A Theology of Marriage from the Monastery

“There is a great deal to be done by way of breaking yourself in, if you mean to preserve peace and harmony when you are living in community.”  So begins chapter 17, “On Life in a Monastery”, in Book One of Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ.  For some reason, most of the chapter seems to me to be just as applicable to Christian marriage (itself a lifelong “living in community” where “peace and harmony” are accomplished by hard work and even “breaking yourself in”) as it is to the monastic life.  Roman Catholic sacramental theology and Karl Barth would agree—Christian marriage is just as much a vocation as Christian monasticism.  (Here I must say I’m anxious to hear Holly’s take on this.)

So here’s more of Thomas a Kempis, continuing directly after where I left off, and with bracketed commentary from yours truthfully: “To enter a monastery or a congregation [or a Christian marriage], live there without reproach, and be true to your vocation till death [i.e., ‘till death do us part’]—all that is a serious undertaking; no greater happiness than to live a holy life in a cell, and make a good end…To take the habit, to get the tonsure, [to dress up and exchange some rings] does not carry you far; what makes you a real religious [or marriage partner] is the changing of your life, is dying completely to your own inclinations.  If you came here looking for something that wasn’t just God and the salvation of your soul, you mustn’t expect to find anything but trouble of mind and unhappiness…You came here to obey orders, not to issue them.  A vocation means having a hard time and doing honest work…This place is meant to test people, like the furnace in which you assay gold; and only one thing will help you to stand up to the test—whole-hearted self-abasement for the love of God.”

Sounds pretty rough to most of us contemporary marrieds, but I kind of want to offer the parallels between monastery and marriage to anyone I marriage counsel in the future.  (Maybe if I had marriage counseled anyone in the past, I would know whether or not such a sharing is a good idea.)  At this point, I think the challenge for us is to read Thomas a Kempis twice.  The first time we find ourselves repelled.  Marriage as a cell, a test, a furnace?  But then we can read it again.  What are we looking for in marriage?  I think a 15^th century monk may have some insight.

In Which Pope Gregory Keeps Me Honest

In my last post, I wrote of my own reticence to embrace Christian leadership, my false labeling of that reticence as the Christian virtue of ‘humility’, and of the cover for myself that I can find in both the Christian tradition and in Christian Scripture, specifically in the Catholic tradition represented by The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.  It turns out that I was only looking at one part of tradition and one part of Scripture.  (Funny how often it happens that even when we are well-intentioned, as I was in that post, we see in our sources of authority the things we want to see.)

Back to this post, Thomas Oden was a liberal mainline Protestant (Methodist, in fact) who became widely known only when he broke with that tradition for a return to patristic sources as resources for theology and pastoral care.  Among the books he has written is 1984’s Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition (available online through this link), part accusation and lament that the Christian tradition had been largely removed from 20th century pastoral theology (others have had to agree that he was right on this point, whether or not they agree that it is a problem), part monograph on the pastoral theology of Gregory the Great.

Oden writes (to me!):

“Everyone who has seriously thought about ministry has encountered the special temptation that says, yes, I feel called to ministry but I do not want to be thrust into this gravely responsible position of guidance of souls…Gregory answered candidly out of his own intense struggle with his vocation: It is hardly genuine humility to refuse responsibility when you have understood that it is God’s call for you to take a certain kind of leadership.  Here the vice of obstinacy may be parading under the guise of humility.  This vice gains its power from the burdensome awareness that we still do not desire to take on responsibilities for which we have in fact been thoroughly prepared because they run counter to our egocentric inclinations.”

I am as quick as the next modern to dislike labeling myself as ‘obstinate’ or ‘egocentric’, but to get caught up in that part is to miss the point.  I, to quote Oden, ’have, in fact, been thoroughly prepared.’  I have a Duke degree, some very good and ever-growing experience, some gifts, some talents, some weaknesses, some struggles, and a calling.  I’m not comfortable with claiming all that all the time, but I do believe it (nearly all the time).

