Sneak Previews

Life in D.C. can often be frustrating, but there are special opportunities that you get nowhere else. Today had its share of frustrations, but it definitely goes in the plus column. It's not everyday that you get the chance to see filmmakers Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan talk about a new project. The film is America's Best Idea: Our National Parks; set for PBS in 2009. From the 40 minutes I saw today, I say mark your calendars.

As you'd expect it's sure to be a visual feast, but the focus is on the history and the people behind the parks. The law behind the National Park Service enshrines a contradiction between human "enjoyment" and "preservation" of the land "unimpaired" that has created unique conflicts over a century of history. One clip we saw highlighted this tension in the treatment of wolves---eradicated almost everywhere (despite the preservation mandate) but protected in remote Denali through the foresight and perseverance of one biologist.

Throughout the snippets of film and the words of Burns and Duncan, the spiritual aspects of the parks appeared repeatedly. The Garden of Eden is mentioned in the opening introductory overture and an instrumental "This is My Father's World" plays behind the interviews in another episode. Still another is entitled "Scripture of Nature," and all this points to a "geography of hope" that restores a "poverty of spirit."

Indeed, some of our greatest naturalists (John Muir and Aldo Leopold for example) have been men who experienced a negative religious upbringing, only to find glimpses of the Divine in the Creation. Sadly, too many "Bible-believing" Christians have abdicated the restorative wilderness that Christ embraced, and with it we have left many to wander through God's book of Nature without further guidance to its Creator. This film reminds us that God does reach out through his open air cathedrals in ways that no megachurch auditorium can match, no matter how good the music or how comfy the theater chair.

A theme through much of Burns's work is a search for the essence of America. The Parks highlight the conflict between timeless beauty and American industrial ingenuity that have played a part in his other productions such as Lewis and Clark and The West. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to see Ken's brother Ric Burns screen his film on Ansel Adams. Ric described Adams' quest to capture the quintessential American landscape, even as that nature was fading. I recalled a similar (but contradictory) claim made in his film New York---namely that the imposition and recreation of a steel grid on an island represented the true America. I asked Ric Burns whether he saw a disconnect in his two views of America's essence. I received a less than satisfactory response about "liking the city and the country" (perhaps in response to a less than satisfactory question).

What is the true essence of America---it's a question even the National Parks bring to mind. Are these jewels just large zoos where we can temporarily escape from the "real world" of glass, asphalt, and steel, or are these the last vestiges of the "real world" that we have marred. Today we must ask whether these millions of acres (large as that sounds) can be buffered from a world that we are warming. The answer is likely "no" and while we may still draw enjoyment from them, they will never again be unimpaired. That fact often fills me with despair, but I strive to hold onto the hope that the God of it all can still speak through even his marred and groaning Creation, just as he still moves through his imperfect and injured people. May His Kingdom come and bring wholeness to all here on this Earth.