Wildcat (2024)
Screenwriters: Shelby Gaines and Ethan Hawke
Director: Ethan Hawke
Starring: Maya Hawke (Flannery O’Connor), Laura Linney (mother to Flannery O’Connor), Philip Ettinger (Robert Lowell), Christine Dye (Duchess), Liam Neeson (priest)
Dear Maya Hawke,
I am impressed with your performance in this film Wildcat.
Do you know we have a tendency to make Gods out of anything or anyone we focus our attention toward?
For many people, the directors of successful films are Gods. Actors who have a lot of money and whose names are known, are Gods. Writers who suffered and died are Gods.
The greatest thing we can do for art is create humans, not Gods.
I watched an interview where your dad said, “Humility is the key to the universe.”
That’s a good dad you got there. Not everyone has a dad like that. I hope you appreciate him.
A dad is not a god. A mom is not a goddess. We want them to be because they are the ones who raise us, but they are just people trying to find their way and doing their best with what they know and what they are.
I love people. I love them and I don’t make them Gods. I feel them, and I feel. I think that is the best way to create.
Questions of faith and God—they are a worthy subject for art and exploration. They are probably the best subject, but we also have to remember that great line from the Bhagavad Gita, “Scriptures are of little use to the illumined man or woman, who sees the Lord everywhere.”
When we find that divine spirit and source and essence inside us, we can better meet it in those who show up in our lives. And those who show up may be rich or poor or brown or white or sick or healthy, hmm?
What Jesus showed and shows is that this spirit and source and essence is compassion and love. There are plenty who believe in God or who have a religion or a tradition that is about ideas and belief systems, and not love and compassion. Jesus was trying to show a different way, because when more people act with love and compassion, fewer people suffer.
What do you think of this, “died for our sins” thing? It is such an odd phrase and an odd idea. I met a man once who was struggling with mental health and yet he had such intuition and wisdom and depth. (This world will make you crazy.) I was asking a bunch of people what they thought enlightenment meant, what it was to be enlightened. He answered me that it was “recognizing that maybe you’re wrong.”
I didn’t understand that for a long time but it stuck with me. And now I recognize that I may be wrong about a lot of things, but I am that I am, and I am.
If I were to gander some explanation/interpretation of this “Jesus died for our sins” thing—while you bear in mind that I hold no official title in any religious tradition, am a mere teacher in a city high school, a mom, and a writer who has published without any income (save for a few hundred dollars in the past decade) from her writing or her other artistic endeavors—I would say that someone young and spiritual and beautiful decided to carry what he carried inside without shame or apology. He let what happened to him, happen. He decided his life would illustrate his message.
No one gets to escape the laws of existence because they believe in him dying and coming back. But people like to think that they have a nice warm bed on the other side of their mortal lives, and they allow that nice-warm-bed-idea to convince them of all kinds of things while they’re alive. They may live with “I should do this because….” rather than living authentically according to the fundamental truth in their soul. And hey, sometimes that works, too.
It is the energy with which we do a thing that matters, not the outcome. Here I go, quoting from the Bhagavad Gita again (and then I’ll shut up)—“Do your duty, and let go of the outcome.”
We cannot control how other people will react, or what consequences take place from our actions, or what will spark and ignite another soul. We have no control over that. We just must dig deep into our souls and see what brings us alive and into peace and clarity, and live from that place.
Now, there are sick people in this world. What brings them alive, what gives them peace and clarity, is hurting other people, or feeling they are above others. And Jesus tried to help us with that message, too. He said, there is a judgment day and there is a reckoning, and it is better to live clean and clear. If someone comes and kills you, or hurts you, don’t get entangled with their mess or their blindness. Hold true to faith and persevere, whether you are in this dimension or another. He had no illusions about how it all worked, these spiritual laws and this karma. And for his life and his message, we are blessed. (Does that mean he died for my sins? Maybe there are all different sorts of words we can use.)
Anyway, I love what you’ve done, and I still don’t want to read more Flannery O’Connor. I find her depressing. But I do think we should all be reading more literature. I used to have a lot of favorites but even I don’t read enough these days…. The books I love most, and always mention, when it comes to fiction, are Bel Canto by Ann Patchett and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. As far as short stories, I have read so many but very few stand out. My favorites are from Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. She has this one called “Sexy” about a guy with a mustache, and what is all the rage about mustaches these days? I can’t figure that one out. And “Mrs. Sen’s” is about this older woman who is watching a young boy, and she has to learn to drive in America. I can’t even drive these days in America, people are crazy on the roads! It’s wild, I am such a mom about the whole thing—I want to follow them and give them a stern talking-to. And there is another story in that collection, the first one, which is so beautiful and will bring tears to your eyes! “A Temporary Matter.” It is perfection. Just perfection as far as short stories go.
We all need to read more literature again but gosh, how are we going to fit that in when there are so many followers to pursue on social media?
Ha. Ha. Ha.
We’ll figure it out. We can start today.
Namaste, sweetheart,
Ms. Wonderful
*Wildcat is streaming for rent on major platforms now.
I have a book! It is a lovely book! Please read it or give it to someone who you think will enjoy it! It is fun, and more.
And then eat some cookies.