And, just as I last week presented Thomas a Kempis as truly representing a Scriptural tradition (which he does), I should mention in closing that Gregory also has a Scripture at his back, a Scripture I’ve heard many times, but never as speaking to my particular leadership ‘issues’, even though now it seems plain enough.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Lk. 12:48)

Lord, have mercy.  Really.  Amen.

Humility, To Be Seen or Not to Be Seen, and the Imitation of Christ

 “Never trust yourself to appear in public, unless you love solitude; to speak, unless you love silence; to come to the front, unless you would sooner be at the back; to give orders, unless you know how to obey them.” (The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 20b.)

During my Parish Discernment Committee (a component of my ordination in which a number of people, mostly laity, from the local congregation and community join with me to help discern my calling to ordained ministry with me), there were a few questions on Christian leadership.  When I hear “Christian leadership”, I have a next-to-involuntary strong negative reaction.  So strong of a reaction, in fact, that it makes me suspicious.  Why do I care so much, if my claim is that I don’t care?  Why can’t I just live and let live?

The first part of that answer is that I get really defensive when people in authority (yes, the ‘in authority’ part matters) ask for me to talk about Christian leadership.  On the Parish Discernment list of questions: “What kind of leadership style is most comfortable for you? Have there been instances when your favorite leadership model needed to be modified? In what way? Why? What was that like for you?”  On the rational level, I dislike the question because is it corporatespeak rather than the language of the Church.  Corporate-mindedness has damaged the American Church, its members, and its image (and the image of the Church is important, because its face is the face of Christ in the world).  But there is, as always, an irrational level.

It’s not that I don’t think some Christian leaders have a lot to teach others.  It’s that I believe the basis of Christian leadership is character development not skill development (Aristotle by way of Hauerwas, but with an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit that Aristotle—understandably—and Hauerwas—regrettably— lack).  God calls me to be a Christian leader, because in the divine economy, the way God is saving me is by binding me to a particular people as their leader.  I ‘work out my own salvation with fear and trembling’ by serving others.  It’s not works righteousness but a way of salvation, a process by which God saves me.  Ministering to others is the way that I am broken down, chiseled, and sanded into the image of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit.  Others are saved through other processes, but I have been called into this.

But putting the light back on me emotionally, my incredibly strong emotional reaction to ‘Christian leadership’ is not from any burning desire to save the American Church from wrong understandings, as dangerous as I believe those understandings to be.

Well, if it’s not that, then what is it?

In CPE, I have been challenged on my reticence to claim the good work that I do as the good work that it is.  In Anglican Missional Pastor (my ordination training), I have been challenged to speak up more often and I have been told that I have good things to say when I do speak.  In my church small group, I have heard the same thing.  And in my Parish Discernment Committee, I have had something important named for me: “You do not like to be seen.”

This matters a lot for my calling, as I wrestle back and forth with the idea of being a parish pastor, and eventually the rector (head pastor) of a parish.  I truly do not like to be seen, and I don’t currently have any better words to name it in.  Several years ago, I took some version of the Myers-Briggs personality test, and one of the things it said of me was that my personality type is one of very capable and competent leaders whose ‘leadership style’ is to sit back and let other people lead, even if those people are less capable, even if they are screwing things up, and even if we of this personality type have something substantial to offer.  At the time, it was very accurate; now, I have made some good movement away from that, but there are echoes still.

At the same time I have been hearing this naming of my desire not to be seen from various sources, I have been reading Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ.  It’s a divine convergence to me.  The Imitation of Christ is the definitive verbalization of my particular way of understanding Christian humility.  Reading it now, having not been raised by anyone or any community which particularly prizes it, I see that I come honestly to this not wanting to be seen, and claiming it as a virtue.  It’s not just the Catholic tradition, but Scripture.  Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says over and over again that we are to practice our piety in secret.  St. James says that we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.”  And those are only two examples of many.

But how far does this go?  What does true humility look like?  I prize it, I desire it, I seek it, I pray for it.  I have always been struck by Numbers’ characterization of Moses as the most humble man on earth (proof that Moses did not write Numbers if it’s true).  I have always seen Jesus as the actual most humble man.

