Christian Hamaker

The children who escaped—dubbed the “Lost Boys” because they were mostly unaccompanied males—marched through their war-torn country for years, threatened by lions and starvation. Years later they arrived in several American cities only to experience another sort of hardship: the struggle to make ends meet and to further their education.

Valentino’s harrowing, bittersweet story has been brought to life by Dave Eggers in the book “What Is the What,” recently released in paperback. The author recently stopped in Washington, D.C., to promote the ongoing work of rebuilding in Sudan and field questions about Valentino’s life, including the role of the church.

Valentino was baptized a Catholic as a child in the Sudan, although other Lost Boys are Episcopalian and Lutheran, Eggers says. After arriving in Atlanta, “Valentino had quite a church community,” Eggers said. He still does—at Allegheny College, where he’s pursuing further education.

“Churches have been incredibly important in all cities where these refugees are,” Eggers says, because the refugees were given just three months of assistance after resettlement. Further help has been necessary. “Churches and foundations stepped in,” Eggers says. “Without them, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Eggers tells of a woman from a Charlotte, N.C., Baptist church who invited a few of the men she encountered at the local grocery store to stop by the church for further help, only to discover 35 Lost Boys at the church the next day.

Although the church is present through the services offered, Eggers paints a portrait of Valentino as someone still searching for the sort of community many Christians find in the church. The book is not primarily a commentary on the church’s outreach to these men, but the spiritual aspect of Valentino’s life takes a back seat to the daily struggle to make ends meet and to avoid being taken advantage of.

The novel is based almost entirely on Valentino’s recollections, although Eggers labels the book a novel because he used the experiences of other Lost Boys to fill in Valentino’s vague memories of family life before his village was attacked. It painfully reveals how the struggles of these men continue in the States, where they find it difficult to achieve their hopes for more learning and for marriage. “His story is representative of millions of other immigrants,” Eggers says.

Today, people are beginning to return to Southern Sudan. There’s a hopefulness now, after years of war and bloodshed.

Part of that is due to a Bush-administration-backed peace agreement between the north and the south in Sudan, but is cautious about the increasing number of violations to that agreement. “The Bush administration really did a lot to broker that peace,” Eggers says. “But this is a terrible government [in Sudan]. It’s incumbent upon the Bush administration to keep a close eye on it. I know they’re trying to do that.”

Valentino has returned to his hometown of Marial Bai, where he hopes to build a school. He faces a shortage of trained teachers, and those who remain are trained to teach in Arabic—not English, as Valentino wants. The work is still in the early stages.

Meanwhile, Valentino pursues his education at Allegheny College. “He wanted to be here with me today,” Eggers says, “but he had to drive back to Allegheny for a test.”

Valentino’s story is one of courage, a triumph of hope over despair. But many of his hopes remain unfulfilled, and despair is always lurking, threatening to overwhelm him. So far, he hasn’t let despair consume him.

Eggers says the purpose of writing the book was to foster understanding between those in the United States and the Lost Boys. It is a story that needs to be read—by Christians in particular, who can help supply spiritual comfort in addition to physical needs, and who can pray for these Lost Boys. It’s also a reminder of the tremendous blessings we have here in America, and a path to better understanding the immigrant experience, especially among these African refugees.

In short, “What Is the What” is a must read.

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They remain partisan, but they’ve renounced polarization.

The new book they authored together, “Common Ground,” is “a campaign against polarization,” Beckel says. “But it’s not Kumbayah—we’re going to disagree. I’m still a liberal, and Cal is still wrong.”

It’s a funny quip, one of several the two men traded during recent book-signing in Northern Virginia, where they elaborated on the book and their reasons for writing it. “People have been conditioned to equate political positions with the value of a person,” Thomas says. “There’s a lot of name-calling now.”

It’s time for a reprieve, and the authors are seeking to lead the way toward a more civil political dialogue.

Beckel says the origins of our polarized political system in the United States go back to the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but it was the Robert Bork hearings and Iran Contra scandal, and the back-to-back presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, that created a polarized culture like we’ve never seen. “Can you imagine two presidents, one after another, who could polarize the base of the other party more?” Beckel asked.

While Beckel is known for 3 years of co-hosting “Crossfire” with Lynne Cheney, Thomas is well known to conservatives for his widely syndicated newspaper column and TV appearances. An outspoken Evangelical, Thomas has distanced himself from the Religious Right in recent years, co-authoring a book, “Blinded by Might,” that chronicled his move away from the idea that political power is an effective way of inculcating the ideas of Jesus.

“There’s no such thing as trickle-down morality,” Thomas says. “Evangelicals have become just one more demographic to win over.” Still, Thomas confesses to some amusement at the attempts of Progressives to co-opt religious language for their own political ends—the same mistake Religious Right leaders made—and the knots they tie themselves in to do so. “My favorite moment came when Howard Dean was asked what his favorite New Testament book was, and he answered that it was the book of Job!”

People don’t want a Theologian in Chief, Thomas says. “They want someone who can run the country, and run it well.”

Beckel offers a compromise. Uncomfortable with George Bush’s idea of faith-based initiatives, which tie churches to government purse strings, Beckel says federal money should be taken out of churches. In return, “I don’t see any reason you can’t take one minute out of a school day for a moment of silence. Look at the girl in front of you if you want,” he says.

