Dispatch 05
Welcome to The Strata, a bi-weekly newsletter that tells a serialized story about my filmmaking process and updates you on the Impact Campaign for my first feature film.
The following is a continuation of Dispatch 04, which ended with:
I am departing from the Ark Encounter theme park in Kentucky. I’ve been talking to visiting dads about how they connect to their grown kids, especially if they happen to have left the church. The last one I meet, Melvin, gives me a DVD that reminds me of my dad, Marvin. I’m inspired to pick up the phone.
Dispatch 05: Sea Change
“I have survived nine hundred sixty-nine years!”
I fly away from the Kentucky Ark Encounter with this weird earworm stuck in my head. It’s from the gravelly voice of an animatronic Methuselah doll.
Most numbers that would be of actual use — my girlfriend’s cell; my two-digit congressional district — I cannot remember. But 969 was seared into my brain as a child, and there it sits, as useless and indelible as a carpet stain. The Bible Days were not like our days was the closest I ever got to an explanation for how the prophets could have lived so long. Not that I pressed the issue; I didn’t realize I had a choice not to believe until I went to college.
I. Loved. College.
It's where I learned, from a woman seminarian, that I, too, could interpret Scripture. It’s where I realized — in the space of a one-hour lecture — that Noah’s Flood simply could not have been. It’s where I’m headed now, to talk to Rich Smith, the anthropologist whose human evolution course led me to stop believing in Noah’s Flood as a literal, historical event, and to see it as a metaphor.
After rolling my recording devices, I start by thanking Smith for changing my life. He rejects this framing. He argues there’s no way I would have elected to take a class on human ev if I hadn’t already had “a lot going on.” Learning about Darwinian evolution might have been a final straw of sorts, but “people are going to believe what they’re going to believe. Otherwise, there would be too much dissonance.”
Professor Smith is less tall than I remember. The accent I associated with his Yale pedigree is, I realize, from Brooklyn, where I now live. As he tells me about his Jewish mother and their Catholic neighbor, a kind but anxious woman who couldn’t shake the fact that his mom was going to go to hell when she died because “my mother hadn’t done whatever she was supposed to do with Jesus,” I understand what captivated me about this professor. Aside from knowing his science inside and out, he is a damned good storyteller.
Smith’s teaching led me to embrace Joseph Campbell’s maxim that the fatal flaw of religion is to take itself too literally.
“I’ve been calling my dad,” I tell him. “He hasn’t called me back. When he does, how can I get him to understand? How do I get him to come back from creationism?”
“Well, you’re certainly not going to get an answer to that from me,” he says. “In fact, trying to do so would almost be a waste of time.”
He thinks for a bit, then says, “A very wise family therapist wrote a column about ten ways to be unhappy. And the number one way was: Make it your mission in life to change someone.”
I stumble around campus for a bit after our conversation. Smith strikes again.
My phone rings. It’s my dad. He’s received my pile of voicemails.
“Hey there.” He sounds chipper. “My phone got soaked and had to dry out. Sorry I haven’t called you back. What’s up?”
I have no idea what to say. So I ask him for a story.
“How did you become a young earth creationist?”
“College,” he says.
Oh boy.
That’s my answer! I will have none of this nonsense!!!
But I keep that thought to myself. And I ask him to tell me more.
To be continued in the next dispatch.
Impact Campaign
“Katy Scoggin's idiosyncratic and timely film helps to illuminate the factors that contribute to our national divisions at a microcosmic, personal level. Her and her family's intense vulnerability enables audiences to locate themselves in the film's participants, leveraging the unique empathetic qualities of documentary film to full effect.”
- Arlin Golden
Director of Operations, Video Project
We are delighted to be partnering with Video Project for educational distribution. Highly selective in the films they choose, they are impact-oriented and dedicated to helping Flood reach audiences in educational settings, including universities and libraries. If you are faculty or responsible for institutional media purchasing, you can purchase educational and institutional DVD & digital site license here.
We are also working with universities to set up events and screenings related to our key Impact areas:
Family estrangement and family therapy
Religious divides, including faith-based v. scientific worldviews, and interfaith
The Bridging Community, which targets political polarization and aims to strengthen civic life
If you or someone you know is working in these areas, reach out to Adam Blackman, Impact Producer, here.
SAVE THE DATE — Flood Premieres Theatrically in NYC in June!
DCTV - NYC theatrical premiere - June 10-25. June 19 will have a VERY SPECIAL GUEST moderating our Q&A. June 20-21 will have some VERY SPECIAL PANELS that you won’t want to miss! Please stay tuned!
Jacob Burns Film Center - Come see us with film critic and curator Eric Hynes on Tue. June 23! Please stay tuned!
PBS Has a YouTube Channel
Don’t miss all the incredible, streamable Independent Lens docs available to watch FOR FREE, right now, all over the US and Puerto Rico! Up next: Suzannah Herbert’s scintillating Natchez, produced by Darcy McKimmon, premieres Monday, May 11.
Flood will also premiere on Independent Lens — our premiere date is July 13.