But then I have to realize that, for all their similarities, Jesus’ humility and Moses’ humility look very different.  Moses whines to God in the desert over and over that he is not capable of being saddled with this people and their cares.  (Perhaps I could pick an example that makes Moses look better, as there are plenty examples, but this one sounds the most like my own response to God’s call.)  Jesus washes his disciples’ feet and dies the death of a slave.  The only critiques that will stick to Jesus are the ones that Nietzsche noticed for me; all of them amount to Jesus being weak rather than asserting his strength.  The basic accusation is that Christ’s humility—Christian humility—is not a virtue.  Nietzsche is right—Christ was too humble for his own good.  And that is the point.

I haven’t gotten to the bottom of why I have such a strong, from the gut, emotional reaction to the idea of being seen, of being out in front, of being noticed, of being in charge, of being in power, of being in the lead, of being responsible.  But I have come to the end of two pages.

One last thought, though: God sees me.  As uncomfortable as that is, as much as it makes my skin crawl at the thought of absolute vulnerability—shame, nakedness, unholiness, being seen as I actually am—the belief that God sees me is really what all my hope rests on.

Shaken and Stirred, Broken but not Crushed

“Jesus looked directly at them and asked, ‘Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone”? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” (Luke 20:17-18)

 “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” (Job 13:15)

 It’s no longer ”What will happen to me if he dies?” but “What will happen to me when he dies?”  Mr. Chiton (so-called in two verbatims I have presented this semester) is going to die, and it will be soon.  Maybe he’ll survive this weekend as he has several other weekends, beyond the expectations of everyone who has had contact with him.  But he will die soon.

 The ‘me’ in the middle of the question is the important part, because it’s the question asked of me when I presented this case.  I have now seen this patient 12-15 times.  And a month ago he was already actively dying.  We had a single visit when he was able to communicate even minimally.  It has been hard.

 As the first questions were asked about the verbatim, I began to feel the weight of this thought on my mind: “I feel like I am being crushed by this, and I don’t know whether I should choose it.”  I had to say it to the group, and out in the open it is a thought which goes deeper than I know.  I am in the middle of this thing.  I feel deeply about it and when I speak or write it is clear how much I am involved, personally, emotionally, far beyond professionally (whatever that means for Christian ministers offering pastoral care).  Consider that both of my verbatims and several weeks’ worth of written reflections have centered on this patient.

 This patient has become this unit.

 It was helpful to present on him yesterday.  It was freeing to have others know.  But still he eclipses this unit.  He is the center and he has all the gravity and every other patient that I visit is planet circling him as the sun.  In this metaphor, it seems to me that my care to other patients would be suffering.  Perhaps it is.  I am not this one patient’s pastor.  I am this whole congregation of patient’s pastors.  Is my care for them suffering?

 Inasmuch as I can be objective, if my care for them is suffering, I don’t think they notice.  Is that good enough?  I can be very critical of myself on this point, cling to my ridiculous expectations of myself rather than listening to the fact that other patients are being ministered to.  But I do feel like I’m cheating on all those other patients.  I don’t find myself thinking about them at various points of every day.  I don’t find myself talking about them in oblique ways in every conversation I have.  I’m not writing yet another weekly reflection on them.

 It’s been a grace to me that I haven’t been able to see the patient as much as I would have chosen to, were I actually in charge.  Some days, education has squeezed a visit into a hand wave from the door frame.  Other times, my unavailability has led me to feel very good about having S visit.  I know that I offer this family something very good, but I am certain that others can offer very good things (different things) as well.  And there has been yet more grace, beginning at the end of last week and continuing throughout this one.  The patient’s wife, with whom I talk, has not been there when I have been there.  I want to name that as a grace.  I might have already been crushed by this had she been there every time that I’ve been able to stop by, even with S visiting.

