Focusing on FOCUS

FOCUS (the Fellowship Of Catholic University Students) is a 20 year old (I rounded up) American, Catholic ministry organization in America. They are now on 100+ campuses (including 2 in Austria), generally consisting of 4 missionaries per team (though the numbers range from 2-12), an online resource group for campuses that do not have FOCUS missionaries, and they are becoming one of the most renowned Catholic ministries in our time. I was personally introduced to FOCUS when I began life as a college student, going to the Catholic Campus Ministry building next to Missouri State University in Springfield. It has been seven, going on eight years, since that time (which is a strange realization of passing time for me). So I would like to examine my time with FOCUS, how I grew as a Catholic man because of FOCUS, and what the outside perception is for FOCUS at this time in order to dig through and find the golden fruit that stems from their ministry.

Random note, in my examination for this post, I discovered that FOCUS is no longer on Missouri State's campus (which is not the first time this sort of thing has happened) and a part of me wonders what the various reasons are when FOCUS has left college campuses in the past. Anyway, onward we go.

Entering College:

I was a fallen away cradle Catholic when I entered my freshman year in college. I was never a regular attendant at Sunday Mass, even as a child, and I largely received the Sacraments due to my attendance through Catholic school (up until 6th grade) and then PSR (or whatever your local Religious Education program is called). After I received the Sacrament of Confirmation and entered high school, I sadly went to Mass very little or rarely did any prayers. I was also very much caught up in relativism (the idea that truth to me is not true for everyone) which mainly reflected in my minimal personal objections to/ minimal support of subjects of abortion and same-sex unions. It was only during my senior year of high school, and the summer just before I went to college, that I was asked to become a godfather to my cousin's first child. He is one of the two main reasons why I reverted back to my Catholic faith. My interaction with FOCUS during college is the other main reason.

During College:

There is a lot to cover during this four year history, so I will try to give you the short version. FOCUS was brought to Springfield and Missouri State University the same year as I started college. During my first Sunday at CCM, I wrote down my contact info for CCM as well as FOCUS, which I did not realize at the time was a separate entity (FOCUS missionaries are a separate organizational body from a campus' Catholic organization but they cooperate for the same purposes). Anyway, one of the missionary men, Tom May, reached out to me early on just for some recreation and he gave me the Bible I used throughout and beyond my college career. Lee Brokaw, the other male missionary who I have talked about before, led Bible Study for my age during his tenure, and he was influential in my understanding of masculinity, truth, and what being a Catholic man is all about. Through them, I joined a small group of fellow MSU Catholic men, the first real group of solid fellowship I became a part of, and throughout my time at college this group would do recreational things like go bowling as well as spiritual things like gather together to pray the Rosary once a week.

It was because of FOCUS's influence that I actually started attending Mass not just every single Sunday, but during the week as well. It is also because of my involvement with the FOCUS men that I went to Confession for the first time in many years, and I can only be grateful that our God is merciful and forgiving of my selfishness and ignorance. Now, while I credit FOCUS with much of my spiritual growth, there are some things I independently chose to do. I voluntarily become a Lector and Eucharistic Minister for Masses, as well as that guy that handles the collection basket before the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  I also went on to be a part of the Catholic Campus Ministry Student Council (StuCo) for my last two years at MSU. Again, since I became a godfather, I began to realize I had a personal responsibility for my faith life.

During this timeline, I also participated in my first legit spiritual retreats and went on 1 spring break volunteer trip. I was asked to become a FOCUS student leader junior year, which meant I was participating in FOCUS' evangelization efforts on MSU's campus and eventually I led a Bible Study senior year while also being on CCM's StuCo both years.

Here was where there was an interesting, contrasting union between the two organizations. We had both FOCUS and StuCo, which should've been attempting to do the same things. However, I saw that FOCUS was more of the spiritual leadership and influence during this time while CCM was the place to have the events. Some of my journal entries from that time reflect my frustration at all of the events StuCo was planning while also trying to get them to be more spiritually focused and more spiritually invested in our peers. FOCUS was the group leading Bible Studies, evangelizing to students on campus, and I think that many people would come to this or that event at CCM because of the FOCUS missionary or FOCUS student leader they encountered encouraging them to go instead of the event itself drawing them in.

I interviewed with FOCUS twice to become a missionary. During the second time, I had a moment of realization during the interview that I wouldn't be a missionary because I had not done everything in what I will call 'The FOCUS way' (there are multiple reasons why I did not become a missionary but this was one of them). During that interview, I felt like they were asking for lots of responsibility from a student leader, whose main focus was trying to graduate college. You know, I was attending classes full time, studying and doing the coursework outside of class, maintaining a certain GPA for my scholariship, involved in CCM StuCo, involved in FOCUS student leadership, leading a Bible Study my senior year, attempting to participate in theatre projects, do a part time desk job during my last two years, figure out what to do for the rest of my life, and still have a social life. Not saying I was constantly overwhelmed, but there were many things I was trying to juggle and focus on during college that I did not dedicate all of my time and energy into things the way I think FOCUS wanted me to. 'The FOCUS way', in the context of this interview, was wanting me to spend so much time with the men around me, doing more campus evangelization, and essentially meeting a quota increase on how many men I was bringing to Bible Study and mentoring, which I believe would have required me to put FOCUS as my top priority in college.


FOCUS Conferences:

Since SEEK 2017, the annual FOCUS conference, happened last week, I figure it would only be fitting to talk about my own experiences at their past conferences since they are the largest FOCUS event of the year. I attended 3 FOCUS conferences during college. When looking back on those experiences off hand, one of the things that comes to mind is I remember the venues and locations almost more than the talks each day. Which makes sense, that's like saying I remember college events and experiences more than the classes I took. For the talks I do remember, what makes them stand out is how they impacted my faith formation. Perhaps not immediately, but overtime I began to understand the truth of those talks more and my morality and faith was strengthened for the better because of those talks. The most memorable experiences I had were multiple times for Mass, Adoration, and Reconciliation at each, and I think these stand out just because thousands upon thousands of college students, religious, and missionaries were all together in a large crowd for spiritual activity and glorification of God. Some more subtle yet personal things I took away from these conferences involved learning to be less selfish, more patient, less angry, and less about my plans and more on God's.

