The documentary film Helen Nearing & The Good Life: Conscious Living and Conscious Dying will be shown at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in Skelton Lounge of Chase Hall at Bates College. The public is invited to attend the screening, followed by a discussion with its Portland producers Polly Bennell and Andrea Sarris, free of charge. The presentation is part of a series, “Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul 2001-02,” sponsored by the chaplain’s office.

The film, first released in 2000, examines the lives and deaths of Maine authors Helen and Scott Nearing, best-known for their book about homesteading,Living the Good Life: How To Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World. More than a biography of Helen, this film explores the Nearings’ commitment to self-sufficiency and voluntary simplicity. It also unveils the spiritual philosophy in which their lives and work were rooted.

Arriving in the Maine village of Harborside in 1952, the Nearings eventually wrote more than 50 books and hosted a steady stream of visitors seeking to learn about their way of life. Producers Bennell and Sarris spent five years collecting photographs, interviews and archival footage to create this film portrait.

Part of the film explores Helen Nearing’s eagerness to face death. “I have never taken the outside of life too seriously,” Nearing says in the film. “The real Life, with a capital L, is behind all this scenery. I’m anxious to get there and experience that, but I still have to live my day in school. So as long as the old body can continue, I’ll stay here – but I’m on my way somewhere else. In transition.” Scott Nearing died at the age of 100, in 1983, when he decided to stop eating solid foods. Helen died in 1995 when the car she was driving struck a tree.

Following the screening of the film at Bates, Bennell and Sarris will answer questions and discuss how producing this documentary affected their own spiritual journeys.

Next in the Spiritual Journeys series is Dr. David Loxterkamp, familiy practice physician of Belfast, Maine, who will discuss Practicing Medicine as ‘Practicing the Presence of God at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, in Skelton Lounge. Call 207-786-8272 for more information.

New York-based photographer Harvey Wang discusses Flophouse: Life on the Bowery: Photographs and Stories from America’s Most Famous Skid Row at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall. The public is invited to attend this presentation free of charge. Wang’s talk opens Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul 2001-02, a lecture series sponsored by the chaplain’s office. In conjunction with Wang’s talk, an exhibition of his photographs, “Flophouse,” will be on display in the George and Helen Ladd Library on the Bates campus Sept. 21 through Nov. 23. Call 207-786-8272 for more information.

In their book, Flophouse: Life on the Bowery (Random House, 2000), photographer Harvey Wang and authors David Isay and Stacy Abramson document the lives of a group of homeless men in New York City. At one time, 75,000 men slept on New York’s Bowery each night. Today, seven lodging houses or “flophouses” remain. They are home to fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, many who are addicted to alcohol and drugs and have been lost to or rejected by their families. Wang will discuss his interest in documenting the humanity behind these forgotten facades.

“This book takes you to places you think you don’t want to enter, to people you think you don’t want to meet, to lives you think you don’t want to live and makes you rethink all your assumptions,” said Susan Stamberg, special correspondent for National Public Radio. “It reveals the tremendous strength and humanity of those who are usually ignored. And as you pay attention, your own humanity expands.”