Tim Høiland

reader, writer, occasional arithmeticker

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Return to El Salvador

June 22nd, 2010 · Faith & Spirituality, Politics & Social Issues

Not too long ago I was visiting some friends in Philadelphia to watch a soccer game, when, as sometimes happens, I got to talking about the mining industry and what it means for the community where I grew up in Guatemala. A friend of a friend told me about another friend of his I just had to meet: a documentary filmmaker from Philly who was passionate about the same sort of thing.

As it turns out, that filmmaker was Jamie Moffett. Like me, Jamie is an Eastern University alum. He recently completed and is now promoting a film called Return to El Salvador, featuring the story of an anti-mining activist who had been killed for speaking out, as part of a broader picture of what has been happening in the country as a whole. It’s narrated by Martin Sheen and endorsed by heavy hitters like Ron Sider and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Needless to say, it’s a very important – and at times quite disturbing – film.

I got in contact with Jamie and lined up a time to meet. Slightly modified versions of our interview have now been published at Upside Down World, which focuses on Latin American politics, and in the ePistle, the weekly communiqué from the good folks at Evangelicals for Social Action. Below is an extra that didn’t make the cut for either version, but explains a bit about what Jamie has been up to of late and why he’s crazy enough to go “all in.”

What are the next steps for you and for the film?
We screen a portion of the film June 15 for Canadian Parliament at the request of MP McKay, and specifically the clips related to mining and corporate accountability.  Following that, we present week-long multi-city screenings in Canada starting with out World Premiere at Toronto’s Underground Cinema in Chinatown. Screenings in Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver follow.

In the United States we are working on lining up a few cities. One of our options that we’re currently developing is a number of one-week runs around the country. We will be doing it in sort of a communal way where we agree to acquire the theater and then faith groups or social justice groups can choose to sponsor a night. They get half the tickets where you get a discount and turn it into a fundraiser if they want. But more importantly, they’re keeping the theater open to folks who may not be in on the story but can walk into the theater and get exposed to it.

We have no backer, no big money in the back pocket. I’ve had to sell my home to complete production, but I believe in the film and know that this critically important story needed to be told and shared with as wide an audience as possible.

There are a lot of folks like me who want to be the change we want to see in the world, but we simply don’t have the information. I’m happy I can say I spent this time of my life gathering the information and making this story. In a way, it was an education, like going to grad school. It took eighteen months and cost as much as a masters degree! Return to El Salvador is about listening; enabling people to deeply consider how the situation got this way, and now with this knowledge how we, together, can take action.

See also Jamie’s article in The Huffington Post, “Still A Nation Of Immigrants“

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A lover’s quarrel with the beautiful game

June 14th, 2010 · Books, Sports

“When good soccer happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.” – Eduardo Galeano

There are few phenomena on this planet that truly transcend culture the way soccer does. Few phenomena so universally divide people either, of course. But for this one month every four years, literally billions of people will be glued to televisions in living rooms and bars and shop windows at all hours of the day, finding ways to skip work, losing their voices cheering on the teams that bear their flag – or perhaps even just the teams they’ve picked to win their brackets.

This year they say that one in two people in the world – 3,413,350,000 of the 6,826,700,000 of us – will watch at least part of the Cup. Here in the United States, where we’ve been a bit slow to catch the fever, ABC/ESPN paid $100 million for the English language broadcasting rights for this year and 2014. Univision, meanwhile, paid more than three times that amount to broadcast in Spanish here.

A couple of years ago I read a book by Jonathan Safran Foer called How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. I thought it would be an impossible soccer book to top, but I just finished Soccer in Sun and Shadow by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, and I must say it comes quite close.

I originally understood the title to refer, in a culturally critical way, to the different sections of the stadium – the cheap seats in the blazing sun, the luxury boxes in the shade – and the way in which soccer, such a unifying force, still finds ways to perpetuate the socioeconomic divide that so permeates Latin America. But Galeano, who writes elsewhere about that sort of thing extensively, seems to be aiming at something different here.

The book, made up of mostly one-page essays, features Galeano’s reflections on a number of general themes (like “the idol” and “the goalkeeper” and “the fan”), but is mostly a chronology of the sport, and particularly of the World Cup. For each Cup he paints the picture of what’s going on in the wider world – dictators rising and falling, wars beginning and ending, and of course, each time “well-informed sources in Miami” were announcing “the imminent fall of Fidel Castro, it was only a matter of hours.” Through the thematic reflections and chronology, Galeano celebrates the bright spots of the world’s game, but doesn’t shy away from its blemishes. And that is what he means by “soccer in sun and shadow.”

He reserves some of his harshest criticism for the commercialization of soccer – turning sport into industry, taking on the values of efficiency and effectiveness, at the expense of creativity and passion and beauty.

So this year I watch the games with his ideas swirling around in my head and occasionally leaking out into conversation. But I’m conflicted. Because one of the factors leading up to the Cup that most filled me with anticipation for the celebration of all that is best with the sport – precisely that passion and beauty and yes, creativity – was a three-minute Nike commercial that is unlike anything I have ever seen before.

What would Eduardo Galeano think of it, I wonder? Would he see in it a bit of a recapturing of the bright spots, or merely just a further demonstration of the shadows? Maybe a bit of both.

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Formational and relational transformation

May 25th, 2010 · Books, Faith & Spirituality

One of the dangers you encounter when reading a book about the Christian life is that you underline all the most challenging parts of it and think of all the ‘lukewarm’ Christians out there it applies to. I first remember falling into this trap while reading The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer and being amazed at how applicable it was to the lives of so many people I could think of. This was pretty ridiculous, of course, seeing as I was no better than any of them, and that before I can ever call anyone else to discipleship I need to have first committed to going there myself.

I kept that in mind as I read The Fruitful Life: The Overflow of God’s Love Through You by Jerry Bridges. He writes books that urge deeper understandings and practices of discipleship. I read his classic The Pursuit of Holiness on a trip to Africa several years ago and found it to be a tremendous challenge to the sort of haphazard attitude toward discipleship that I can easily fall into.

This book is about the fruit of the Spirit. In recent years I have come to see just how relational the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives really are, and I have been trying to read the Bible and other books through that lens. Too often, when it comes to application time at the end of the sermon we are asked to examine what’s going on inside our heart and mind, and whether we have been spending our quiet time with God, and based on these questions to gauge our spiritual health. There’s nothing wrong with this sort of introspection. But if the Spirit of God is alive in us, the fruit isn’t just going to show up in these very personal, private ways. It’s going to turn our relationships upside down. Changed hearts will mean changed lives, and our lives necessarily involve other people.

To be honest, I expected to have to read this into Bridges’ reflections, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he is eager to make this point as well. He writes that the fruit of the Spirit is both formational and relational, and that “several of these character traits have a definite outward focus to other people” (p. 8). In fact, in Bridges’ work with the college ministry of The Navigators, he says that they are intentional about making sure that when they help to lead students in discipleship it always involves serving others. Discipleship does not happen in a vacuum.

Chapter by chapter, character trait by character trait, Bridges leads us through reflections that both challenge and encourage us as we seek to be good soil in which the fruit of the Spirit can grow in our lives. The Spirit’s work takes root in the deepest places of our being, transforming us at the core, but it doesn’t stop there. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control will eventually begin to emerge in the lives and communities of transformed people, and the world will never be the same.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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