 What will happen when Mr. Chiton dies?  What will I do when Mr. Chiton dies?  The evidence of how personal it has become is that I find myself viewing his death the way I would view a loved one’s death.  I will hurt, I hope I will cry (as sometimes I can’t when I want to), I will hurt for others (perhaps more so in this situation than in the deaths of relatives who have always been a good deal older), and I will still find that I have hope, that I have love, that I can see Death and his death swallowed up by Christ.  Will I mourn?  Yes.  Will I grieve?  Yes.  Will I be wounded in ways I might not recognize for a long time, even years?  Will I receive (stomach dropping as I write it) wounds that I will die carrying?  Very possibly.

 It’s too late.  Too late not to be hurt.  I already care too much.  I already hurt now, before he’s dead.  I mourn, am filled with tears, for his wife in particular, for their children (although from a distance for them).  This morning, she wasn’t there and I prayed for her and for their children.  I want to end this reflection hopeful, and I do feel hopeful.  But hope is the first olive branch that came up in the wasteland after the Flood.  Like that first branch, something may even come along and pluck it.  Will I be crushed? Will I be crippled?  No, I don’t think so.  I really don’t believe so.  Will I be deeply hurt, wounded, wounded deeply?  Yes, and it’s already begun.

 Lord God, sanctify this (my and his) suffering.  Let it not be poured out on the ground for no reason.  Let me not be emptied out, burned out, disintegrated.  You are our God of mercy.  Have mercy.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Ocean of Words by Ha Jin

One of the best books that I’ve read in the last several years was Waiting by Ha Jin.  Something about the way that he writes has that beautiful quality I also admire in Sarah Orne Jewett or Wallace Stegner: stillness, silence, peace.  I think part of the reason I like those things in fiction is hereditary.  My mom introduced me to Jewett in high school or undergrad with a beautiful edition of Country of the Pointed Firs, which is prefaced by a collection of black and white images of coastal Maine.  Several years later she recommended Waiting (which we had both recently and separately picked up in thrift stores), while I introduced her to Stegner’s Crossing to Safety, still possibly my favorite novel, sometime in high school.

 This morning I finished reading Ocean of Words by Ha Jin.  It’s his first published book of non-poetry, from 1996, a collection of short stories about Chinese army life on the border with Russia in some tense years of the early 1970s.  I have long known that the majority of my knowledge of history (and plenty of other topics) comes from reading fiction, and it’s been proven once again by the fact that I had no idea that Russia and China were at the edge of war in 1970.  This certainly puts Nixon’s visit to China in a different light.  (The fact that we have traded with China and overlooked its human rights violations for decades begins to make sense, when trading with China is part of war with the USSR.)

 As regards Ocean of Words and history, I would guess that there is a lot of history to be derived, as the author actually served in the People’s Liberation Army of China for six years, beginning in 1969, and coming to the US in 1985.  Checking out his Wikipedia entry makes me realize how much of his work I have yet to read.

My hope now would be for a ridiculously good director to make a movie out of this book.  Too bad Altman’s dead.  Just to see, I did check out imdb for Ha Jin, and there is a movie version of Waiting being made (starring Ziyi Zhang!).

p.s. I added a new tab to the top of the page so you can see what I’m reading and recommending.

Seeking Entrance to the Mysteries

I just finished writing my weekly reflection for this week on this patient who (I realized while writing this sentence) I will never forget.  Life, death, decay, in a visible war in his flesh.  Death is winning.  For now.  What does it mean that his body will be redeemed?  Death will be reversed and he will be made new as he never was before.  Maybe that’s something his wife and I could talk about today.

I really want to do a verbatim on whatever we talk about today.  I wish I had done a series of verbatim to record this whole thing.  I will never be the same after this.  I just realized that too.  I need to say it to somebody.  Maybe more than one body.

I just said it to K, who’s sitting here in the office beside me, writing her own overly long reflection.  I told her about this ministry of the funeral procession that I’m experiencing and offering, and she told me this quote from the presentation she went to by Tom Long, in which he focused on the procession: “We carry the dead to the edge of Mystery.”  We are journeying with the dead as far as we can go (and, I think, perhaps a step or four further).  I am journeying with this patient as Death takes him where he does not want to go.  And I am journeying with the man’s wife.  Death is not taking us, but we are playing follow-the-leader. Death takes this man, the woman follows her husband—screaming, beating Death on his arms, faceless face, and back, trying to break Death’s unbreakable grip on her lover—and I follow after, walking beside the woman.

