I bring up HappyFeet often times as an example of EvolutionarySpirituality.
Look at how Happy Feet discusses God and the heart-song.
- Does Happy Feet deny the existence of God?
Yes: The Great Guin does not really exist, the Great Guin did not really create the world.
No: The Great Guin very clearly exists: The Great Guin is the reality of combined Heart-Songs. (“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20) In fact, the Great Guin is even depicted, between all the Penguins, and has a clear and necessary role: sustaining the Penguins through the long and harsh winter. This is the power of the heart-song, the long evolution of Penguins’ bodies and hearts and minds, and the communion with others. (see also: WhatIsGod?)
- Is Heart-Song transcendental?
No: Heart-Song is a material phenomenon, an artifact of the living impulse to survive and to breed within penguins.
Yes: Heart-Song is the hopes, dreams, and love, present within each penguin, rendering that penguin unique, with his or her own story, and a vital part of the whole of Penguin-dom.
Visual Depiction
In the method of MysticalRealism, the transcendent capital-R Reality is superimposed upon the reality that is seen by eyes (and heard by ears.)
That is, we visibly see the Real & intuited glow of the HeartSong, and we see lines coming out from each Penguin, and connecting into a center-whole, wherein The Great Guin appears.
TeilhardDeChardin talked about the power of seeing, and this is an excellent example of what Teilhard was talking about.
Themes
Non-exhaustive set:
- heart
- evolution
- environment
- media, communication, and feedback
- difference, community (CommunityDoesNotAgree), leadership, functionalism, finding a unique way
Quotes
Happy Feet is just dripping with EvolutionarySpirituality quotations.
Too numerous to list:
- “The song became love and love became the egg.” – the Spiritual is Material
- (reference to evolution in preacher’s tale)
- …
- …
- …
See Also
- Wikipedia 2007-12-07 – shallow, plot description, but hyperlinked (***)
- pluggedin – Good overview but very shallow analysis; I obviously disagree with their evaluation in “spirituality” – this is geared towards the traditionally religious (**)