One of the best things that can be said about FOCUS conferences is that they have so many religious orders and Catholic organizations to encounter and get to know. This is the one collective place where it's not odd to see various orders of monks and nuns in traditional habits roaming around. You can get so many good CDs, books, and other resources on subjects important in the Catholic Church from many booths. You can learn about organizations that are looking for staff or volunteers for future projects and endeavors. Of course, as I will explain below, you better come with extra cash in your pocket if you really really want to get so many of these good things to bring home.

Post College:

Instead of being a FOCUS missionary and instead of trying to get a career job immediately after undergrad, I volunteered for Reach Youth Ministry, which was a traveling Catholic ministry in the Pacific Northwest. This was the first time I remember being in a place where people knew of FOCUS but were not enthusiastic about them. One of my teammates from Benedictine College and I learned there used to be a FOCUS team in the Diocese of Helena (where I was living) in the past. What would anyone have against FOCUS, I wondered then? My guesses and examinations to follow in a bit. My main point in this is that even without the presence of FOCUS and without a shared enthusiasm for them, I continued to grow in my faith through my Reach experiences, especially Daily Mass and Daily Prayer that was part of ministry life. I was learning more, getting out of my comfort zone more, and becoming more proud and glad for my Catholicism. The challenge came from returning home after Reach and continuing my faith journey alone, or rather, doing it without some ministry organization guiding my daily life and faith practices. I had to build a routine of Daily Mass before work, Daily Scripture reading, and Daily Rosary (noticing a pattern?) in order to maintain faith life and continue to grow through obstacles, doubts, and struggles. My only real ties to FOCUS during this time, aside from the occasional Facebook read-through of acquaintances' posts, was that I donated to a friend who became a FOCUS missionary.

Others Complaints about FOCUS:

As I mentioned before, not everyone is a fan of FOCUS. Since they're not perfect, and there's always room for improvement, there are some areas that people critique FOCUS on and mayhaps rightfully so. Here is what I have compiled, in no particular order, as to what people criticize FOCUS on and why as an outsider now I can see why they think that.

-FOCUS is the cool kid's club:

I remember during one of my interview weekends, one of the men gave a speech about not worrying whether we were called to be FOCUS missionaries or not because "FOCUS is not the end all be all". While people who organize FOCUS may not claim it to be the end all be all, that does not stop other people from seeing it that way. There's a certain attitude around FOCUS that exudes from people involved, mainly because of how excited and how invested they are in the organization. Even during college, I could tell some people would feel like the people most involved with FOCUS formed a clique, and I could understand where they were coming from. Even sometimes on social media, the way that people talk about FOCUS (like with SEEK)  makes it seems like some humble bragging about the greatest organization of all time. FOCUS is a great tool, with lots of time to improve since it's only 20 years old, but their mission is to reach out to everyone, to be the New Evangelization for everyone whether they grew up Catholic or not, so outsiders looking in need to see that FOCUS is not some posh country club that has a restrictive VIP list.

-FOCUS has a specific target audience, and it's not me:

As someone who has graduated from university and is now moving on into the truly adult stage of life, I am an outsider looking in on FOCUS. While FOCUS puts out a lot of great material, not as much of it really resonates with me as it used to. Because it's no longer speaking to me, at least, it's not aiming for me. FOCUS has a specific demographic that they gear their material towards: College students, specifically undergrads, who are either away from the Church or are at a very minimal level of their faith. Of course some of their stuff is going to sound rudimentary, generic, and beginner level. Of course some of their stuff is going to be infused with pop culture and hip, trendy lingo. They understand who their audience is and in order to reach out to them, they cannot make their material too complex and they have to use language that appeals to a wide-ranging demographic. I may personally be someone who is looking for material to go deeply orthodox, and I may personally be someone who distastes trendy words in an attempt to be cool, but that does not mean that someone else isn't getting something good spiritually from that.

-Money:

If there's one thing that FOCUS has truly developed a skill at, it's finding sponsors and donors. There's no way that all of these FOCUS teams could survive and thrive without the investment of thousands of people who donate financially either to specific missionaries and to the organization in general. Of course, FOCUS can also come with a price (pun intended). The conferences generally cost $700-$800 for four days of travel, to stay at a hotel, and to cover a single meal's cost per day. There's all the extra money one would need to bring for the rest of the meals and for purchasing items at all the vendor booths. FOCUS also has international mission trips, going to third world countries and areas of need, but this again requires a lot of money for travel, food, and shelter. They're asking college students, majority of whom cannot already afford college and/or are taking out student loans, to spend large amounts of dough while at the same time reminding everyone to serve and give to the poor. There are also all of the finances and resources that each diocese and campus ministry utilizes to bring and maintain FOCUS on their college campuses. Yes, everyone is aware from the beginning of the financial obligations and necessities that are required for FOCUS to stay a non-profit organization whose staff live entirely on donations, but that does not mean people on the outside will see all of the money being used for the best good.

-FOCUS acts like a business:

This goes back to the idea of meeting a quota and what I suspect is one of the reasons why FOCUS may come and go from different campuses. The importance of the mission of evangelization can sometimes lead to people pushing to increase the numbers and find fault with any Bible studies or groups that are not growing in number. Again, that was one of my faults when interviewing to be a missionary, I never kept mentored a fellow student leader within FOCUS for a long time and I had trouble growing my freshmen Bible Study group beyond 2-3 guys each week. I was not meeting the quota and in some ways may be part of the reason why FOCUS was not successful on campus with freshmen men during my time on campus. When you are an organization built upon donations, and having to strategize how to use all of your resources wisely, sometimes you have to play a numbers game, which is what businesses do in order to continue making profit (this is all spoken on a very generic surface level understanding of business operations and my own understanding of FOCUS).

-FOCUS is all charismatic and not too traditional:

Perhaps the most minor of other people's complaints, though still relevant to the discussion of why people may not like FOCUS. One of the things that I did not enjoy about my experiences at FOCUS Conferences was the music. What I mean is, a lot of the songs being played were done in a very modern way, like the kind of rock band one might find at certain Protestant services. In fact, the band would sometimes get on my nerves because  they would play too long and too modern, like their music was one of the most important things you should be focusing on in the moment instead of say THE MASS or going over whatever you learned the past couple of days. I get that music is a form of prayer, and I'm sure the musicians were just trying to lead us in prayer, but I only really enjoyed praise and worship in other circumstances back on campus or during Reach, not so much through FOCUS. This is emblematic of the way FOCUS presents itself, again going back to the trendy cool kids and target group ideas.

