Bishop Barron's talk at the Google headquarters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enDhX49F3XI

As the relationship between religion and science has been a subject of study for ages, the presence of a religious person in a digital work environment inevitably draws great attention. It is not known how much public interest was aroused when Bishop Barron addressed a room full of Google and YouTube employees at the Google headquarters (Googleplex), but his talk on Youtube kept me engrossed in all its 55 minutes’ duration. With the intention of having some reflections on the talk later in time, I have summarized it as follows:- 

Bishop Barron began by saying that Google, as a search engine, triggers a lot of restlessness in religion. He referred to our mind as being a restless searching one. At the moment we find something, more questions come up. In fact, the more we know, the more we want to know. 

He explained that this is also true of our will. The will is always seeking something good. It will not rest until it finds what he refers to as unconditional happiness, or beatitudal happiness – the desire. To explain unconditional happiness, Bishop Barron invited his audience to think of wealth, honour, power and pleasure. While wealth is the desire for something better, honour serves only as a remedy for natural wants. Power is a source of activity to attain an end but is not an end itself. Pleasure is the side-effect of something fundamental. Therefore, none of them is unconditional love. The desire for happiness, according to Bishop Barron, is an infinite desire, which cannot be satisfied by anything in this world. It is only in God that the desire can be satisfied.

Bishop Barron then referred to the Books of Kings in the Bible. With his success in making fire come down from heaven to consume the sacrifice, Prophet Elijah proved that his is the only true God. Ahab, in spite of the big team of priests he had summoned, failed in his many attempts, thus proving himself to be a false god worshipper.

Bishop Barron also talked about God’s creation work with reference to the Book of Geneses. The creatures came forth in an orderly way, which he compared to a stately liturgy mass procession with the priest taking the rear. This symbolizes that everything in the world is meant to turn to God in praise and that is the purpose of creation. All things are to be led by a human being (symbolized by the priest), who can give praise. It is understood that everyone is a seeker of something worthy but we should not let anything in the world be our object of worship. Let us hook our infinite desire on the infinite object. Only true worship will make us satisfied and the right praise refers to worshipping God alone.

Finally, with reference to St. Augustine’s saying, Bishop Barron explained that our heart is restless until we rest in God. God is love and it is only when we give away love, which God has given us, that we can find the beatitudal happiness that we have been looking for.

Its Hidden Side - The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue

"The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue.”  The mere name suggests the sad tone of the movie. In fact, the whole movie guides the audience through the lives of a few sad characters, each blaming life for reasons of his own. There is Mika, the nurse who sees frequent deaths in the hospital where she works. She then has to speed home on her bicycle to shake off the feeling of pensive sadness thus caused. Her mother’s death, believed to have been a suicide, also accounts for her constant doubt about life and death. Having once been jilted, she has lost confidence in love. Even when her ex-boy friend returns with a refreshed attempt to win her heart, she turns him down.

Shinji, the chief male character, is a construction worker. Underpaid and without job security, he is all the time worried about the high costs of living, having to work out the price of practically everything before making a purchase. He seems to be always squinting at something or someone with suspicion because of blurred vision in one eye. Once he is seen reading a book in a boisterous girlie bar where everyone else is having fun and fooling around, deliberately oblivious of the misery of life they are trapped in. Even his small den, with hardly any space for a comfortable stretch of his long legs, is lined on one wall with low shelves of books. He could have found a better job had it not been for his poor eyesight.

The director’s use of shots well serves to highlight the uncertainty of life and the bleakness of the future. The blue-collars waiting in a queue for the bus are all bending over their cell phones, heedless of a hot-air balloon flying overhead. Mika, the only one aware of its presence, looks up and feels something ominous. Then every now and then, the threat of an earthquake is felt and someone exclaims, “Japan is over!” A man, the stoutest among the few construction workers, dies suddenly of a stroke.
Everyone seems to be smoking, venting his grievances through deep inhaling. Ashtrays overflowing with half smoked cigarettes appear repeatedly on different scenes. There seems nothing more they can do in protest against life. Life is a complete picture of melancholy.
Despite the seeming hopelessness of life, however, there is a sprinkling of encouraging signs. With a screaming voice, a busker sings the refrain repeatedly, asking everyone to go for it, though no one ever stops to listen. The slowly developing friendship between Mika and Shinji, an attempt to give love a try, is encouraging enough for each other to view life with more optimism. The blooming bud of the potted plant on the side of the ashtray is an obvious sign of hope, too. 
One interesting remark I would like to make, though, is that because of the pervading night scenes, my eyes had to struggle a bit for adjustment during the rare moments of broad daylight. 

This is a good movie especially for those who are used to the prosperity of the city of Tokyo and are curious about its hidden side, too.