. Lighting the movie was a challenge — the best boy must have enjoyed the experience. I hazard a guess that low available light registers more readily and across a different part of the spectrum on HD-V. The whole effect, which ought to look more natural, actually looks more contrived, but approprate. It’s grittily detailed, ideal for old time dirty rats, and the dolls don't have the slightly airbrushed look Celluloid gives them. The result is rather documentary, an impression reinforced by the use of steadicams and low angles, putting us where the action is.

Johnny Depp does his rough diamond thing perfectly. Cap’n Jack Sparrow had a streak of Ronald MacDonald that was fun for about ten minutes but wore a bit thin over two hours with people over 12 years old. Depp’s Dillinger is an altogether deeper and more complex kind of psychopath. Marion Cotillard plays the faithful Moll faultlessly, providing excellent and absorbing chemistry between the principals.

Much as we know that the whole ruddy lot should be strung up, we are glad to come along for the ride, even with its repellent occasional violence, and slightly sorry when it’s over. That’s the sign of a first class gangster movie.

Placing itself in historical context, the film stays clear of O level sociology, and wisely majors on characterisation. J. Edgar Hoover is, like everyone else in this film, perfectly sketched — a scientific beureaucrat struggling to organise clearing raids into a jungle where the public representatives are as dodgy as the public enemies. Christian Bale is the sharp end of the feds’ operation. He’s sincere and occasionally frustrated to find himself as one of the good guys, unable to be as nasty as the bad guys. Amidst a sea of clean-cut but essentially expendable G-men, his Agent Purvis conveys, perfectly, a sense of being a brighter man than his profession requires him to look.

None of this is revolutionary, on a narrative level, but it’s perfectly executed and it works. If your idea of summer fun is Year One or Hannah Montana this will not float your boat. For those of us who prefer Dark Chocolate to Milky Bar, Public Enemies is absorbing, well-paced and characterful. For all the film’s occasional nastiness, it’s reassuring to know the midwest is not as flat and boring as some people say it is, and Dillinger’s appearance of fortuitous invincibility was, after all, an illusion. At a visceral level it’s always fun in a depression to see big banks treated with the contempt they deserve. As you see pretentious senior bank managers haplessly fumbling in terror to open the safe for Dillinger, people this side of the pond can think Fred the Shred. I hate to admit it, but the sight is sweet. For overseas readers, Fred is the real-life character who walked into a bank and got away with several million in a way Dillinger could only dream about, and was rewarded with a knighthood and pension on a desert island. But that’s another story, too improbable for a movie.

Anglo-Catholic roots and branches

Back this morning to our little ol’ medieval house of prayer in Great Missenden. Last Sunday, after days worshipping with a wonderful rock band at Willow Creek, Lucy and I went Anglo-Catholic in Chicago, at the Church of the Atonement. The congregation at the third service, very full for the vacation season, seemed delightfully diverse after the slightly WASP feel of the previous few days. The Episcopal Church welcomed us, generously and delightfully.

It was great joy to be in a church family where people broadly rub along in realistic ways. They readily kitted me up (incuding mitre) to be part of a joyful shared experience in which everything fitted together smoothly. Mother Jackie Cameron presided beautifully, though I realise Brother Ronald Fox and others work hard behind the scenes to make everything hum along seemingly effortlessly.
Given alarmist rumours this side of the pond about the Episcopal Church, many stoked up by its own dissidents, it was deeply normalising and a great honour to be right at the middle of this eucharist, expressing clearly how we all belong together, different as we are.

Celebrating the Transfiguration at the Atonement was a bit mountain-top. God’s light shone through clearly, showing me the centre, like a trip to the cleaners. I was delighted to meet various people afterwards. Many had personal stories to tell about being there, some involving recovery from various kinds of religious abuse. If this congregation is “liberal,” though, frankly, it would be pretty meaningless to call it particularly so, it would not be a matter of ideology, but an understandable instinct in people who had been impacted negatively by more “illiberal,” manipulative or chauvinistic religion. Atonement had the breadth to take it and could, it struck me, be a real healing place.

I first experienced Anglo-Catholicism as a teenager. I was fascinated by Anglo-Catholics’ ability to engage with God in Church with solemnity but without taking themselves too seriously. At the pub aftrewards, people were real and really humerous about what had actually happened in Church. Aged 17, a friend and I bumped into the priest in a pub, and wondered whether we would get a rollicking. Far from it. We got a drink, along with a pin cross to wear and an injunction never to be ashamed of being known for a Christian wherever we were. This incident said something powerful to me that I hadn’t quite caught yet in more earnest and self-conscious Protestant discipleship, and I’ve never forgotten it. I was so captivated that years later when invited to find a subject in historical theology I wrote a thesis on historical Anglo-Catholic ecclesiology.

It’s a shame that the word “Catholic” in itself stirs the blood less these days than a hundred years ago. There seem to be two different ways of using the term “Catholic:”

Use (A) of “Catholic” refers to a mark of the Church named in the creed, extended in time and space. You become part of the Catholic community of Christ’s people throughout the world in baptism; it’s an objective characteristic of Christ-followers (to use Willow Creek terminology) and God sees them whole, both in the scope of their life together, and their eternal destiny. In this sense the Prayer Book talked about “the whole company of Christian people.” One of the most powerful experiences of Lambeth was to be surrounded by people saying the Lord’s prayer in over 100 languages simultaneously, gathered freely from autocephalous local churches all over the world. It expressed particularity and true Catholicity perfectly.