Some people may also see FOCUS as a charismatic tool keying in on emotions. One of the most powerful moments during FOCUS Conferences (and I suppose even Steubenville Conferences for the youth) is the night of Adoration, where everyone is gathered to pray in front of the Eucharist, coupled with Reconciliation opportunities. It's a very emotional highlight of the conference because you're in a large dark room with thousands of other people, focusing on prayer and reflecting on past rights and wrongs, trying to get cleansed and draw closer to Christ. This is different from every day Adoration, where you're usually alone or in a small group in a chapel and still praying but in a calmer atmosphere. At least from what I could tell when I was involved, there's not much offered for those of the traditional, Solemn High Mass in Latin crowd, again because FOCUS is trying to reach a specific audience and it's hard enough to get young adults invested in the now standard form of Mass, much less the more traditional forms.

Recap:

Please remember that everything I have written down here is just based on my memories of the past, minimal research into FOCUS as an organization, and any chatter I catch from other people on social media.The mission of FOCUS is "Launching Catholic Students into Lifelong Catholic Mission". So really, they're just a starting point, a jumpstart, a catalyst, for someone to understand and grow in their Catholic faith. They're not trying to be a monastery or a seminary with deep, deep theological and historical studies (for the most part). They are trying to reach young Catholics raised in a relativistic secular American culture and prepare them to be disciples.

In fact, if we think of the original disciples, the Apostles, and use their timeline for example, FOCUS is really just that three year period where the Apostles were called by Jesus Christ, educated/instructed/challenged by Him, made and fixed their mistakes, and then once He ascended and gave them the Great Commission (i.e. once someone graduates from college), then the Apostles/disciples/college graduates take it upon themselves to live out their faith, to proclaim Christ as Lord and God, and to live a truly authentic Catholic life for the rest of their time here on Earth.

I've heard stories and known people who have gone on to seminaries and convents because of their involvement in FOCUS. I also know of some people (though not as many) who have fallen away from the Catholic faith even with their involvement in FOCUS activities. FOCUS is a resource that is constantly growing and adjusting its approach in its ministry. It provides multiple resources for people to jumpstart their faith and I think it will help us see more young adults in the Catholic Church overall. If we want to stop complaining about shrinking number of Mass attendees and how millenials are no longer practicing their faith, then we need to take all of the good that FOCUS is doing and continue to nurture that past the college years in order to help the American and global Catholic Church continue its mission.

The Avengers: Valuable Movies

The Avengers is one of the most popular superhero movies ever created, and even considered by some to be the best of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) movies. When it first came out, I admit that I had fun and enjoyed seeing this superhero team in action. However, I also considered the movie to be average in terms of plot and thought. Even when the movie tries to surprise me, I found myself predicting what the characters were going to do next. Also many of the stakes are low when you know that none of these heroes are at the risk of death.

So, I often considered The Avengers to be overrated and not as great as everyone else seems to make it out to be. I wanted to give it another chance (or should I say, a 4th or 5th chance) and watched it again recently to see just how 'good' or 'great' The Avengers really is. These ratings are now higher than what they would have been in my initial viewings when the movie first came out.

Artistic Value (Rating: 4)

The MCU movies are made so that fictional illustrations can become reality, and indeed The Avengers succeeds in doing that. Whether it is seeing Iron Man fly around or Captain America fighting off the bad guys or even seeing the Hulk crashing through a tunnel, it all looks as realistic as possible. Even with the fantastical elements involved with Thor and Loki, or the alien invasion army, the movie is made in such a way that it looks like it really could happen if we walk outside.

The color palette is also bright and diverse. Between the reds, the blues, and the greens in the team's appearance, you get a lot more vivid colors happening here compared to the DC movies or even some of the MCU movies later on, which tone down the brightness and diversity a little. The choice to stay away from Hawkeye's classic purple suit took me out of the movie a bit at first, but then once I realized his character was essentially a black ops military agent, then his all black attire made more sense.

The technology inside the movie is also well crafted. It is meant to look fancy, expensive, and just a little beyond our current capabilities, all while still seeming possible. The movie also gives the new technology good reason for acting the way it does. The floating fortress helicarrier of S.H.I.E.L.D. uses cloaking technology, but the cloaking comes from using mirrors to refract light instead of just saying 'We pressed a button and now we're invisible'. Iron Man's latest suit can attach to his whole body even when he is falling through the air, but it shows that he has to wear specific devices and the suit has to scan his body before it can fit him.

I went back and forth on whether to rate the value at 4 or 5. Part of the problem is most of my criticisms are nitpicking, but there's enough collective nitpicks plus some minor peeves to keep this movie from being close to artistically perfect. Most people have pointed out how unrealistic it was for the heroes to be communicating to each other without actual earpieces and microphones. Another detractor from the realism is Bruce Banner's random ability to control his transformation in the Hulk for the New York battle. If he could control this ability, why couldn't he stop himself from transforming on the helicarrier or why was he worried about being around people? Banner's conflict comes from his inability to control the Hulk transformations and when the script decides to take that away just for the sake of cool fighting scenes. This movie shoots for ultra-realism, but this minor communication feature is a major flaw in realism. Even with some cool slow-mo punches and a cool extended-take action scene during the New York battle, most of the actual fights were choppy and cut up. I take off some points for some of the make-up that didn't work, such as Loki's appearance in the beginning when he transports into S.H.I.E.L.D's base. These nitpicks are what make the Artistic Value a 4.

Moral Value (Rating: 3)

Here is the tricky part involved with any superhero movie. Are the superheroes the justifiable good guys? Are these role models for kids, and for adults even, to look up to? Some of these more ethical based questions get examined in future movies, but here the lines are just kind of generically established about who fights for good and who fights for evil. Loki is the definitive bad guy, as are the aliens that he works with, while the Avengers just kind of take the hero mantle since they are Loki's oppoinents. These lines are pretty blurry though, when one of the members of the Avengers, Hawkeye, spends 2/3s of the movie brainwashed into working for the villain and also when S.H.I.E.L.D's Phase 2 secrets become revealed.

