Which Is the Better Story @Image Journal’s Good Letters blog

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox Studios.

“There’s a scene early in Ang Lee’s majestic Life of Pi film in which the main character watches everything he loves die. Pi is floating in a vast, murky sea as the ship carrying his family and their zoo animals recedes into the distance and sinks. His arms are stretched out wide and his whole body seems to reach for them as they slip away.

This is the moment when I forgot I was wearing 3-D glasses and felt as if I was in the water with Pi, losing everything I love. I’m not sure I would have reacted as viscerally as I did to the scene if it had not been produced in 3-D. As it was, I sat in my seat and wept.”

Read my whole [spoiler alert!] review at Good Letters. It’s my first appearance at the Image blog and I’m honored to see my byline there.

Recapturing Innocence With Ang Lee @TheHighCalling

NYC Life of Pi Press Junket

Director Ang Lee in New York City, courtesy Explorations Media, L.L.C.

The sound of a baby’s laughter. A six year old’s wide-eyed wonder on Christmas morning. The moment you first believed. Who doesn’t want to relive innocence like that?
For Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, recapturing innocence in life, in filmmaking, in the cinematic experience is at the heart of his film adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel, Life of Pi. Speaking to a group of journalists in New York City last month, Lee said the film is about what happens to a young boy’s innocence after the ship carrying his zoo-keeping family sinks and he’s set adrift on a lifeboat with a dangerous tiger.

The ocean becomes like a desert, Lee said. “It’s a test of his faith, his strength.” …

Read the whole thing at The High Calling.

A New Kind of Heroine @TheHighCalling

Katherine Sarafian (Photo by Deborah Coleman / Pixar.

The protaganist of Disney/Pixar’s newest feature film “Brave” is an unlikely heroine. The Scottish princess confronts and overcomes what she views as a constricted future for her life, but she also learns that her own unfettered dreams can be both limiting and dangerous. The film’s producer Katherine Sarafian identifies with the character and says working on “Brave” taught her to more fully integrate the diverse components of her own life. Sarafian has been withPixar since 1994 and has done production work on blockbusters from “Toy Story” and “A Bug’s Life” to “Monsters, Inc.” and “The Incredibles.” She has also served as director of marketing for the studio. The High Calling talked to Sarafian about what it’s like to work for a company that is notorious for its habit of changing course mid-project, how “Brave’s” protaganist Mirada inspired her, and how her faith informs her work.

Read the interview at TheHighCalling.

A Funky Retirement: Celebrating Cornel West @UrbanFaith

Cornel West enjoying his retirement party

In this audio clip, Lupe Fiasco dedicates a song to the well educated women of Princeton and talks about West’s influence. And, in these videos he, George Clinton & P-Funk jam.

In this audio clip, comedian Bill Maher talks about how he’ll use Cornel West to get into heaven if there is one.

In this audio clip, actor Harry Belefonte talks about how Cornel West inspires him.

Princeton University Gospel Ensemble

In this audio clip, the Princeton University Gospel Ensemble, who opened the show, gives praise to Jesus.

Terence Blanchard

In this audio clip, jazz musician Terrence Blanchard talks about Cornel West’s influence on him and then he and his band jam.

13the Cornel West Theory

In these two audio clips, you’ll hear the Cornel West Theory perform. You have to see them live though. Really you do.

Video Tribute to Cornel West

Finally, in this audio clip, Dr. Cornel West gives thanks.

To read my reflections on Cornel West, go to UrbanFaith.com.

You’ll find my full photo set at Flickr.

Photojournalism from Whitney Houston’s Home-going Service

Whitney Houston funeral guest showing program to journalists

Whitney Houston funeral guest showing program to journalists (photo by Christine A. Scheller)

For more photos from Whitney Houston’s Homegoing Service, click here.

Reporting on Whitney Houston funeral

Trying to Get the Money Shot at Whitney Houston's funeral (photo by Christine A. Scheller).

Trying to Get the Money Shot at Whitney Houston’s funeral (photo by Christine A. Scheller).

More from Reporting on Whitney Houston’s funeral here.

Photojournalism by Explorations Media, L.L.C.

I’ve recently created what I think are some compelling photo sets on Flickr. As a journalist, I prefer realism to photo-shopped images, though artistic renderings can sometimes reveal truth better than fact. I recommend viewing these sets as slideshows, as I’ve arranged each one to tell a story.

