NOTE: This post is not meant to be political or partisan. It’s intended to be patriotic and prophetic.
I try with varying degrees of failure to limit my intake of news. I subscribe to the New Yorker and to Time magazine (old habits die hard, I grew up with Time). I subscribe to the New York Times and the Washington Post on line. I try to listen impartially and open-mindedly, but not always successfully, to William Kristol and Rich Lowry of National Review. I watch Rachel Maddow and, from time to time, Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, and on Sunday mornings I watch Face the Nation on CBS and Meet the Press on NBC, and on occasion, George Stephanopoulos on This Week on ABC.
I think of my spiritual hero, Thomas Merton, and what he would have made of 24/7 news coverage—biased news coverage.
As a citizen, I think it’s my duty to be informed. As a human being I sometimes feel like a goose being force-fed by tubes in order to produce pate. At some point the news makes me nauseous. I know I’m not alone in this. Yet, as an, I hope responsible, citizen I can’t ignore the news entirely.
I didn’t post a blog last week because I overdosed on news and it left me with a rotten hangover.
I wonder if there is any correlation between the onslaught of 24 hour cable news and the opioid crisis. Do the farmers raising the geese ease their agony with painkillers?
The year brought a jackpot of outstanding films about people of color. In addition to Midnight, Loving and Queen of Katwe, there are Hidden Figures and Fences.
There is a story told about the great Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler. Standing in the back of the concert hall during the premiere of one of his last works, Mahler is purported to have said, “I wish I could be alive in 50 years when the audiences will have learned to hear my music.”
I’m delighted to have been invited back for another workshop this year and I’ve chosen to focus on The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
If you see only one film this year, make it Selma – a magnificent, conscience-challenging work, a worthy companion to last year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, 12 Years a Slave. Ignatian prayer and contemplative practice, developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, instructs meditators to place themselves in the scriptural passage with Jesus, just as if we were actually present at the event. Selma accomplishes just this placing viewers in the events rather than allowing us to be observers. The buffer of history that gave viewers some distance in 12 Years a Slave is not available here. Television coverage from Ferguson, MO and Staten Island, NY, as well as ongoing coverage of efforts to deny voter registration to minorities in many states, make the historic march from Selma to Montgomery seem like it happened yesterday rather than 50 years ago. Anchored by David Oyelowo’s galvanizing portrayal of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and directed by Ava DuVernay, it is a searing call to take action and an indictment against the injustices that continue to shame our nation. My African-American friends have repeatedly and patiently reminded me I can’t understand what it is like to live in a Black or Brown skin. Bearing helpless witness and burning with rage as Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey in a wonderful cameo) maintains her dignity and resolve despite as she is repeatedly denied the right to register to vote may be as close as I ever come to understanding.
The most profound and haunting film I saw this year was Ida by Polish director, Pawel Pawlikowski. Photographed in black and white, the images are austere and beautiful. The editing is designed to make us linger contemplatively over each scene, digesting it from the points of view of each of the main characters. Ida, a young postulate nun on the threshold of taking vows discovers she is, in fact, Jewish and one of only two members of her family to survive the Holocaust. Ida takes a leave from the convent to join her embittered aunt in a search for the truth about the death of their other family members. The sheltered Ida is introduced to a world of which she has no experience—a world that includes romance and sex, cowardice, heroism, disillusionment, despair and death. The camera stays on her mostly silent response to these events and as Ida discerns whether to return to the convent or stay in the world, the film superbly illustrates the grace and mystery of vocation.
The great Irish actor Brendan Gleeson (probably best-known to American audiences for his portrayal of Mad-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter movies) gives one of the best performances of the year as Father James, a priest in a seaside Irish village. The film opens in a confessional where Father James (a widower with an adult daughter who came late to the priesthood) is told under the seal of confession that, although he is personally innocent, that he will be murdered in seven days, as retribution for the unprosecuted sexual crimes committed against children by pedophile priests and covered up by church hierarchy.
I enjoyed this movie when I saw it last summer but it didn’t stay with me like some of director Wes Anderson’s other films, particularly The Darjeeling Limited. Then, about a week ago I happened to catch the last 10 minutes of it while waiting for another program to begin on HBO.
I begin the first reflection in 
His second film, The Graduate (1967) was a cri de coeur for a generation who was being told that the future was “plastic.” The same year the film was released, “Don’t Trust Anyone over 30” became the generation’s slogan. Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin, the rebel without a clue, became the symbol of its confusion and unrest, so much so that the July 11, 1969 cover of Life magazine features an image of Dustin Hoffman contrasted with an image of John Wayne and the caption: “Dusty and the Duke—A Choice of Heroes.” (I have a copy of the magazine.) At the end of “The Graduate” Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross, accompanied by the music of Simon and Garfunkel, escape without having any idea of where they were going. The songs gave voice to Benjamin’s inarticulate longing and to that of much of my generation.
After all of the excitement and 
Philomena (2013)
Jim Curtan 