When it comes to the final battle in New York, the good guys take some questionable actions to do what they need to do. For one thing, the council in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D has a nuclear missile fired upon the city, claiming that destroying the city is for the greater good of stopping the alien army, even if it means killing many innocent civilians. The other thing is the Avengers willingly destroy much of the city's buildings and property in order to defeat their opponents, again trying to save the world but also putting innocent lives at risk with the rubble and destruction. It's frustrating that people give DC so much trouble for all of the destruction that Superman causes, especially in Man of Steel, but I've never really heard any complaints about the destruction from the Avengers.

The PG-13 rating is warranted based on the level of action and violence involved, as well as some references made especially by Tony Stark. The violence wants to be realistic (Loki kills a whole bunch of nameless soldiers right out of the gate) but since it is a movie aimed at a wide age range, it does not have the guts to show...the guts and gore involved in killing. This is perhaps the least realistic part of the movie. It wants to pretend to be a fictional cartoon to get away with the violence even though it otherwise wants as much realism on display as possible.

Tony Stark is a problematic superhero role model because he shouldn't really be a role model based on his characteristics. He has not really seemed to turn away from the alcoholic, playboy lifestyle that was established for him in Iron Man. His snarky, selfish attitude is not really something for kids to emulate, even though our internet-age young adults seem magnetized to that kind of person as influential. Yet, the character arc given to Tony allows him to make up for this character flaw by being willing to sacrifice himself when the nuclear missile threatens New York.

I think one of the positive moral factors in this movie is Hawkeye's story of redemption. I do not think people give him enough credit for being a knowledgeable and skillful member of the Avengers team just because he does not have anything comparatively extraordinary about him. However, while under the control of Loki, Hawkeye is able to come up with plans just as well as Loki does on how to distract or take out the Avengers . He is able to infiltrate the S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier and successfully lead men into defeating the team. After his encounter with Black Widow, the mind control is lost. Hawkeye knows he helped the villain and hindered the protagonists. He seeks revenge on Loki in the New York battle, but in doing so he helps make up for his mistakes throughout the movie. His skills may not be as heavy-hitting or as flashy as the others, but he is still able to give the team visual guidance and use his skills as an archer to take out as many enemies as possible. Heck, he almost snipes Loki and had he not been a super-powered magical alien, Loki would have died.

So yeah, the confusing imbalance between the complexity and simplicity of the characters' ethical trait detracts from the morality rating. While this is ultimately a good versus evil story, it's not necessarily a light versus darkness story, which is where some of the latter movies improve on.

Voice on Movies: Interview with Steve Donahue

Today I want to talk about somebody else with other ideas than my own. So may I introduce you to one of my best friends, Steve Donahue. Steve and I first met in high school when we were cast in a one-act play together. Steve has remained a steady and good friend throughout the years and is one of the few people from high school that I spend time with as often as possible. Even when I've been out of town on some crazy adventure in the west or even after he became married to his lovely wife Madalyn, Steve and I make an effort to catch up, eat food, have a laugh, and continue to be in each other's lives. A fellow Christian as well as movie fan, Steve has exercised his writing craftsmanship this past year by creating a movie review blog. Below are some questions I had for Steve at our most recent get-together and his responses.

Steve, thank you very much for sitting down for this chit-chat on movies. Thank you, Steve, for your friendship.

P.S.-I have added links at the end to some of Steve's articles as well as some of my own articles regarding movies for additional food for thought. There are multiple references in this interview to reviews that Steve has written and are worth checking out.

What inspired you to review movies?

There was an extreme need that I had to start writing again; everyone told me that I need to keep practicing writing because I was good at it. But I never practiced it.

I've been watching Youtube reviewers for over half a decade now, so I decided to combine both of those things because I like writing about movies and writing in general. I decided that was something I could focus on.

Where does your love and enjoyment of movies come from?

Part of it does come from actually watching movie reviews and enjoying analyzing the movies. I'm very fond of the idea of seeing movies as an art form and a form of storytelling.

I think movies are more interesting than reading a book. I know that's not the popular opinion.

It's also less time consuming than reading or playing videogames… and watching TV shows for that matter even though I do review some TV shows.

For your reviews, you grade movies on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst, 5 being average, and 10 being the best. Why do you use that scale instead of a letter grading system or smaller number scale like 1-5?

In regards to how I think about movies being rated, I think certain rating systems are too generalized because they don't have enough ratings. Then there's ones that are so diluted by so many ratings that it almost loses meaning. There's some reviewers I respect that use 4 or 5 star ratings.

Everybody that I know of that uses the letter grading system suffers from dilution. What comes to mind is especially Chris Stuckmann [a Youtube movie reviewer]. He reviewed three separate movies and it seemed like he had equally negative things to say about all of them and he gave one a D+, one a C-, and one a B-, and I was like "I don't know what your rating system means, man".

I think the 1-10 system is a perfect mixture of generalization and specificness. There's some people, my brother included, that uses the 1-10 system but adds 0.5s like 6.5 and I think that causes dilution...I wonder if dilution is the right word…If you have too many ratings, things start getting confusing.

On top of that, my favorite reviewer also uses 1-10.

Do you know what your favorite movie of 2016 so far?

So far it's Swiss Army Man. I think the movie is so well performed that it successfully made me feel almost every single emotion. The emotional connection for me came from just relating to the characters as well. I mean, I didn't just rate it a 10/10 cause I could relate to the characters but because the performances were great. The soundtrack was done in a very unique way. There was a lot of stuff that was thought provoking about [the movie]. I wouldn't even say I agree with all the messages that Swiss Army Man even had, but I just enjoyed it so much and I thought the movie was satisfying enough to merit that rating, and there hasn't been a rating that's come closer to that yet. It's funny...I've talked to a few people who have tried Swiss Army Man and they either really really love it or they turn it off after 20 minutes because they totally didn't get it so I wouldn't call it a perfect movie for everybody.

How does your Christian faith influence the way you watch and review movies?

I think the way that my faith affects it the most is that my faith affects my worldview, and my worldview affects how I view truth, and so a lot of times...really the biggest way it affects how I view movies is based on what message is being sent because of the movie. Aside from that though, I try not to make my beliefs color the way I see a movie. There's an article I wrote and part of it I talk about how there's some moral beliefs in every movie that I've disagreed with that fall on almost every single rating. I've given a 1/10 to a movie I morally disagree with, and I think Swiss Army Man is a movie that, in some ways, I morally disagree with. So judging a movie for me means being as objective as I can and as fair to a movie as I can. So if I don't like what a movie is saying I don't immediately discredit it [unless there’s other things I have problems with].