If we can meet each other halfway, then maybe, after decades spent at war with each other, Americans can focus on a shared enemy. Says Thomas: “Bob’s not the enemy—the Taliban is!”

The two men hope their book strikes a chord, but, says Beckel, “The ‘common ground’ movement, with our without us, has already started.”

Will the numbers of people desiring middle ground produce a shift in the polarized political debate as the rhetoric of the next presidential campaign heats up? Only time will tell.

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It’s been one of the stronger summers in recent memory, driven by three superb movies, all with an international flavor.

One of the three, The Golden Door, is little known. This Italian “art film” will crest $1 million in box-office grosses this weekend—a strong showing for a film with subtitles, but a drop in the bucket for most theatrically released films this summer.

The Golden Door is a gorgeously filmed tale of a Sicilian man, Salvatore, taking his children and mother on a journey to the United States. Salvatore’s hopes are anchored on little more than some photos, ostensibly from America, showing giant vegetables and money that grows from trees. Also on the journey to America is an Englishwoman, Lucy, whose mysterious past and alluring beauty attract the attention of Salvatore and the other men on the ship. The immigrants’ experience at Ellis Island comprises the final third of The Golden Door, and it’s blessed with some surprises.

As a picture of immigrant hopes, and the harrowing journey so many have undertaken to come to these shores, The Golden Door reminds us of another Home that Christians long for and imagine, and the ups and downs we experience during our own life journeys. If The Golden Door is playing in your town, catch it while you can.

Also obliquely pro-American is Rescue Dawn, another look at immigrants and their experience of the United States. Director Werner Herzog adapts his earlier documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, into a big-screen fictional film about Dieter Dengler, born in Germany but indebted to the United States, which, through military service, gave him the chance to fulfill his dream of becoming a pilot. Shot down during his first mission, Dengler engineers an escape for he and his fellow POWs. His determination never flags, as he uses the jungle terrain to his advantage and manages to elude his captors. “Dieter Dengler embodied everything I love about America: courage, perseverance, optimism, self-reliance, frontier spirit, loyalty and joy of life,” says Herzog in the movie’s press notes. “He was the quintessential immigrant into America—a young man who arrived with a great dream and came to represent the best of the American spirit.”

Ratatouille, from Disney/Pixar, is one of the year’s best entertainments. The story of Remy and his knack for French cooking remind us that “anyone can cook,” and that the simple things in life, when combined with love, can have a great effect. It includes a speech from notorious food critic Anton Ego that should give any critic, of movies or otherwise, pause: “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”

What a pleasure, then, that Ratatouille is no “average piece of junk,” but a great family film that deserves the highest praise.

Despite a glut in the number of films released in recent years, memorable movies are few and far between. In the past three months, we had three great movies. What a summer! One can only hope that the fall holds as many treasures.

Comments? Contact me at crosswalkchristian@earthlink.net.

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Comedian Larry Miller (you know the face, even if you don't recognize the name) has appeared in dozens of films ("Pretty Woman," "The Nutty Professor," and "Waiting for Guffman") and television programs, usually as comic relief, but sometimes as the heavy ("The Guardian").

Always appealing, the comic actor has now taken his brand of humor to the printed page with the publication of his first book, "Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Everyday Life." The collection isn't Miller's first stab at written comedy: His columns have appeared for years in "The Weekly Standard," and his tribute to Johnny Carson Carson's death was preserved in the magazine's 10th-anniversary collection of its best writing. Those who have smiled at Miller's columns and acting over the years are in for a treat with "Spoiled Rotten America," a collection of stories about home life and Hollywood told from Miller's perspective of hopefulness and shared moral values.

"I'm a religious Jew who believes every Christian is a son or daughter of Abraham," he told me during a recent appearance promoting his new book. A religious impulse "absolutely" underpins his comedy. Miller, who writes for Shady Acres, the production company of film director and professing Christian Tom Shadyac ("Bruce Almighty," "Ace Ventura"), got married after years of living the single life, and now has young children who feature prominently in his comedy.

"Sunday, Bloody Sunday," one of the book's stories, recounts a Sunday morning when a groggy Miller unwittingly granted his boys permission to turn the family's hallway into their personal golf course. The amusing results are predictably destructive, but offer an opportunity for Miller to elaborate on the moral underpinnings of his worldview. "My wife and I love our house, and the life that's in it. Not the things in it. In fact, if I ever get to heaven, I'll bet it looks a lot like my house on Sunday morning."

It's Miller's desire to tell stories about the human experience, stories to which all of us can relate. "We've lost a sense of hope and joy in our storytelling, especially in American moviemaking," he says. "People used to leave even sad movies knowing there was hope. Not anymore. "I don't want to feel soiled anymore. Every day is a brand new creation for me. This makes me an evangelist for comedy. Comedy has wisdom to it, when it's performed well, and written well."

Miller insists that the darker characters he's played nonetheless fit into his view that art should be inspiring, not dispiriting. "The characters I play in dramas are awful people. I want the characters to be dark so we can see that we don't want to be that way.

"It teaches us about hope when a director directs something well, or a writer writes a character well. My definition of hope is this: Tell the story well."

If a story is well told, the audience will be affected, and that's the bottom line, for Miller. "Art is entertaining even if it's full of sorrow, because it's gripping," he says. "The audience wants to be moved." 

Comments? Send them to me at crosswalkchristian@earthlink.net.

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