Seaside Heights Italian Festival & Columbus Day Parade

Laity Lodge 2011 Writers Retreat

Blue Hole Laity Lodge

Movement Day

Movement Day at Fifth Ave. Presbyterian Church, NYC

New York City Premiere of Machine Gun Preacher

Michelle Monaghan-and-Gerard-Butler

9/11 Tenth Anniversary Memorials

10th-anniversary-of-9.11-18

Jesus, Bombs, & Ice Cream by M.W. Scheller

Jesus,-Bombs,-Ice-Cream-18

Hurricane Irene

Telumundo reporter and others at Pt.-Pleasant-Bch-Boardwalk, 8/27/11

What I Wrote This Week @UrbanFaith: September 19-23

Hitchhiker, NYC

What I Wrote This Week @UrbanFaith: September 12-16

Hitchhiker, NYC

  • Truth at a Beauty Pageant: Miss Universe winner Leila Lopes of Angola highlights her nation’s troubles, says she’s happy with the way God made her, and declares racism so last century. Is her win redemptive?
  • Psalms for Poverty Statistics: The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual report today and the news isn’t good, but the Psalms offer hope to the people of God.

Jesus, Bombs, & Ice Cream

Jesus,-Bombs,-Ice-Cream-21
Explorations Media sent photographer M.W. Scheller to cover this variety show that was co-hosted by activist/author Shane Claiborne and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen. See the whole photo set here. Christine A. Scheller talked to Claiborne earlier in the week for Urban Faith. This is a bit of what he said about the event:

We planned Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream before we realized it was the tenth anniversary of 9/11, but then when we realized it was, we decided that there’s no better way to honor those who died on September 11 and those who are continuing to die now than to try to celebrate the possibilities of another, better world.

Here’s what Claiborne had to say about the event at The Huffington Post.

Only a Number Takes Top Prize at Jersey Shore Film Festival @NJ Shore Patch

Steven Besserman shares his ailing mother’s Holocaust memories in award winning documentary.

“A17855: This became my only identity. This was Auschwitz,” Aranka Besserman says in the film tribute to her memories Resa, Steve, & Eleanor Besserman at Only a Number Screening, Deal, NJof the Holocaust that her son Steven Besserman directed.

Only a Number premiered at the Garden State Film Festival in March and won the Best Feature Documentary prize in a field of about 100 documentaries at the Jersey Shore Film Festival last week.

“This is where my mother lost her mother. This is where she lost all human dignity. This is where she became only a number,” Steven says as he narrates her story from the fairytale-like places where it unfolded.

Hers is an unlikely story of finding lasting love amidst unspeakable evil. …

Read the whole thing at Manasquan Patch.

Globetrotting toward a Spiritual Center and a Sense of Shared Humanity @NJShorePatch

 Dean Fengya’s accidental adventure evolved into a business with a spiritual core.

Dean Fengya, owner of Globetrotters, Pt. Pleasant Beach, NJIf you’ve driven the stretch of Route 88 where Point Pleasant Beach meets Bay Head, you’ve probably noticed Dean Fengya’s colorful collection of ceramic pots at Globetrotter, the import store he’s been running for 17 years.

What you may not have noticed is the religious statuary that grounds the carefully arranged field of blue, green, and beige. Fengya doesn’t import it for its religious significance, but that hasn’t stopped customers from turning some of the artifacts into shrines.

“My criteria is beauty. I see something that’s beautiful or I meet people that I know can make something that’s beautiful, perhaps with a little bit of my guidance and direction… and we work together,” said Fengya.

The pursuit of beauty has led Fengya to over 100 countries and he has integrated goods from close to 30 nations into Globetrotter and a second location that is set to open on Route 35 in July, he said.

Take those brightly colored ceramic pots that surround the flagship store, for example.  …

To read all about this delightful man and to see more photos of his beautiful wares, go to Manasquan Patch.

What Does It Mean to Live Out Vocational Calling in a Local Context? @TheHighCalling

David Greusel has designed stadiums for major league teams including the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Houston Astros.

Yet this principal architect at Convergence Design in Kansas City, Missouri, suffered for years under the message that his work didn’t matter.

“It’s all going to burn anyway,” he heard from fellow Christians. “The only thing that lasts is the human soul.” Dualistic evangelical theology taught Greusel that designing buildings had no value, especially designing the kind of sports architecture that is his specialty.

Only in the last five or ten years has the architect felt confident in his vocational calling.

“God has called me to be an architect, to design buildings for people and communities and that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. That’s my ministry,” said Greusel.

More than just creating spaces though, his design style confronts the nihilistic philosophy that has dominated architecture for the last 80 or 90 years. …

Read the article here.