"I am Shiva, the god of death."

I saw Michael Clayton the other night, and I must say that it was one of the better films I've seen in recent months.  Though I have yet to see Atonement (and have no plans to watch it), of all the Academy Award-nominated films of 2007, I probably enjoyed Michael Clayton the most.  I still think No Country for Old Men was the most "rewarding" film to watch, Juno was the sweetest, while Daniel Day-Lewis absolutely dominated my attention and awe in There Will Be Blood.  But, without a doubt, Michael Clayton = great movie.  The last scene makes you want to pump your fist like Kobe:

What I want to focus on, however, is the opening scene of the film.  It's enthralling.  (By the way, Tom Wilkinson is brilliant in this movie.)

(Warning: some foul language is used in this clip.)



Moments of clarity like that are probably rare for most people, but it's something that is hugely desirable to me.  Most of my waking hours feel "muted," if that makes sense...almost as if I'm congealed in a thick layer of fat, which is only melted away for moments at a time, just a few times a month, and still only in part.

Tonight, I had one such moment.  It occurred after I came home from playing two and a half hours of victorious basketball, took a hot shower, and sat down at my desk with a cup of Darjeeling tea and a bowl of warm yaksik.  For the first time in a while, I was satisfied, spent, and at peace; in other words, I think I tasted real joy.

After this breeze passed (rather quickly, I might add) two other such moments of clarity that happened earlier in my day came to mind:

- I read this passage from Suite Francaise in a crowded Barnes and Noble, and for whatever reason, it smote me:

    Silently, with no lights on, cars kept coming, one after the other, full to bursting with baggage and furniture, prams and birdcages, packing cases and baskets of clothes, each with a mattress tied firmly to the roof.  They looked like mountains of fragile scaffolding and they seemed to move without the aid of a motor, propelled by their own weight down the sloping streets to the town square.  Cars filled all the roads into the square.  People were jammed together like fish caught in a net, and one good tug on that net would have picked them all up and thrown them down on to some terrifying river bank.  There was no crying or shouting; even the children were quiet.  Everything seemed calm.  From time to time a face would appear over a lowered window and stare up at the sky for a while, wondering.  A low, muffled murmur rose up from the crowd, the sound of painful breathing, sighs and conversations held in hushed voices, as if people were afraid of being overheard by an enemy lying in wait.  Some tried to sleep, heads leaning on the corner of a suitcase, legs aching on a narrow bench or a warm cheek pressed against a window.  Young men and women called to one another from the cars and sometimes laughed.  Then a dark shape would glide across the star-covered sky, everyone would look up and the laughter would stop.  It wasn't exactly what you'd call fear, rather a strange sadness--a sadness that had nothing human about it any more, for it lacked both courage and hope.  This was how animals waited to die.  It was the way fish caught in a net watch the shadow of the fisherman moving back and forth above them.

- For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:20

(Can't you kind of imagine Jesus pointing at himself as he said, "your righteousness"?)

That verse struck me, and for brevity's sake (and due to the late/early hour) I will just paste what Matthew Henry has to say about this verse, because it so succinctly describes the pointed sword that poked at my heart:

"...and yet our Lord Jesus here tells his disciples, that the religion he came to establish, did not only exclude the badness, but excel the goodness, of the scribes and Pharisees. We must do more than they, and better than they, or we shall come short of heaven. They were partial in the law, and laid most stress upon the ritual part of it; but we must be universal, and not think it enough to give the priest his tithe, but must give God our hearts. They minded only the outside, but we must make conscience of inside godliness. They aimed at the praise and applause of men, but we must aim at acceptance with God: they were proud of what they did in religion, and trusted to it as a righteousness; but we, when we have done all, must deny ourselves, and say, We are unprofitable servants, and trust only to the righteousness of Christ; and thus we may go beyond the scribes and Pharisees."