August 26, 2008

In the 1950s, the communist government of China expelled all foreign missionaries. Many Americans have seen black-and-white photos of missionary families sitting next to piles of luggage on the wharves of Shanghai, waiting to sail home. We know much about this event because the missionaries came home and wrote books about their dedication and their unrealized harvest.

It was Wednesday. Time to visit my youth intern again. I really, really disliked Wednesday mornings. As I walked out of the office, I said, “Be back around noon,” to my administrative assistant. She knew where I was headed and smiled in support.

During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, George Dardess, an English teacher in Rochester, New York, watched on television as the U.S. dropped “smart bombs” on Baghdad. He felt anger and self-reproach. He turned to his wife and said, “I am complicit in this war through my ignorance. I don’t even know if I could find Iraq on a map. I know nothing about the Iraqi language, nothing about Iraqi culture. It is shameful. I am going to learn Arabic.”

Nick Cave might not be well known, but time spent with this complex Australian rocker is well spent. He doesn’t shy away from dense theological issues, which he explores in a rambling, lyrical style that recalls Jim Morrison at his poetic peak. Having survived addiction, broken relationships and enough stylistic shifts to inform five careers, Cave is an unlikely hero, somewhat resembling Johnny Cash (whose life had its own train-wreck qualities).

The makers of Hellboy II: The Golden Army must have had the time of their lives. The director, Guillermo del Toro, and his team of set, costume and special-effects designers provide a cornucopia of visual splendors.