{"id":4565,"date":"2011-09-20T05:39:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T12:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/?p=4565"},"modified":"2015-03-10T10:03:15","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T17:03:15","slug":"godstuff-two-thumbs-up-for-mr-ebert-life-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/2011\/09\/20\/godstuff-two-thumbs-up-for-mr-ebert-life-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"GODSTUFF: Two Thumbs Up for Mr. Ebert &”Life Itself”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Roger Ebert (Photo courtesy of Mr. Ebert)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe conditions of my life are precarious,\u201d film critic<\/a> Roger Ebert wrote last week in a posting on his online journal titled, \u201cFall from Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ebert, 69, perhaps the pre-eminent film critic in the United States and a longtime colleague of mine at the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a> newspaper, where he\u2019s been a staff writer since 1966, has rather famously been battling a series of health crises in recent years.<\/p>\n

Diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002, Ebert has since battled cancer in his salivary gland<\/a> and jaw bone, undergoing grueling treatments and numerous surgeries. While today he is, blessedly, cancer-free, he can no longer speak or eat and wears a prosthetic chin for his appearances on his television program, \u201cEbert Presents: At the Movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his body may be weaker and his audible voice gone (but for the nifty\u00a0 ext-to-voice computer he uses, named \u201cAlex,\u201d to vocalize his thoughts now), as trite as it may sound, Ebert\u2019s spirit is as vibrant, alive and engaged as ever.<\/p>\n

In that blog post earlier this month about a nasty fall he took reaching for a book that had dropped to the floor next to his bed late one night, Ebert, as he so often does, spoke honestly, with great wit, from the heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have arrived at a balancing point between sickness and health, and it is the bargain I live with. I don\u2019t take chances,\u201d he wrote. \u201c(Doctor) Havey gave me some pain med. Nothing addictive, I insisted. It helped a little. He said the pain could last as long as six weeks, but it now seems to be subsiding. It is the pain to my peace of mind that continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fall, he said, cast him into a depression, faced with the realization that he has been \u201chaving a daily reprieve from greater disability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was walking on a narrow path with a chasm on either side,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI returned to reviewing movies, which as always freed me from myself and occupied my mind. \u2026 What I was avoiding, I realize, was writing about this subject. It is humiliating for an adult to fall out of bed, and still worse if he has done it not by accident but by stupidity. Why didn\u2019t I simply sit up in bed and bend over? The fall portrayed me as vulnerable, and I prefer to think of myself as enduring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ebert may feel physically vulnerable, but he certainly endures \u2013 the embodiment of the motto, \u201cA writer writes.\u201d The critic is prolific, perhaps even more so since his medical battles this last decade.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Ebert, who has published more than a dozen books \u2014 not including his annual movie guides \u2014 has written a memoir titled Life Itself.<\/em><\/a> As I understand it, the book grew out of his online blog and diary, and it maintains the same compelling voice, august wit, virtuoso sarcasm and exquisite writing that have been his hallmark as a critic and columnist.<\/p>\n

He starts at the beginning with his childhood in Urbana, Ill. \u201cI was born inside the movie of my life,\u201d he writes in the first lines of the memoir.<\/p>\n

In the last few chapters of Life Itself<\/em>, Ebert, a cradle Catholic who often invokes his childhood religious training and beliefs in his reviews \u2014 and who regularly and quite deftly writes about spiritual issues in film \u2014 turns his attention to eternal (or maybe not) matters.<\/p>\n

The chapter \u201cHow I Believe in God<\/a>,\u201d is one of the more self-aware, humble and eloquent accounts of personal belief I\u2019ve ever read. Ebert is unfailingly honest, whether he\u2019s writing about a movie he hates \u2014 he famously wrote of one such film \u201cYour movie sucks<\/a>!\u201d \u2014 world events, politics, social mores, or his personal life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no interest in megachurches with jocular millionaire pastors,\u201d he writes. \u201cI think what happens in them is sociopolitical, not spiritual. I believe the prosperity gospel tries to pass through the eye of the needle. I believe it is easier for a Republican to pass through the eye of a needle<\/a> than for a camel to get into heaven. I have no patience for churches that evangelize aggressively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no interest in being instructed in what I must do to be saved. I prefer vertical prayers, directed up toward heaven, rather than horizontal prayers, directed sideways toward me,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must regard their beliefs with the same respect our own deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ebert will not affix a label to his spirituality, instead preferring to give more complicated, more fully honest responses to spiritual questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic,\u201d he writes. \u201cI am more content with questions than with answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life Itself<\/em> concludes with the chapter, \u201cGo Gently,\u201d in which Ebert contemplates what comes next, if anything. He looks forward by looking back.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts,\u201d he says. \u201cWe must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must try,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amen, Mr. Ebert.<\/p>\n

This column originally appeared via Religion News Service. <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I have arrived at a balancing point between sickness and health,<\/p>\n

and it is the bargain I live with. I don’t take chances,” Ebert wrote.He said the pain could last as long as six weeks, but<\/p>\n

it now seems to be subsiding. It is the pain to my peace of mind that<\/p>\n

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