Use (B) of “Catholic” is as a kind of designer label. It’s a particular house style or, even worse, a term of exclusion. It can even be reduced to a denominational tag. Once this bizarre piece of reductionism happens, people can develop an anal retentive fascination with whether Rome, or someone else, has the best exclusive franchise on the club. Such a process applied to this word, of all words, is bizarre, if you think for a moment about what it actually means. Who on earth could be silly or arrogant enough, really, to think that their particular denomination was somehow everything? Everything to them, if they like, but the Catholic whole is so much more diverse, particular, gifted and resourceful than the local. It would be good, especially after Lambeth, to capture that dimension increasingly back home. The Church of the Atonement was a great place, personally, to do that.

Chicago — fabulous day out

Sweet to grab a day out last Saturday in Chicago rubbernecking with Lucy and friends. The Trump is going up fast, along with a couple of other megastructures. It proved impossible to spend less than 20 minutes nosing around the Bean, even on a busy day. I had not quite sppreciated the finer points of 333 Wacker Drive before, though it was faintly lodged in the consciousness from Ferris Bueller's day off and, of course, the Truman Show. It’s made for bright sunshine and storm light effects.
The crowning glory was an early meal with friends at Buddy Guy’s, first discovered a couple of years ago. It featured world class playing from a Milwaukee blues artist called Matt Hendricks. From very firm classical delta blues roots he grew a variety of clear voices, from tender and playful to almost raunchy. Technique was spot-on. It was incredible to be offered such heavenly stuff for the price of a meal — with a free meal. BGL is slated to move from 754 South Wabash, but hopefully to an equally perfect location.
What’s so great about Chicago? Of course it’s got its crap side, like any city, but cultural audacity and personal warmth makes it special. Turning the question over with friends, three of whom had never been there before, we came upon the sculpture in Millennium Park that abuts the Bean, Jaume Piensa’s Crown Fountain. Water flows, columns light up, children play peekaboo and splash in the water at all hours; all gratis, free and for nothing, and in the heart of the city.
Compare and contrast London’s memorial fountain for Diana princess of Wales. A committee of worthies had a nice ’n fitting concept about openness and children playing:

...because Diana was a contemporary and accessible princess, the fountain's goal was to allow people access to the structure and to the water for quiet wading and contemplation. However, shortly after its opening and after three hospitalisations caused by people slipping in the water, the fountain was closed. It reopened in August 2004, surrounded by a new fence, and people are now prevented from walking or running in the water by six wardens.

So, over seven million dollars and, er, it doesn’t quite work. Thus the Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain notches up another skull, and the suits have a damning precedent to chuck at anyone intrepid enough to have a creative idea in future. It’s not quite the whole story, witness the London Eye, but it’s what happens much of the time. By contrast the Crown Fountain has to be about the most entertaining piece of public art for children in the world — It’s simple, it’s fun, and it works. I rest my case.

Earth has not anything to show more fair... the Bean at Night

Don't mention the War

Dinner with a small group of friends at Buddy Guy's Legends on South Wabash in Chicago. There was a classic blues singer called Fruteland Jackson, who looked and sounded the part superbly, including a fabulous a capella song ("Tell me what you say").

This was classic delta blues, world class music from a great man who is defying the Basil Fawlty convention "not to mention the war" that everyone else seems to go for round here right now, with his Blues over Baghdad.

The cost? Free. If we'd been able to stay for the incredible Carl Weathersby, it would have cost us $15. Chicago is Jazz & Blues heaven, and world class music is (almost) free here!

Postcard from the Windy City

It’s humbling to be a little foreigner in a Big country, a Size 11 lost on a Size 21 film set of big portions, big cars, big churches. Some English are deeply prejudiced against Americans — fascinated but envious, perhaps. For all the USA’s excess and craziness, even barbarous Capital punishment, it is generously cut, warm, fun — a place of simplicity, optimism, self-respect.

Chicago! Here Charlie Chaplin made his Essanay films, and Louis Armstrong recorded his hot fives and sevens. Here Wrigley invented chewing gum. On this improbable swamp Adler and Sullivan invented the skyscraper, for Mies van der Rohe to work on last century. Here stands the tallest building in America.

Better to be a foreigner than an enemy. It was the British who burnt down Fort Dearborn in 1812. Anyway, that’s history, and now we’re deep into an all too special relationship. On Tuesday I saw a button on the streets — “Clinton Lied: Nobody Died.” Americans have a slick way with words. And guns. This was Al Capone’s backyard. And WMD. In 1942, at Rockefeller’s University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi first split the atom. The purpose of this exercise, friends, was Mass Destruction, not Bunny Love baby carrots.

America is all about Unity from diversity, say the dollar bills — e pluribus unum. Here little people grow big, too — your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore… Actually, Liberty Island closed down after 9/11, but that’s another town, another story. The Blacks pouring into Union Station in the 20’s and 30’s found they could assimilate here like they couldn’t back home down South.

Scripture says healthy people welcome the Alien within their gates. God has made of one blood all his children. In Millennium Park there’s a huge squishy mirror doughnut, Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture. Chicagoans call it “the Bean”. Under it, faces becomes the face of a work of Art — black, pink, young, yellow, twisted, fresh, wrung out, old, all meld into a work of art. And standing there on a fine day, looking into those faces I realise that, however distorted, we are all what St Paul called God’s work of Art. All the small minded, mean spirited paranoia of the Old Country, even the Daily Mail, seems at least 4,000 miles away. Amen!