A lot of the Christian movies I review, I try to review on the quality of the film-making and not just on the message. Otherwise, I’d probably give it a higher rating. A vast majority of Christian movies I've seen aren't good.

Are there any Christian movies made in the past 10-20 years that you like or recommend?

Typically if it's a [recommendable] Christian movie, it has Christian undertones. I would argue that Lord of the Rings is one of those kinds of movies that has those distinct influences. It's not 10-20 years ago, but I did enjoy Ben-Hur. Not the 2016 Ben-Hur, I thought that one sucked, but the Charlton Heston one. I mean, it was a bit overly long and some of the parts could've been cut out and it would've made a much more tighter movie but the overall performances of the movie were good… I don't know if it's because I'm used to seeing movies in the 2000s but it was a very unique experience. 

The Book of Eli would be on that list since it's technically sort of about the Bible. Is there anything that's come out that was actually a Christian movie? I can't think of anything.

[I forgot Risen. That movie was pretty good.]

There are many movies that you have reviewed and given a 2 or a 3, something low. Do you ever feel like you're torturing yourself watching some of these disasters? Like a bad comedy is the schoolyard bully and it makes you punch yourself in the head while it taunts 'Stop hitting yourself'?

[Laughs] The most torturous movies are the 1 out of 10s. I can truly say that almost every 1/10 was a torturous experience. 2 out of 10s...I think Turbo Kid was extremely painful. I don't know if I'd say Batman v Superman was a torturous experience, I was extraordinarily wowed by just how bad it was. Like my mouth was ajar and I wondered "How in the world are they doing so bad at this?". I guess I wouldn't say 3 out of 10s are normally torturous, but I’d call them more obnoxious. They're not the schoolyard bully, they're more like the kid that just won't leave you alone.

Do you think there's any appeal in movies that are "so bad they're good"?

Absolutely. At the end of my review for Sleeping Beauty (2014), I said I simultaneously loved and hated that movie because it was so bad but I was laughing so hard because it was really funny. Another movie was Gods of Egypt...the amount of boring parts in Gods of Egypt far surpass the unintentional humor but I still thought it was fun to watch.

[What makes moves that are "so bad they're good" fun to watch] is because of the unintentional comedy. Usually when they say it's so bad it's good, they're talking about how the movie's hilarious but it wasn't their intention to be funny. Aside from that, the only other movies I can think of, I wouldn't call them "so bad they're good", they were terrible despite being entertaining are The Purge: Election Year, which was an awful, unsubtle movie but it was a lot of fun, and Independence Day: Resurgence had probably one of the cheesiest scripts I've seen in awhile, but explosions are fun.

What is your favorite thing about going to the movie theater?

This is hard because I wouldn't say "Oh, there's a community" because I usually go to movie theaters alone by myself. Honestly the best thing about going to the movie theater is that it provides me material for something to write about. The primary reason why I see so many movies is so I can write about it because I think I'm good at it.

And the inevitable follow-up question: What is your least favorite thing about going to the movie theater?

Dealing with the employees. You can tell they're being paid minimum wage because none of them care. I think I did a tweet about how ticket rippers have the easiest job in the world but they always manage to screw it up. I collect movie ticket stubs and there's probably a bunch in there that aren't perfectly ripped. I mean it's not so bad I wouldn’t go to Wehrenberg Chesterfield ever again but I mean I've reviewed 90 movies in the theater so far. I don’t remember any of the people there and none of them remember me, they always seem so disinterested. Honestly if there was a movie theater that charged a little bit more but had a more pleasant experience I would probably go, and I'm one who loves cheap movie tickets. I dislike terrible employees more than I dislike terrible movies because at least with terrible movies, I have something to write about.

Do you have any movie favorites at the moment? Favorite director, favorite actor, favorite genre, etc?

I haven't really seen anybody that's been consistently awesome. One person that I did want to search into more, because everyone says I should search into him more, is Wes Anderson. I think Moonrise Kingdom is one of the best movies that you could watch on Netflix right now. I've heard great things about Fantastic Mr. Fox, I've heard great things about The Grand Budapest Hotel, and I want to see all of them but I haven't given myself time to find them out. Besides that...I mean, there's some actors that give me a reason to think that the movie will be better. Bryan Cranston is one of them, even though he's going to be in a comedy with James Franco and it doesn't look good at all. To be quite honest, man, there hasn't been an actor or a director or genre that has consistently been good with me. I think every single one, except for those few classic directors, have the propensity to suck at one point or another or at least not be very exceptional.

If you had the power to stop Hollywood movies from using one terrible cliché, which would it be?

Only one?! Oh my goodness....Let me think...

One of them I'm getting a little tired of is every single movie demanding some of sort of strong-independent-female-character. It's almost becoming a meme because I think the vast majority of movies I've seen you have at least one female character whose sole defining trait is that she doesn't need any man's help and she'll prove it at one point in the movie. It's not that I hate that cliché [character]. In fact I think it's good, but they're using it so much that it's almost becoming meaningless. I can think of so many movies that have done this and some of them have become worse because they did it. Now You See Me 2, Warcraft has a little bit of that in it, I mean obviously Ghostbusters, Star Trek Beyond had it, The Purge: Election Year, The Legend of Tarzan, Independence Day: Resurgence had a little bit of it, Alice Through the Looking Glass...do you want more?...It's super forced.

I don't know how political I want to get, but you can tell there's a very strong influence that modern third wave feminism is having on culture because that’s the only reason I can think of why it almost seems like it has to appear in every movie.

I feel bad that I have this criticism because I don't want it to seem like this character type is a bad thing to have in your movie. It's just becoming overused to the point where it's not special anymore.

Must See Relevant Blog Posts

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Our Conversation on 'Sicario'

Things Steve Hates in Movies (Part 1)

Swiss Army Man Review

My Blog

10 Catholic Movies

Movies with Value

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Valuable Movies Series Intro & Hail, Caesar!

Here is hopefully the start of another series of blog posts, in an attempt to get me to write on a more regular basis. My focus of these posts will be movies (and sometimes TV shows) because I love visual entertainment. My hope is to take a movie (generally a popular one) and rate it by examining the artistic and moral values found in it. I wrote a couple of posts a while back explaining the necessity for movies with value and the need to spend our time watching good movies (which have high artistic and moral standards). By looking at popular movie and TV selections, I hope to give an accurate rating as to whether we are really spending our time on good entertainment. While my examination of artistic and moral value will be flexible, I will be trying to follow these questions:

"Artistic value can be judged based on the following questions: Does it look good aesthetically, whether it is an animated movie or because of the direction and cinematography? Does the theme say something honest or truthful about the human condition? Does it have a good reason for existing?

