Life of Pi

The Writer: You're a Hindu Catholic?
Pi: We get to feel guilty before hundreds of gods.

When I entered the theater I knew virtually nothing about the movie, except that there was something about a boy on a raft with a tiger. As it turns out, that is all I needed to know for this astonishing, thought provoking movie.

Pi (Suraj Sharma) is a sixteen-year-old Indian boy, who survives a shipwreck only to find himself adrift on a lifeboat with a 450 pound, ferocious Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. Pi's intelligence and ingenuity are stretched to the limit in surviving on the open seas while figuring out how to coexist with a tiger who is getting hungrier every day.

This story is told by the middle-aged Pi (Irrfan Khan) to an aspiring writer (Rafe Spall) who has been told that Pi's story is worthy of a book. He also has been told, "you had a story that would make me believe in God" which is not quite tossed out as a challenge, although he hastens to add that he does not believe in God. This framework provides a neat parallel to the story Pi tells, which begins with young Pi's constant search for God as he grows from a little boy to a teenager.

Obviously we know that Pi survives the shipwreck because he is telling the story. However that soon becomes forgotten as we are swept up in Pi's struggles. Wound around and through this are amazing images of the world all around him. Using 3-D technology, we are shown vertical views from the bottom of the ocean to the heavens above, with all the inhabitants in between. These views through ultra-clear water add to the wonder and mystical tone of the entire story, as Pi's despair and hope alternate while he surrenders himself to God's will.

Meanwhile, viewers wonder what in this tale will be compelling enough to convince the writer to suddenly believe in God. The answer to that question is one that kept us thinking and discussing the movie the rest of the evening and the day after.

I was really surprised to find a movie with such emphasis on faith and God from such a famous director. I suppose that shows that it really is revolutionary these days to have faith. As I watched, I kept thinking of the stories of Job and Jonah from the Old Testament. This story is a modern version of those tales because it is an examination of modern attitudes to faith, free will, and our response to God. Kudos to Ang Lee for providing an incredible adventure story that didn't soft pedal the religious elements of the book from which it was derived.

PG rating on this movie and I'd say that as long as your kid is ok with animals acting like animals (nature red in tooth and claw), then you're good to go.

SPOILERS

The key to the movie, and especially to the puzzling dual story solution given at the end, is the family dinner when Pi's father talks about the need to be rational. Pi's mother says that he is right if one wants to know the truth about the outside world. However, she adds, faith is good for knowing the truth about what is inside you.

This duality is continued through elements like Pi's name. Piscine is named for the French swimming pool his uncle loved because it was full of such clear water. That name shows Pi's connection to the natural world and his ability to look through the depths for what is really there.

His shortened name, for the number Pi, shows a more rational side, but also Pi is an "irrational number" as the narrator told us ... which made me think that pi is actually a stunningly good way to refute people who want to solely believe in facts, without considering that "truth" comes in many ways. The idea that a number just keeps going and can't be "solved" is in itself a sort of refutation of those who want everything nailed down. Do you chop it off at a few decimal places or do you let the numbers keep spinning out and keep searching the bottomless well for truth?

This also demonstrates Pi's intelligence and that he understands how others think and how to influence them. As well, we are shown he is well versed in the natural world when we see his father teach him with the tiger and the goat.

These elements raise the possibility that Pi's "other story" told to the Japanese investigators is completely fabricated to tell them what makes sense to modern ears and will fit into a report.

In the end, we are left with a new version of "The Lady or the Tiger?"

Either story may be true or false. The interpretation we resonate with is an indicator of our own souls.

The Life of Pi is much like the Old Testament, full of stories of daring and danger which do not make sense to our modern souls which like to weigh everything against concrete, understandable scientific measures. We are ready to call such tales Myth, but does our interpretation see the whole story? We accept the Big Bang, measurable echoes of which still linger, if we know what to listen for. However, Genesis says that God spoke the universe into being.