Or perhaps the vision is of the man in his sealed coffin.  His wife tries to break it open, pleading that he’s alive in there.  “He’s alive, don’t you see?”  And the pallbearers, perhaps wearing labcoats, perhaps wearing the nametags of the doctors, of the nurses, are walking relentlessly forward, are marching.  They may slow, and she cries out, “They’re bringing him home!”  She looks at me: “They’re bringing him home!”  She looks at the pallbearers: “He’s coming home!”

She looks at me and at my face, which says (as much as  I try to hide it) that I don’t believe her.  I’m involved in this too.  I’m taking this man to the grave too.  It doesn’t matter that I say we’ll put the body in the grave, and her husband will drop through fire and come out whole, whole in a way he’s never known. That his laughter and joy will overcome with tears this taciturn husband she knew, slow to emote but with a glowing hot heart.  On that day he will dance and sing.  He will leap to tap heels together, but leap over Saturn before coming down again.  He will laugh so deeply in the joy of his new wholeness that it will shake the stars, and they will fall to his feet, and he will eat them, saying they taste better than ice cream and fresh snow, this one like strawberry and this one like banana (which surprises him, as he never has liked banana before).

What will he see as he looks back to his wife, who is mourning, who is caring for their shattered children?  What will he say about it to the God he will know face to face?  These are the mysteries of joy and terror.

Tuesday Reading Roundup

1. Saga of the Swamp Thing, vol. 1 (issues 20-27)–Alan Moore offers up some of the earliest proof that he is a great writer, although this in particular is nothing when compared to Watchmen or From Hell.   I intended to provide a picture of his version of the Swamp Thing, but Alan Moore is himself much scarier.  Really, this is his picture (the beardy one):

2. Beanworld: Wahoolazuma (i.e., Volume 1) by Larry Marder–I remember in high school that AF managed to get some of our female friends (LV nee P, I’m thinking of you) to read comics by introducing them to the cute Beans of Beanworld.  Many years later, I came across this at Lilly Library at Duke.  Think Middle Earth on the smallest scale possible.  No smaller.  Smaller still.  And probably smaller.  Marder has created an entire new world, but it is incredibly tiny and incredibly simple.  There’s something very ecological about it, with little new parts of how the world works being given out to the reader (and discovered by the Beans) bit by bit, and drama being created by small things creating major imbalances.  Definitely worth reading and worth seeking other volumes.  According to Amazon quoting Publishers Weekly, this contains the first 9 issues (of an according-to-Wikipedia original 21).  Just look at that:

3. The Minister as Crisis Counselor by David K. Switzer–Required for this unit of CPE, there is definitely some good information in this book.  There is also lots of terrible stuff, particularly the chapter on divorce care and any time (read, everywhere) that gender has a possibility of being involved.  I must admit that it is possible that the updated edition (mine is from 1971, but this book is hard to find in any edition) is better, though, and I say that because the chapter on suicide seems to be very good.  (If you are keeping track, I read the entire first edition and am now midway through an additional chapter on suicide provided in the updated edition.)  Check out the cover art (and that’s from the updated 1986 edition!):

4. Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) by Stanley Hauerwas–Do not trust my tag cloud to tell you how much I have read of Hauerwas (or to tell you anything else).  This is my second full volume, and I am reading it as part of a study of the Gospel According to St. Matthew I am doing just for the heck of it.  Personal edification, further pastoral education, etc., could also be listed as reasons, but the real reason I’m reading it is likely my continued pursuit of the perfection of knowledge.  Ridiculous, aye, but true.  In the next few weeks, you may also see a George Washington biography sneak onto the list, as I have this crazy idea that reading American history through the lives of its presidents might be interesting.  As you can see (and if you’ve ever talked to me about my theology reading plan) I’m starting at the beginnings (Matthew=GW=Apostolic Fathers).  All that said, to read a modern theological commentary alongside technical commentaries is beyond refreshing.