Moral value can be evaluated based on these levels: Can this/ should this be seen by families? Is there a sensible reason for it to be made for adults or teens only? If religious, does it present spiritual truths well? Does the movie uphold natural understanding of what is good, true, and beautiful in the world? If there is a focus on a negative subject, does the positive good overcome in the end?"

What will my rating system be? I want to try to be unique enough but I also want to use something that's easy to understand in a visual form. Steven D. Greydanus, perhaps my favorite film critic and creator of the Decent Films movie review website, has multiple levels to his rating system. For the overall grade, he uses the letter grading system. He too grades movies based on Artistic/Entertainment Value and Moral/Spiritual Value and I am sure that is part of where my  rating system and definitions comes from. For the Artistic Value he uses a 5 star rating system and for the Moral Value he uses a +/- number system. My friend Steve Donahue, who also reviews popular movies, uses a 1-10 system, but perhaps that is too big for something like this. 

So, I think I will use a 0-5 system, with 0 being the worst, 5 being the best, and with 2.5 being average as well as the only time I use a .5 in my ratings.

I wanted to do a quick examination to provide an example of this series idea. So I will rate the values of Hail, Caesar!, the latest Coen Brothers release. While not really a popular movie, I did rewatch it recently and the Coen Bros are a popular enough team, so this gives me something to work on.

Artistic Value (Rating: 3) 

Hail, Caesar! is a very sharp, bright movie. All of the colors and textures pop off the screen. There is also a wonderful recreation of 1950s Hollywood. From the costumes, the cars, and especially the dialogue, this place in the past is brought to reality. Hail, Caesar! examines what life in Hollywood was like for the people who created entertaining media and it also provides the Coen Brothers an opportunity to examine their own life in Hollywood today. People gave this movie trouble for feeling disjointed because it features vignettes or scenes of stories that quickly cut back from one focus to another. However, we have to remember that a single day of our lives can be disjointed, broken up into odd little moments that may not directly connect from one event to another, but they tell a full story of our experience for that day.

Multiple genres are represented in this movie, from biblical epics to westerns to musicals. While each presentation is a caricature of the genre, the atmosphere, pacing, and acting style unique to each genre are all brought out well. It's fun to see everything happening on set, whether it is how the actors move and perform dialogue or whether it is all the camera and microphone people rolling around just a few feet away. It's not often for us to see what is happening off screen while cameras are rolling, and again this is all done with proper representation of the time period.

My caveats or critiques of the artistic value of this movie does go back to the different movie genres. While Hail, Caesar! does try to recreate the different look of past movies, they still look brand new. Even when the footage is in black and white or grainy, it still looks too crisp for the time period. Modern technology offers us the opportunity to not just recreate a style like an homage, but also to really create the style again as if we are using the same cameras from 60 years ago. The other detractor for me involves the secretive group known as 'The Future'. These scenes tend to slow down the movie and drag for me. This is probably because there is so much philosophical, high intellectual jargon being thrown around that it's hard to fully comprehend everything. The biggest problem is that 'The Future' is supposed to be the main conflict and also where a lot of the thematic ideas come from but it is the least interesting thing in the movie to me.

Moral Value (Rating: 2.5)

There is a reason for this movie to be rated PG-13, but ultimately that's because the ideas, the setting, and the topics of conversation would really confuse and bore anyone that wasn't at least in high school or college age, and even then those things can still be confusing. The MPAA rated the movie PG-13 for Some Sexual Content, and this movie does involve dialogue that is either specifically sexual or at least an innuendo, or rather there is one extended innuendo in the dancing number. The PG-13 was also given for Smoking, but I've never really considered that a reason to keep a movie away from the kids because a lot of older movies and cartoons featured smoking and I don't think those were heavy factors in current smoking habits. 

This movie acts like all major Hollywood stars during its Golden Age were sexually immoral drunkards and while I don't know enough about the real stars and the real Hollywood back during the 40s and 50s, I doubt that this can fully apply to each big movie star during this time period. Also, there is a brief discussion of theology between different Christian leaders, as well as a Rabbi, in the first quarter of the movie, which provides some humor, but can also cause some confusion for viewers that are not either Christian or Jewish or perhaps just do not have a lot of understanding of both theologies.

The biggest place Moral Value comes in to play is the main character Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin). On the one hand, the man slaps a woman early on in the movie, he purposefully lies or covers the truth multiple times in order to protect the movie studio, the actors, and himself, and even though he says he wants to be a family man, he is hardly at home and we never see him with the kids when they are awake. This is a deceitful man who easily states big lies, even if he does mean well. On the other hand, he is a Catholic man striving for a solid moral life. He is repentant enough to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation two times in about the span of one day, he prays with his rosary when he is in most need, he protects the studio actors and directors from public ridicule and scandal, and he really does know what is going on in his family's life and he genuinely cares enough about the welfare of his family to ask questions when he needs to know something.

The way that the character of Eddie Mannix is written is perhaps what rubs me the wrong way and this is big. He is supposed to be a Catholic, and we're inclined to believe he has more devotion than what we might consider a cafeteria Catholic today, but when a Catholic priest refers to Jesus Christ as 'The Son of God' and Mannix replies 'Not sure I follow, padre', that confuses me. This Catholic man is all too willing to devote himself to a life of lies and deceits in order to fix problems at the studio, even if he does have good intentions. Aside from the confusion with Eddie Mannix and the aforementioned theology discussion,the film's handling of religious topics and imagery actually provides some nice food for thought as well as some laughter when you realize what movies, stories, and scenarios it is referring to.

Golf is Fun to Watch

Sometimes movies of the past become more relevant as time goes on. This seems to be true even of movies about golf. I'm talking specifically about Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore. While both of these comedies brought an Average Joe approach to the modern bourgeois sport of golf, Caddyshack seemed to examine the snobbishness found in the elite class while Happy Gilmore specifically focused more on the clash between white collar and blue collar. However, both movies were good indications that golf in America would become more accessible to the middle class and that the sport's elitist atmosphere would begin to fade.

