Avatar

In 1973 I joined a long time friend’s new friends on the fields of the high school early in the morning, and sometimes in the evening, learning Tai Chi.

The hint of martial arts helped my self confidence, while the slow, concentrated, peaceful movements appealed to my introspective nature. Also, it was nice it followed the mysterious path of Kwai Chang Caine.


Tai Chi led to various types of yoga, which led to my introuction to hinduism. I joined an ashram, telling myself I was true to my faith having chosen Jesus as my avatar.

In the mid 70s the word “avatar” was just one of many hindi words I learned (though I have realized today I’ve been mispronouncing it all these years, but in my defense, I learned the word from someone with a thick Calcutta accent).

An avatar is an incarnation of God, or, a god. The hindus consider buddha an avatar. Krishna was an avatar (and that wasn’t his first visit). They consider all the greatest manifestations of spirituality as avatars.

Sometime over the last 15 years “avatar” has come to mean a stand in for a person... For example, in a silly little online community I play in I have an avatar named Sam Spade (from The Maltese Falcon).


Avatar is a hot movie right now. In the movie the word describes a genetically designed stand in for humans contacting a race of indigenous people on an alien world.

I loved the movie. The others in the theater did too. It’s rare a movie audience applauds.

Amazing movie. It sets sets a new bar for movie making. I’ve never felt so drawn in to a movie. It was thrilling.

Go see it, especially in 3 D.

Not everyone is as happy with it.

Others as well...

I had an unusual dream a few weeks ago. I always have unusual dreams, and I recall them as well as I recall anything in my waking life. What made this one especially unusual was my heightened senses. Dreams often provide a sensory experience which is a notch or two down from that of real life. Sometimes the same, but usually less.

Not this one. This time it was more filled with sensory experience than real life. Every smell, every touch, the feel of the horse’s breath on my neck, the texture of the hair of the man’s head I held, the brightness and subtle colors of Jupiter, Venus, the waxing crescent moon, the Orion Nebula, all extremely clear and sharp.


That was part of the thrill of the movie Avatar. The sensory part of it was a quantum level above any previous movie experience.

So was this dream.

The dream makes this experience, the one right here and now as I type into this laptop at the gastroenterologist’s (Isaac is going to have a procedure done soon), less real than the dream experience.

It makes me feel like real life might be merely a dream.

Seriously. I have my doubts how real this is...

I feel God is more real than I. I intuitively feel He holds all things together, from the largest structures of the universe to the 12-D vibrating threads which make up quarks, which make up bosuns and leptons, which make up sub atomic particles.

Some folks, some conservative, evangelical types, dislike the movie. They grouse about environmentalism (seeing a swipe at big business), western culture (a swipe at our latest version of imminent domain), and echoes of American misadventures in Vietnam, Iraq, and 19th century westward expansion.


They also see the film embracing of paganism (pantheism actually), alcohol and tobacco use, swearing, and other “anti-christian” elements.

Well... I think there are all sorts of truths in all sorts of things. The first step is to realize that though our faith is not embraced by all, bringing our faith to others does not happen with a hammer. Rejecting a film, a group, or a person, because of alcohol or smoking is absurd. We aren’t called upon to beat our culture into the shape of our faith, but to bring our faith into the lives of those around us so faith makes changes from within, person by person.

Living in a nation where my vote matters means I must use that vote in ways which align with my conscience and faith.

It gets murky when others try to tell me that their views, party platform, align with my spiritual views. I don’t buy it. Since Ronald Reagan (apparently enough time had passed since Nixon) there has been efforts to demonstrate that the Republican party is pro life, pro faith. That is partly true, they oppose abortion... but I’ve never heard God endorse them. If He had, I’m pretty sure they would have included that in their campaigns.

On the contrary, often the party has been pro death penalty, and anti-environment. Both of those views oppose what my faith says to me. God does not permit vengeance for any but Himself, and the world He created is worthy of respect. Loving others, no matter what, loving the world He gave to Adam to care for, seems to align much more closely to the tenets of faith I know.

Either way... the film, Avatar, because it is pro environment and anti capitalism is not in itself, anti-christian.

I read about the work of a brain researcher who came to an interesting conclusion. He studied brain injuries and believes the brain limits the mind, it does not simply generate it. According to him the limits to thought and action by those suffering from brain injury hide a larger ability which is sometimes revealed when the injury is repaired. It is indicated that the injured are able to recall more about their time of disability than they could have expressed while experiencing it.

The Indians see the incarnation of God, or god, as an avatar. Sort of a diminished expression of something greater behind the physical form. The suggestion is that an avatar is an expression of something greater.

That sounds an awful lot like what those who share my faith believe... that God took the form of a man, limiting Himself so to express Himself to us.

Perhaps what many belief systems sense are elements of a greater truth.

Just as my silly avatar in that silly online world is merely a puppet I control, perhaps my body, this life, is merely an expression of a me that is greater than can be expressed in a three dimensional world.

I think I caught a glimpse of a greater level of senses in that dream I had. Scientists believe our universe may contain at least 12 dimensions. Perhaps I am more than I appear to be.

Take what you will from the movie. One must certainly take away that it is a quantum step forward in movie making. But that aside, elements of the story, whether issues of environmentalism, capitalism, dealing with beliefs of others outside our own, or even drinking and smoking, truths are revealed by what we think and feel.

Attacking others for how they live their lives is to take a hammer to the world and attempt to beat it into the shape we wish to see.

I’m a Christ follower. He did not take a hammer to people. Indeed, people took a hammer to Him, and He lay upon a piece of wood and let them.

If the movie makes one angry, perhaps such anger is not the approach He would take.

Merry Christmas everyone... in this season when we recall that God Himself limited Himself to less than He really is... just so we could hear how He loves us no matter what.