Reviewing a film for Via Affirmativa can be a daunting endeavor. I browse the new releases looking for a film to speak volumes into the topics of beauty, creativity or redemptive living. Indies usually do the trick.

Yet, shouldn’t I be able to glean, suck, pull, or wrestle an insightful nugget from any cheap flick? Isn’t the art of ‘seeing’ or interpreting just as powerful as the art of presenting or producing? I should be able to pick any movie and see God, see the divine, see wisdom, beauty or redemption somewhere, right? Even in a Romeo and Juliet type tragedy there are beautiful longings at play.

Yet tragedy seems to have sapped all my interpretive energy. As a resident of Minneapolis, the local news is a constant reminder of families still looking for their loved ones, still trying to make sense of the bridge collapse. The national news has moved on to new tragedies; mining accidents, hurricanes, and earthquakes that kill more than 500 with a single ground shaking hiccup.

Comedy. That is what I need. Not a smart comedy either. Something mindless and distracting. I quickly pull Wild Hogs off of the shelf and head to the register. I remember wondering as I walked out of the store, when is comedy appropriate? After 9-11 David Letterman and Jay Leno took a long break. There are times when laughter is insensitive. There are other times, like my evening with the Wild Hogs, where laughter seems to be necessary.

I have always enjoyed comedy as a genre of film, although I can’t say that I have always understood it. Much of comedy can be vulgar or exhibit over-the-top behavior (like the American Pie series). Yet, comedy holds a great power to take ‘taboo’ topics that get pushed under the social rug (like adolescent sex) and bring them to the surface by making light of them or poking fun at the seriousness with which we all hold certain topics—like sex.

Wild Hogs uses the comedy genre to rethink or revisit the often too serious and ‘under-talked about’ mid-life crisis. The DVD even comes with a serious tutorial for men entitled, “How To Get Your Wife To Let You Buy A Motorcycle.” I promptly watched it following the movie.

Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy play characters that each have their own complex mid-life crisis. They each have fallen victim to a less than adventurous life plagued by a son who doesn’t respect his father, divorce, a demanding wife, and social inadequacy. That is at least until the four Wild Hogs throw away their cell phones and hit the road dressed in leather.

Each of the characters explores (and conquers) their own identity crises by learning what it means to be a ‘poser’ and what it mean to be a real bike rider, a real man, and a real friend. The film is not nearly as shallow as I expected and I laughed out loud several times. If you are a guy, then this is a great ‘date movie.’ It embraces the man who needs to find themselves without neglecting (completely) real family concerns and responsibilities.

The combination of Allen, Travolta, Lawrence and Macy works like a charm even though Travolta and Macy are the only ones who really seem to get into character—at least a character different from which they appear to be in real life and in other films. This movie is a must see if you are a ‘mid-life crisis guy’ wanting to explore new territory in a light hearted way.

As for me, it was simply refreshing to take a break from the evening news, laugh with my wife, and renew the old conversation of ‘why I need a motorcycle.’

Much of Emily Dickinson’s poetry was aroused by the very limited view she had of the garden from her bedroom window. She did not get out much. Yet she wandered more than most. In this case, she recounts a rather mystical encounter:

I’ve heard an Organ talk, sometimes
In a Cathedral Aisle,
And understood no word it said –
Yet held my breath, the while –

And risen up – and gone away,
A more Bernardine* Girl –
Yet – know not what was done to me
In that old Chapel Aisle.

I am not sure what I mean when I say, ‘mystical encounters,’ but I imagine that Dickinson is referring to one here. The voice of an incomprehensible organ spoke not to Dickinson’s understanding, but to that place inside of her where desire and commitment wrestle to make up their mind. The rather unsuspecting nature of an organ and an ‘old Chapel Aisle’ create an element of surprise and mystery. Why should a building and instrument cause Dickinson to claim that she had “risen up” and “know not what was done to me,” compelled in a new moral direction?

We often tell children stories of such mystical encounters. Great journeys are full of them. Frodo Baggins and The Lord of the Rings, the rabbits of Watership Down, The Chronicles of Narnia all depict stories of personal transformations that occur through rather mysterious adventures. That is not to mention more overtly religious transformations of Paul and the Damascus Road, Jonah and the whale, or Moses and the burning bush.

These more legendary mystical encounters may serve to overshadow the value of more subtle personal experiences like the one Dickinson’s poem brings to mind, but they also can serve to inspire a new perspective on the immediate world around us. Life is full of possibilities. For some, venturing outside to explore the complexities of a spring rain provides a place of inner reflection and renewal. Others go to the theater or enjoy a particular wine or food in order to escape the sometimes thoughtless routines of life. Others still, like Dickinson, seldom need to roam further than their own garden to be moved by life’s mysteries.

While the term ‘mystical encounter’ will no doubt be saved for just a few of life’s experiences, the expectation that any moment could offer such a soulful stirring may change the way in which we see the world around us.

*Bernardine is a reference to a particular monastic order otherwise called Cistercian.

Sure. Spending a year in Kosovo as a military peacekeeper was difficult. Leaving my wife, my job, our new house to pursue the Army’s objectives overseas required a large adjustment—a reorientation to life. I had a calendar in my Kosovo barracks with a large X over every day passed, counting down the days to my homecoming.

I did not foresee, however, that coming home would be more difficult than leaving home. It took me more than a year before I began to feel ‘normal’ again—like I belonged in my family, home and country. It took a week before I could leave the house. It took two weeks before I mustered the strength to go to the mall. Two months into my homecoming my wife and I agreed that I should rent a car and hit the road. I would go to Colorado to see a counselor.

While the three days I spent with a team of counselors certainly aided my recovery, nothing was as nourishing for my soul as the road itself. I set out with no itinerary but to reach Colorado in three days and come home sometime afterward. Three years later, it seems like just last week when I was kicking up gravel thirty minutes from a paved road in any direction, surrounded by buffalo and badlands; when I was watching neighbors on a reservation pound odd pieces of tin to cover holes in their roof, creating the only echoing sound across a five block town; when I set the cruise at 95 passing through Wyoming ranches without a tree in site.

I drank coffee in 6 states, but the coffee tasted best late at night in a downtown Omaha warehouse, surrounded by old brick roads and artists on the streets. I remember calling my wife from Colorado after being gone for a week, “I could do this every day.” “Do what?” she asks. “Drive. Wander.” There was silence on the other end of the line. She wanted me to want to be home. But I was experiencing an awakening. The last time I had felt this creative, this free and at peace in my thoughts, I had just started college ten years earlier.

Wandering reminded me of something I had forgotten. I was creative. I am not sure what happened on that trip, but I somehow felt divinely reassured that I was ok. Somehow, at that moment, not knowing where I was going to sleep on a given night was as important to me as life itself. For me, it seems, creativity needs space to wander, and every good journey needs a loved place to wander from. This spring my wife smiled and asked me when I was taking off; maybe she has always understood me better than I have understood myself.

More on the ascetic of wandering to come…