Caddyshack also predicted that golfers would star wearing ridiculous color combos and sleeveless shirts.

Now, even today, golf is not a cheap hobby. Between the price of clubs, course rates of play, and even the cost of getting new golf balls and other equipment, the total value of golf is definitely more than most middle and lower class people can afford on a regular basis. For me, playing a game of golf is a rare treat, even at the cheapest courses. Still, there are golf courses littered across this country, and people, especially men, of all classes are constantly out there driving from the tee boxes and putting on the greens. So golf is not just a sport for the rich elites to play, but even for the common man, and perhaps this is also showing up on the PGA tour.

Over the past couple of years I have gotten more into watching golf on the weekends. I grew up with an extended family of golfers and whenever we got together for special occasions, the day's golf match would always be on the TV in the background. Now, it is a part of my Sunday experience when I rest and relax with my immediate family. I find that playing the sport actually makes it more thrilling to watch because I can relate more to what the players are doing. I have actually seen the number of spectators, the people physically present at the tournament, grow over time. More people are crowding around the side of the course, whether it is fans sitting at stands set up at the greens and tee boxes or whether there is a massive rush to gather around a sliced drive.

That drive went behind that tree 30 yards wide of the fairway. Quick, let's race to stand on top of it!

A couple of weekends ago (9/30-10/2) was the 2016 Ryder Cup, a competition held every two years between the best golf players in the United States and the top players from across Europe. It was fun watching the back and forth between some of the greatest golfers alive today and it was especially nice to see the Americans hoist the trophy in the end. This Ryder Cup brought a high number of spectators to the course, more than 50,000 people, and it showed on TV. Aside from physically seeing the people on TV, you could hear the people clearly. There was plenty of chanting and cheering and even some heckling.

Though would you want anything less from a crowd that looked like this?

The European fans on Twitter could not stop complaining about the crowd. All of the 'Yanks' were being loud, obnoxious, and classless, they said. Now I will be fair to the Europeans and agree to an extent. On occasion you could hear the crowd cheering whenever the European team made a terrible shot or someone would mock a player as they prepared to strike the ball or even in a couple of cases say some stupid insults crossed the line. Yes, there were a few bad apples in the bunch that deserved to be removed from the crowd. However, some of the European fans were just complaining because the audience enjoyed chanting "USA! USA!" and screamed loudly whenever the US players made a great shot. You can tell some of these Twitter fans haven't watched many PGA events before if they're surprised that some dork yelled 'Get in the hole!' or 'Bababooey!' at every hole. If that's the majority of what they had to complain about, then that is just a minor annoyance they need to get used to.

Because seriously, just look at these guys. This kind of stuff is anticipated, really.

These are the kind of frat boys you expect to shout 'Get in the hole!'

It's all about striking the right balance for watching golf in the contemporary time. Most people today who do not watch golf say that one of their main reasons is it's boring to watch. I think these people do not realize how much golf has in common with other popular professional sports you enjoy spectating at home. It has the same stop and start gameplay you find in football and baseball. It's got great narratives with underdog stories and colorful characters like you see being promoted in the NBA and the NFL. It even has all of the product placement and endorsement deals people enjoy in NASCAR and the NFL. Just because players have to take their time to travel to the ball and calculate their shots does not mean golf is that much slower than baseball and America loves watching baseball, whether at the stadium or on the couch.

Now again, just because golf should not be boring does not mean it should be boorish. There is a time and place for people to be quiet and they should be respectful enough to not heckle a player when they are attempting to swing the club. Vocalization and audience interaction is possible outside of standard etiquette moments. One of the things that made this year's Ryder Cup fun to watch was seeing the players interact with the crowd whenever they made a great play. On Day 2, Patrick Reed made a spectacular wedge shot to eagle a hole and was cheerfully getting the already roaring audience pumped up by shouting 'Come On!' to them.

Kinda like a Cam Newton of the PGA if you will.

Not to be outdone, Rory McIlroy also brought some heat and flare in his interaction with the crowd. He took the brunt of a lot of hate and noise from the spectators and instead of just crying about it, Rory would make spectacular putts and roar at the audience. Sometimes he even brought some hand signals into the mix just to taunt the audience even more, letting them know their noise and hatred only made him stronger.

Also kind of a Cam Newton of the PGA

The duel between Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy was some of the best golf seen on TV, not just because they were playing spectacularly well, but also because they would taunt and tease each other in celebratory fashion, similar to a touchdown dance or some other cheesy self-congratulatory behavior from NFL players (I guess what I'm saying is that pro golf and pro football are the same really...wait...). A lot of people speculated online that Reed and McIlroy would eventually get into a fight before the end of their round. However, just like immature drunken yelling, fisticuffs have no place in the world of golf.

Then again....

Now, let's bring back the idea of elitists versus the common man, rich and poor. Before, the stereotype was that golf is mainly for the rich snobs who could afford to do it on a regular basis. This meant that players and crowds were much more proper, gentlemanly, and rigid. The 'golf clap' became a symbol of the quiet elegance found in snobby bourgeois golf. Today, you see plenty of middle and lower class people not only playing the sport, but watching from the sidelines as well. These people come from a different set of rules and lifestyle where it's okay to be vocal and loose. This does not mean that they do not have any class, it's just that they fully understand that having fun doesn't mean having to be stiff.

It seems like perhaps there is just a traditional view on golf that is slowly adapting to new conditions. On the one hand, golf should not remain locked into this stereotype that you have to be completely silent, stiff, prim and proper at all times, whether you're a fan or a player. On the other hand, golf is still a more elegant and gentlemanly sport compared to others like football or hockey, so the crowd should not be getting drunk, screaming at every little thing, and generally acting without any common decency. Golf does not have to be boring to watch, but it doesn't have to be some crazy rave either. Players should be allowed to respectfully taunt and the crowds should be able to do some chants and cheering at appropriate moments. This upcoming weekend is the Safeway Open, the start of a new PGA tour season, and with Tiger Woods playing once again, you can bet there will be spectators in the audience chanting and cheering loudly. And I will gladly watch this entertaining spectacle if I can.

Music Series: New Person, Same Old Mistakes

Here I will examine the lyrics of a known secular song to digest it from a Catholic Christian perspective. Of course, this is all just interpretation and perspective from one angle. This is essentially me making connections that the songwriter may or may not have been trying to make, but it still fits the perspective nonetheless. It's all just fun and games at the end of the day.

