{"id":880,"date":"2011-02-21T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2011\/02\/to-remember-to-be-childlike-an-artful-reminder\/"},"modified":"2017-01-24T18:28:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T23:28:46","slug":"to-remember-to-be-childlike-an-artful-reminder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2011\/02\/to-remember-to-be-childlike-an-artful-reminder.html","title":{"rendered":"To Remember to be Childlike (An Artful Reminder)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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This morning my wife shared a video with me from a Japanese \u201cpop\u201d group that calls itself World Order<\/em>. I posted the \u201cNew York City\u201d version on my Facebook page, along with another version that was shot in Tokyo, Japan, which is where the group hails from.<\/p>\n

My blogging friend Deacon Greg Kandra, whom I sent the video and back story to, posted it on his blog The Deacon\u2019s Bench.<\/a><\/em> You may have seen it and enjoyed it there.
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\nI, of course, can\u2019t speak a lick of Japanese beyond \u201cyes\u201d and \u201chello,\u201d so I have no idea what the lyrics, that the singer\/leader Genki Sudo is warbling here, mean. I only know that this tune is stuck in my head, and I like it.<\/p>\n

I also like the visual performance\u2014 alot! To me, see, this is performance art of a very high caliber. Though Sudo\u2019s group, called World Order,<\/em> is labeled as being a part of \u201cpopular culture,\u201d I can\u2019t help but look at their art through the lens of Catholicism, and from a contrarian perspective as a result. You see, this is how I look at everything now.<\/p>\n

The Lenten season, you know, is right around the corner, and another blogging friend, Elizabeth Scalia<\/a>, manager of the Catholic Portal at the website Patheos,<\/em> announced that to help us prepare for Lent, a new columnist has come on board there. It is Fr. Dwight Longenecker<\/a>, who will be posting twice weekly under the heading Slubgrip Instructs.<\/em> The posts (I believe) will be based on Fr. Dwight\u2019s book entitled The Gargoyle Code, <\/em>which is\u00a0<\/em>inspired by author C.S. Lewis\u2019 The Screwtape Letters,<\/em> but modernized and specifically adapted for Catholics.<\/p>\n

Blogger Eric Sammons reviewed Fr. D\u2019s book over at his blog<\/a> last year. The first installment at Patheos is up and it is about \u201cthe purpose of popular culture.\u201d I suggest you go read it just like I would recommend that you read The Art of War,<\/em> by Sun Tzu. But I also suggest that you approach popular culture from what military strategist B.H. Liddell Hart<\/a> called \u201cthe indirect approach.\u201d I call it viewing popular culture from an oblique perspective<\/em>. Here is what I mean.<\/p>\n

View and enjoy the video below by Sudo\u2019s group. Shot in Tokyo with five dancers, notice how most of the adults ignore Sudo & Company. The adults are very focused on \u201cadult stuff\u201d almost to the point that they don\u2019t even see Sudo & the gang. While you are watching, notice too how the children notice and interact altogether differently with the group than the adults do. Have a look,<\/p>\n