"The children will be different only if we are different."
You know he’s right, right?
You might be moved by the context. Terrence Malick gave us a film in 2019 that remains kindasorta lost to most on account of our pandemic. It’s about a man named Franz Jagerstatter who’s kindasorta lost to history. It’s also about the threats that face us even now. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but Jagerstatter might be meaningfully thought of as a less talkative Bonhoeffer with a family.
I was part of an online event discussing the film that included Lisa Sharon Harper and Nancy French. In my attempt to offer public words that might keep the public conversation going. I found Daniel Berrigan’s meditation on Jagerstatter voiced aloud in Philadephia on October 28, 2007. They’re right here.
I’d love to know if Malick knows of this piece. I’d love to know if he knew Berrigan (I bet he did). I’d love to know if he was there to hear it. I don’t always hear back from Terrence Malick.
The children will be different only if we are different. The stakes are high.
Good luck, everybody.
Thank you for this, David .. very glad to have the Daniel Berrigan piece. It puts me in mind of something that Jacques Ellul said about WWII, which was that in a sense the Axis won, because it was the values of National Socialism that prevailed even as the National Socialist regime was being overwhemed.
I saw A Hidden Life when it came out. It's a hard watch, but a necessary one. The sense of inevitability that takes hold.
Thank you for pointing to both the Berrigan piece and the Malick film. I did indeed miss A HIDDEN LIFE when it was released, and will seek it out now based on your recommendation and knowing the movie’s basic origin story. (Wondering if you’re familiar with the work of the great American poet William Stafford, who was a conscientious objector during WWII, and a lifelong pacifist. You can hear him read one of his poems here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52881/at-the-un-national-monument-along-the-canadian-border). Always grateful for your work, David.