Cornerstone Festival 2004

2 June 2004


Friday morning I woke up around 7am and just continued to lay in the hammock for a while. Finally I decided that I might as well start my day and so I changed my clothes. Now this is the most difficult part of camping in a hammock. First of all, I slept in the previous day's clothes - even my sandals. My sleeping bag was unzipped and I used it essentially as a blanket: part of it was under me and I folded the other part over me after I laid down. My feet intentionally stuck out so that they wouldn't dirty the bag. I stuffed my clean clothes for the day into the stuffsack (which I used as a pillow) so that they would be available without having to risk awakening Ted by getting into the truck for them. The drawback of camping without a tent is the lack of privacy. Changing clothes becomes an exercise in acrobatics when combined with a hammock! But, I did manage to accomplish it without undo suffering.

It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining - It was warm without being hot, cool without being cold. I hung around the camp for a while. Ted never did wake up and eventually I left to go to the festival. The first item that interested me was at 9am. Flickerings was showing a number of short films. I stopped to grab a bite to eat on the way and ended up being late. The first film that I caught was Sur l'Amour des Reves (On the Love of Dreams) by Reed Daigle. I missed most of it. The next film was SDS by Carl Rust. A Normal Life by Shane Ryan and No Forwarding Address by Sarah Carson were both rather dark, experimental films.

Two Survivors by Neil Ira Needleman was next. A look at a middle-class Jewish couple in their early 90s living in Brooklyn. The film simply records a moment of their life as they sit in the living room and talk. Elements of humour abound although I found it more sad than funny. Certainly the aging process and its inevitability were foremost on my mind as I watched. I wondered how I would be at that age: how I would interact with my wife and those around me, how I would look and feel, how I would be viewed... A concept that I have pondered in the past is how the decisions that we make, the lives that we lead, will accumulate upon us as we age. The film reminded me of that fact. I didn't think it was all that well done. I wasn't particularly impressed by it. It seemed to me to be too much like a home video by a guy filming his elderly aunt and uncle without much thought regarding filmic elements. I am the first guy to throw out the "rules" in the spirit of artistic license, but this just seemed amateurish...

The next film was Waiting for Grace by Greg Dorsey and Tom Fallon which depicts a moment in a restaurant from the perspective of a young man hanging out with his friends as he tries to work up the courage to ask out a waitress that he finds attractive. Its a very sweet little story. Its done well and has several very nice moments. I enjoyed it very much. Most Wonderful People was the final little film in the screening. Noah Riemer creates a delightful image of two people planning for the Big Dinner with their significant other. The problem is that they each think that the dinner is at their house and so all of the plans and preparations lead to nought but sorrow as they each wait for the other to arrive... The comedy flows gradually to sadness as we realise the misunderstandings that have occurred and the film leaves us without resolution: We can only hope that they get a chance to get together in the future.

After the short films were over, I went next door to The Imaginarium to listen to J Robert Parks give a seminar entitled See Hear Now: Images, Language, and Pop Culture. Parks is a teacher at Columbia College in Chicago. I wasn't really getting into the talk and began thinking about what other options I had. I decided to leave and wander around a bit.

At 11am, Flickerings showed Whale Rider by Niki Caro. I ended up really liking this small New Zealand film! Its the story of a young girl whose rejection by her grandfather because she wasn't a boy drives her to take on the mantle of a chief despite age-old sexist prejudice. Beautifully told and filmed, the movie captures a culture which is largely unknown to those of us in the northern hemisphere and brings ideas of sexism and tradition out to the forefront of our minds. Last year Cornerstone introduced me to Spirited Away which was my "film of the festival". This year Whale Rider easily takes that trophy.

I grabbed some food after the movie and went over to The Imaginarium. It was 1pm and Louis Markos was speaking. Markos, professor of English at Houston Baptist University, was continuing a seminar entitled Poetic Agonies & Ecstacies: The Yin & Yang of Romanticism. It seemed like it would be interesting by the title. I had recently been reading about the Romantic age so I figured that this would be a good addition to my study. After listening a while, I found that once again, I wasn't really getting into it. After about 15 minutes or so, I left. The timing was perfect, though, because Joy called just then and we ended up talking for about 40 minutes. She had just gotten back from Chicago and was preparing to leave for Laramie. She had called me while I was still at camp earlier in the morning which meant that I hadn't received it until I got her message an hour or so later. We briefly caught each other up on our respective vacations. I had left her a little message last night taunting her that I was Cornerstone and she wasn't... Well, it was a nice moment in the day.

At 2pm Don Miller began his talk on Blue Like Jazz. Don, the author of Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance wrote a book a few years ago entitled Blue Like Jazz. In it he speaks of his spiritual journey and his struggles with Christianity and religion. He addresses what he considers to be the main failures of modern Christianity, but unlike other writers who have tackled the topic, Miller does it in a whimsical, anectdotal style that softens any blows and expresses the fact that his critique of the church comes out of a deep love of Christ. He loves Christ and therefore he loves the bride of Christ. He desires to see her be the beautiful creature that God wants her to be.