Creation begins with sound in both cases; one is measurable by science, one by the human heart who looks deeper, is willing to be vulnerable, and who is willing to chance all on God's love. Neither negates the other although there are those who will choose one and call the other false.

As we are reminded, none of us knows why the ship sank (or how the universe began). All we know is what happened afterward from our own vantage point.

Such is the story of Pi. It is not about what you choose to believe, as much as it is about where one finds Truth. Much in the same way that Genesis is a story of faith and not about the Big Bang, we can hold that both stories are true or that only one is. Which one do you choose?

We Are the Beggars Music Review: Solid Praise and Worship

This debut album from Ike Ndolo is an interesting mix of quiet, passionate praise and worship songs spiced up with the occasional rock song. The lyrics tend to be simple but that is not necessarily to their detriment. After listening to the CD several times I found, to my surprise, that the louder rock anthems I originally liked best were not what grabbed my mind's ear as I would catch myself humming some of the straight forward songs. This is despite the fact that, although the album is well produced, it tends to be a bit conventional in places with musical changes predictable to anyone who has heard much praise and worship music. This is not the case in every song but it is there.

Ndolo's talent is obvious and although the album is being marketed to the youth group demographic there is much here to recommend it to all ages, especially considering that older listeners are usually well attuned to appreciate the passion of an electric guitar.

My personal favorite was Wade in the Water which instantly went into my God Mix playlist. An adaptation of an old spiritual, this song broke the more conventional sounds of the other songs and the hint of banjo in the background speaks to Ndolo's self professed love of bluegrass (which we share). My interpretation is that this might be more to Ndolo's personal taste and I hope that future albums will see the producers let this talented young artist break free from convention a bit more and trust his own musical inclinations.

Tom's pronouncement: "Solid." High praise indeed from someone who is all about the music and not moved much by praise and worship music unless it is good music in itself.

Definitely recommended. It is a bit late to get this for Christmas unless the local Christian store is lucky enough to have it on hand. However, it would be a great way to spend that Christmas cash if you are looking for a way to lift your heart in praise of God. (Although now that I think of it, you can download the mp3s instantly. I tend to forget that, preferring to have an actual CD in my hands.)

You can hear samples and order the album here. I received this CD as a review piece but would give it the same rating regardless.

Don't know much about polyphony ...

... but I do dearly love chant. It takes my spirit to an adoration chapel that my friends and I know well where there is always chant playing in the background. And it takes me to Good Friday at our church where for the last two years the Gospel has been chanted.

Anthology: Chants and Polyphony from St. Michael's Abbey

Thanks to the Norbertine Fathers from St. Michael's Abbey I venture to say that we were probably one of the very few ... if not the only household in the DFW Metroplex on Friday night to have these glorious sounds swirling through our house. The CD came in the mail and when we got home from Tom's excursion to the emergency room I popped it into the CD player to for an initial listen.

The eclectic selection on this album is a cross-section of music sung at the abbey that includes chants from the liturgy as well as motets and music from the Renaissance era. These latter are sung on more solemn occasions like Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, and other great feasts of the liturgical year. "Anthology: Chants and Polyphony from St. Michael's Abbey" is a testimony of the vigor and subtle beauty of Gregorian chant as sung today in the USA.

Simply beautiful ... and inspirational ... and peaceful. Also, I appreciate the Latin because I can't pick out words and it leaves my mind free for prayer while helping pull back that veil that separates me from God.

I now know that polyphony could be described as some of the most glorious harmony ever. I also can see why the retired abbot requested the initial Exultet recording that prompted them to begin recording in the first place. This is going to be the perfect music for my drive to work also, when I am finishing up the rosary begun on my morning prayer walk.

Highly recommended. In fact, so much so, that I am going to put Christmas at St. Michael's Abbey on my wish list.

Note: The release date is February 10 and Amazon has it on sale now. Do yourself a favor and order this if you want some inspirational music, especially with Lent beginning in a little less than a month.