Tame Impala is a psychedelic rock band from Australia. Filled with multi-instrument, multi-band musicians and a lead singer known for his high falsetto, Tame Impala have steadily grown in popularity over the years. Their most recent album, Currents, has taken more of an electronica tone in the psychedelic rock realm, which makes the tunes all the more catchier and accessible to people who prefer the electronic to the rock. One of that album's hits, New Person, Same Old Mistakes, has garnered popularity in part due to being covered by Rihanna and for being used in promotions for the new FX series Atlanta. With a groovy bass and soft falsetto echoes, New Person, Same Old Mistakes is musically attractive and top notch. Yet, obviously it's the lyrics that concern us here.

To me, New Person,Same Old Mistakes could be talking about a recent convert, someone who has just recently turned away from a life dedicated to sin in order to turn towards a life of discipleship for Jesus Christ. There is essentially one main character, that I'm naming Tommy.This man Tommy is trying to inform his old friends about his conversion. These old friends are not convinced about the Christian life and faith in God. So the fear of the friends telling Tommy to drop Christianity and return to life without God gives Tommy pause. Here are the opening lyrics:

"I can just hear them now

'How could you let us down?'

But they don't know what I found

Or see it from this way around"

Tommy understands his friends, understands them very well. The friends almost feel betrayed by this conversion, seeing it as an act of stupidity. They would view the conversion as stupidity because they do not understand the point of Christianity and their view of Christianity/ God cannot allow them to understand. Yet, Tommy does understand, he does see the point of Christianity, which is why he converted. Of course, since this is still a new way of life and the life of a Christian disciple is a hard one, Tommy has to struggle, both with himself and with the people around them.

"Two sides of me can't agree...

Going with what I always longed for"

Tommy has two sides because he has two approaches on how to proceed in life. He could either revert back to his old way of life, ignoring time to pray, serve the needy, attend church, or any other activity that brings Christians closer to God. Or, he could choose to do those acts of discipleship despite any challenges or hardships he may have to face along the way. These two ways of life do not match up and cannot agree because they both have different purposes. Yet, we hear Tommy choose to go for what he has 'always longed for', which makes us think that he chose the right path, the harder path. Perhaps he has always longed for truth, understanding, God, or a lifestyle of ethics and morals that makes right and wrong more clearly defined.

"Feel like a brand new person

(But you make the same old mistakes)

I don’t care I’m in love

(Stop before it’s too late)"

Tommy feels like a new person. Maybe he was recently baptized or confirmed in his faith. Maybe this new Christian way of life is so different from the previous way of life that Tommy has truly transfigured who he is and what he stands for. He is new creation in Christ now and he understands that something is different. He is so new, however, that not every action he takes differs from the actions in his past. Whether it is in the back of his mind or something that his friends have said previously, there is something telling Tommy he is not different enough, that he is still doing things that he used to do before the conversion. The convert fights back with a counterargument that he is 'in love'. He has fallen in love with God and has chosen to pursue Him despite the setbacks and criticisms.

"I finally know what is love

(You don’t have what it takes)

(Stop before it’s not too late)

(I know there’s too much at stake)

(Making the same mistakes)"

Here is something that sounds Scriptural in this particular context. The first letter of St. John tells the reader that God is love. Tommy, through this conversion experience, has discovered God and knows that God is love. However, these repeated mistakes and the criticisms are still in the back of Tommy's mind. Perhaps even some of these lines, like 'too much at stake' and 'same mistakes' are coming from Tommy specifically, bringing back the two sides not agreeing. Either way, it is a duel and struggle, where Tommy believes he is on the right path, but there is still some resistance from outside as well as inside for him to be fully convicted.

"I know you don't think it's right

I know that you think it's fake

Maybe fake's what I like

Point is I have the right

I'm thinking in black and white

I'm thinking it's worth the fight"

Here is Tommy's rebuttal to his friends and the criticisms those friends have thrown around. Again, we understand that Tommy understands his friends. To me, Tommy even throws in a witty bit of sarcasm. The third line 'Maybe fake's what I like' can be Tommy's facetious response so that he can tell these old friends that he has faith and trust in his conversion experience. Tommy has the right to choose God or not, both in terms of law and free will, and the old friends cannot stop Tommy from pursuing God. Through this conversion experience, Tommy realizes that he is starting to see the world with a less relativistic mind. Knowing the truth means that things are black and white, right or wrong, in most cases. This new point of view, to Tommy, is worth taking on these doubts and criticisms because of the truth Tommy finds in God.

"Man, I know that it's hard to digest

But baby this story ain’t so different from the rest

And I know it seems wrong to accept

But you've got your demons, and she's got her regrets"

Again, Tommy understands his friends. He knows that since these friends cannot see this conversion and cannot see Christianity from the same perspective that he can, it is challenging for these friends to fully comprehend Tommy's experience. Yet, Tommy knows he is not the only one who has gone through this conversion experience. There are many other people, especially in contemporary Western society, who once ignored or abhorred the Christian faith until life and God led them to a conversion experience where they take on the discipleship of Christianity. Tommy even gets to tell his friends that they have stuff to work on and overcome in a struggle before having a similar conversion experience. Some friends have demons, personal struggles and grudges, that they have to overcome. In one particular case, a female has a past experience that she regrets. Maybe this girl left Christianity or misunderstood or mistreated Christian people in the past.

"A realization is as good as it gets"

At the end of the day, Tommy can only tell his friends so much and try to relate to them so much. If they are still confused as to why Tommy has chosen to convert , the most basic message he can leave them with is that he has come to realize love and truth in the Christian faith. If they cannot accept that, which the rest of the song tells us that they can't at this time, then they will never fully understand and be able to comprehend Tommy's conversion and his new life in God.

In some ways this song reminds me of the parable about the sower and the seed in Scripture. "A sower went out to sow...Some [seed] fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it" (Matthew 13: 3-7, NAB). Tommy could be the seed in the first scenario here, where he is springing up very instantly in his conversion experience. He is having trouble because at the moment he is in shallow soil and lacking deep roots in his faith life. Tommy can also be the seed in the second scenario if he sticks around his friends and lets their words get to him. The friends, being the thorns due to their words and actions, can choke Tommy's faith and relationship with God if he is not too careful.