Joy introduced me to this book as it has been a milestone in her Walk. Since I have come to really respect her opinion on things and have learned that "if Joy likes it, I probably will, too" I got a copy of the book from Amazon. Of course I did love it. I loved Miller's writing and was very surprised by how familiar it was. It was like I was reading my own book but I had never written any of the words. Even many of his analogies or ideas were familiar. I think God had been showing me a lot of the same concepts as I lived my own life and observed the world around me. (Which implies to me that He has probably done the same with numerous other people around the world...) Blue Like Jazz was the first book I had read in years that made me want to give it to all of my friends to read.

One of the key items on my agenda was to attend the Don Miller sessions. Normally my modus operandi at Cornerstone is to try to go with the flow and avoid setting too much of a plan. I've found that there are too many things to do there and many of them seem to happen at the same time. So its better not to go into it with expectations. Actually, expecting to have a wonderful experience is the only expectation you can safely have. I usually pick a couple of items that I would like to see but I go into it with the understanding that nothing is set in stone: anything might change at the last minute as I absorb myself into the festival. For some people the planning thing might be fine (and I do a little bit of planning in terms of having some idea about where I want to be at various times of the day) - especially if you are specifically interested in a style of music or particular seminars or are primarily there for the film festival. But I have such an incredibly wide diversity of interests that I just simply can't function with that much regimentation. I tried it early on and basically kept finding disappointments as I missed this band or that seminar because I had to see that film or (perish the thought!) get some sleep... Basically, I guess, I discovered that as I went back to my Taoist principles, I enjoyed the event to a much greater degree.

Anyway, I did highlight Don Miller's sessions as a must see. He wasn't quite how I expected him. I think the image I had as I read the book was that of a slightly more hip, artistic look. Kind of tall, kind of thin... Normally I don't really imagine what a writer looks like but since his book is so much an autobiographic piece, you picture him in the settings that he describes. In reality, however, Don looks like a Young Republican. He is definitely not tall and thin. He is clean cut and happened to dress in a casual preppie look. Now, of course, I can't picture him any other way... After getting to know him a bit better through listening to him talk and interact with the audience, I realised that he is a writer. He looks like a writer. He isnt really an artist in the alternative, edgy sense of the word. I don't know why that was how I pictured him but everything sort of clicked after I saw him in person. Really, he reminds me of my first and only roommate from years ago. (Although I suspect that I would relate much better with Don that I did with Patrick!)

The session was great as was to be expected. I think he's a gifted speaker. Very engaging. Seemingly quite comfortable. This first one was more of an introductory one, I suppose. Most of what he talked about was straight from the book. Basically the theme was the idea of Christianity as a relation based entity rather than being theology based. It is a faith woven with story and metaphor rather than creeds and equations. While careful not to completely throw out systematic theology as long as it serves the function it was designed to have: guarding against heresy, Miller stressed the importance of realising that Christ's Gospel is relational and the use of parables and stories is at its core. We are in danger of losing the parabolic and mystical nature of Christianity as we sacrifice Meaning in our pursuit of Truth. But Truth without Meaning is dry and dead and impotent. Systematic theology, which is at the center of our modern incarnation of Christianity (and all of our seminaries), is at its core a "putting God in a box". It is, in essence, a struggle to define the undefineable. The danger is that as we immerse ourselves in theology, we lose sight of the vastness of the mysteries of God. We become blind to the Infinite. When we forget that, suddenly our lives become commonplace. Lose the power and majesty of the Almighty and we become powerless. Is it any wonder that so many churches are struggling with a loss of vitality?

- [audiolink] the Donald Miller Cornerstone Sessions [audiolink] -

At 3pm, Flickerings was presenting a screening of The Son, a fim by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. I went over there to check it out and ended up not being able to get into it. I tried to give it a chance - I think I stuck with it for 30 minutes or so but it was a very sparce film and I simply wasn't able to get caught up into it. It is a Belgian film that tells the story of a carpenter at what appears to be some sort of trade school. He gets a young boy as a student and the story unfolds as they struggle with their lives, their pains and their relationship. Unfortunately, the barn that houses these screenings is not especially conducive to a pleasant viewing experience. Many of the films are in a foreign language and you have to crane your neck to see the subtitles around the heads of those sitting in front of you. It is hot and there are loud fans blowing from the corners of the room. So unless the film engages you from the beginning or you really decide to endure the unpleasantries, you will find yourself not giving many of the films the justice they might deserve. I think that several of these films would be ones that I would try to see if I got the chance again. Certainly I liked enough of The Son to think that I would give it another chance under better circumstances. I found the style of the film to be interesting. The language is sparce. It is shot almost in a documentary style with the extensive use of handheld cameras and most of the emphasis is put on seeing everything from the carpenter's perspective. So when he is talking to someone, you mostly just see his side of the conversation. It was done well, I thought... There are so many other possible things to see and hear and experience at Cornerstone that I decided to move on.