Grace is: God is Here

(With apologies to a misuse of colons which looks neat, this is a weekly reflection for CPE)

A Theology of Grace

            My tendency when talking about grace is to quickly shift into law.  That is, I start thinking about the wonderful and joyful springs of grace in God, and something in me immediately argues back, Yes, but there’s that law part, too.  I didn’t have a name for how my family of origin (and at least a generation before my immediate family) does Christianity until I took Church History II at Duke.  It’s called Pietism.  But I had experienced it through United Methodism as well.  John Wesley called it Christian Perfection.  And I honestly believe that the pursuit of Christian Perfection has contributed to my mental illness.  It’s part of the reason I left the United Methodist Church.  It’s part of the reason I left for a sacramental tradition.

            To me, sacramental Christianity is real Christianity.  Sacramentally centered worship, even in its basic pattern, proclaims that God is with us (literally, Immanuel is on the table before us and then in our hands and then in our mouths), that God comes to us, and that neither the holiness of the priest/pastor, nor the holiness of the people has anything to do with it.  Each Sunday at Anglican churches around the world, the last communal prayer before receiving the Eucharist is some version of

“We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”

            Such a prayer echoes the Catholic liturgy’s “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed” (from Matt. 8:8) and stands in direct opposition to many of our popular understandings of the “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” spirituality I grew up with.

            Let me lift up the line, “that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body.”  The most recent version of the American Book of Common Prayer does not contain that line, but it’s important to knowing grace, and it’s gone because of our discomfort with the Incarnation.  Grace is about bodies.  God’s grace is not for my disembodied spirit but for me, an earthy body; and God’s grace is not for the Sweet Hereafter but for now.  Grace is bodies.  Jesus’ body primarily, in the Eucharist.  But then the way that I offer my body to those whom I serve.  And the way that other people’s bodies become Jesus and offer grace to me.

            I think about bodies, and I start to think of clay.  God got Adam under God’s fingernails.  This means dirt is not ‘dirty’ as we use it—synonymous with ‘guilty’ or ‘ashamed.’  ‘Dirty’ means filled with grace.  ‘Soiled’ (from ‘soil’) means holy.  ‘Earthy’ (referring to still more dirt) is what we are called to be because God is eternally earthy in Jesus.

            So what is grace?  Grace is: God is here.

            I need to pursue this further.  Where is grace when I wake up?  Where is grace on the bike or car ride?  Where is grace in the badge-in?  Where is grace in the men’s bathroom shower?  Where is grace in needing caffeine?  Where is grace in the hospital?  Where is grace when I pray?  When I am ‘pious’?  When I kick my own soul and condemn me?  God is here.  Grace is: God is here.

 Readings Week of September 21, 2009

Selections from Matthew 1-13 (Ancient Christian Commentary series)

Selections from Matthew (Brazos Theological Commentary) by Stanley Hauerwas

Selections from The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen

The Minister as Crisis Counselor by David K. Switzer, pp. 102-210

Holy Rood (i.e., Cross) Day

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.

(1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 244)

Movies for Which I Have Some Hope, Episode 1

Up in the Air: Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) returns, as does Jason Bateman (at least in team with Reitman).  I have enjoyed both of Reitman’s first movies.  One suggestion: the intricate opening credits he seems to love really kill my love for his movies.  I think I saw Touch of Evil on Turner Classic Movies right before seeing Thank You For Smoking for the first time in the theater, and whoever introduced Touch of Evil talked about how important it was to Orson Welles to just start his films, with as few opening credits as the studio would allow.  Reitman seems to be on the opposite end of the spectrum.  He has to be pushing his producers to allow him to do those ridiculous opening credits.  And his movies would actually be better without them.  Still, this is an excellent trailer that makes me want to see his film (a quality of all recent trailers involving George Clooney).

For fun, compare Clooney’s narration of the Up in the Air trailer to Sean Penn’s opening narration from the 21 Grams trailer: