TV Snapshot: Changing the game with love in ‘Community’

NBC via Hulu

In “Introduction to Finality,” Jeff is about to give his closing statement for a case in which he is defending Shirley in a college mock trial that will decide whether she (who came up with an idea and business plan for a sandwich shop) or Pierce (who is funding the shop) will sign as owner on a form. Jeff’s been pressured by a former colleague (who’s representing Pierce) to throw the case in order to get his old job back. He’s not sure what to do, when Shirley tells him that it’s okay for him to lose the case because, she says, “I want you to have what you want.” When Jeff gets up to make his closing statement he tells everyone exactly what’s going on:

Your honor, I have no closing statement because I’m throwing the case. No, no, it’s okay. It’s fine, don’t worry. My client, Shirley Bennett, my friend of three years, she told me that it was okay. She said what I want was more important. 

She’s right—right? 

I mean, guys like me, we’ll tell you there’s no right or wrong—there’s no real truths. And as long as we all believe that, guys like me can never lose. Because the truth is, I’m lying when I say there is no truth. The truth is—the pathetically, stupidly, inconveniently, obvious truth is, helping only ourselves is bad and helping each other is good. 

Now I just wanted to get out of here, pass biology and be a lawyer again instead of helping Shirley. That was bad. And my former colleague wanted so badly to keep his rich client that he just asked me to roll over in exchange for my old job. 

So, I guess we all walked in here pretty bad, but now Shirley’s gone good. Shirley’s helping me. It’s that easy. You just stop thinking about what’s good for you and start thinking about what’s good for someone else. 

And you can change the whole game with one move.

*    *    *    *    *

“You can't go wrong when you love others.  

When you add up everything in the law code, 

the sum total is love.” 

~Paul in a letter to Roman believers

Small-screen dystopian "Revolution" gets a trailer

NBC recently released a trailer for (above) and several clips from the post-apocalyptic Revolution slated for Mondays this fall. The series purportedly follows a group of survivors 15 years after a mysterious EMP-like event permanently takes out all power in the world. NBC puts it this way: 

Our entire way of life depends on electricity. So what would happen if it just stopped working? Well, one day, like a switch turned off, the world is suddenly thrust back into the dark ages. Planes fall from the sky, hospitals shut down, and communication is impossible. And without any modern technology, who can tell us why? 

Now, 15 years later, life is back to what it once was long before the industrial revolution: families living in quiet cul-de-sacs, and when the sun goes down, the lanterns and candles are lit. Life is slower and sweeter. Or is it? 

On the fringes of small farming communities, danger lurks. And a young woman's life is dramatically changed when a local militia arrives and kills her father, who mysteriously - and unbeknownst to her - had something to do with the blackout. This brutal encounter sets her and two unlikely companions off on a daring coming-of-age journey to find answers about the past in the hopes of reclaiming the future.

As I've said before, dystopian stories intrigue me. While they tend to be thrilling and compelling in and of themselves, they also reflect something of our current world--in particular, the basic truth that we and the world we live in are deeply and horrifically broken. The stories literally tear us from our cloistered homes and neighborhoods, confront us with the reality of suffering, evil and brokenness and challenge us to examine and deal with the issues that result from it. But in the best of the stories, there is another truth that weaves its way through the darkness: the reality of hope--and that brings God-talk into these open spaces.

NBC

Dystopian stories continue to be popular on both the big and small screen. Of those on television, Revolution has the feel of Jericho (which Netflix is rumored to be considering rebirthing) more than the current Falling Skies, Walking Dead or SyFy's upcoming Defiance, in which the human race is pitted against aliens or zombies in their dystopian post-apocalyptic worlds. Like Jericho, there is no outside force in Revolution's world, only ourselves. In addition, the cause of the world's devastation is not so far-fetched (in Jericho, it was targeted nuclear bombs), which tends to shrink the degrees of separation between our two worlds.


So, it will be interesting to see where this series will go--and if it brings God-talk into open spaces.

Alabaster jars, faith and love

James Tissot's "Le parfum de Madeleine" (between 1886 and 1894) via Wikipedia

My 9 year-old son and I have been reading through a graphic novel version of the gospels and recently hit that moment in Luke where Jesus is reclining at a table eating dinner by invitation at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Suddenly, a woman with a less than stellar reputation appears at the door, makes her way to Jesus, and stands at his feet with an alabaster jar of perfumed ointment. She’s weeping so hard that Jesus’ feet are wet. She kneels, dries them with her hair and spreads the expensive ointment on his feet, kissing them.

Now, I’ve read this story before, but this time I couldn’t get out of my head. It’s a riveting and jarring moment. Just what exactly happened—what kind of encounter with Jesus did she have—that made her respond like that?

“It is not clear whether she had met Jesus,” Leon Morris tells us in his commentary on Luke. “She may simply have been among the crowds who listened to his teaching and had been so convicted that her life had been changed. Or she may have had unrecorded contacts with Jesus. We do not know.”

But something happened. And while we may not know the specifics of her original encounter, I’m struck by what this rest of this story suggests about encounters with Jesus, faith and love—and the connection between them.

As this woman knelt weeping at Jesus’ feet, the room full of people is riveted. What kind of man allows such a woman to do that? If he really is who he says he is, he would know what kind of person is touching him, Simon thought to himself. 

Jesus immediately hones in on Simon and tells him a story: A creditor had two debtors. One owed a full day’s wage and the other a tenth of that. Neither of them could pay off their debt, so the creditor wiped the slate clean for both of them. “Now which of them will love him more?” Jesus asks.  

“I suppose,” Simon relents, “the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” 

Jesus approves—but then turns his attention back to the woman. “Do you really see this woman, Simon? When I entered your house, you didn’t give me water for my feet—but she has bathed them with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss on the cheek, but she hasn’t stopped kissing my feet. You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with this ointment.”  

Then Jesus brings it home: “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little.” 

  “Your sins are forgiven,” he tells the woman, ignoring the disgruntled whispers around him. “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”  

(my paraphrase from the NIV, NRSV and The Message)

Ultimately, it really doesn't matter that we don’t know the specifics of her encounter with Jesus because, at some point, his message sinks in. This woman repents—or, as Mark Scandrette puts it in Soul Graffiti, "rethinks her thinking" and "reimagines” her life “in view of new alternatives.” She “calls into question her previous ways and awakens to new possibilities.” She “reimagines her life by allowing God to examine her thoughts, attitudes, motives, and behavior.” Jesus hands her the keys to the kingdom and she follows him in. She believes he is who he says and can do what he says. She takes a leap of faith and now she’s free—from a past life leading to destruction as well as to a new one of life.

In contrast, it strikes me that Simon’s playing it safe. He invites Jesus to dinner—but, as Morris points out, he doesn’t accord him the customs of an honored guest. Maybe he’s concerned with his colleagues’ approval. Perhaps he just isn’t sure who Jesus is yet. No matter, he keeps Jesus at arm’s length.

The contrast between these two reminds me of something important about faith: Remaining cautious when it comes to faith yields little, but a sincere act of trust yields jaw-dropping abundance.  Later in Luke, Jesus tells his disciples about the ongoing need to forgive even those who offend you constantly. The disciples see this as impossible and exclaim, “Give us more faith!” Eugene Peterson renders Jesus response like this: “"You don't need more faith. There is no 'more' or 'less' in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, 'Go jump in the lake,' and it would do it.” The smallest act of trust in Jesus renders an explosive effect.

I can see that in this woman. Her whole life changes by a choice to trust Jesus—and, somehow, her choice of faith is linked to her capacity to love. Jesus connects the woman’s choice to trust him and her understanding of the extent of her forgiveness to her extravagant response of love. But Simon, keeping Jesus at arm’s length, doesn’t seem to realize how much he needs to be freed from—or how much he can be freed to. Not only does he refuse to admit the many ways he’s fallen short God’s expectations and designs for him but he has little if any faith that Jesus is the answer to that. If Simon doesn’t rethink his thinking and trust Jesus is who he says and can do what he says, then he won’t experience the freedom and peace that this woman has. And somehow, that also affects his capacity to love.

That makes sense. God is love—and, if we are in relationship with him, then our capacity to love can only grow. But if we hold back, then we aren’t really trusting and we will never really be at rest in him. Instead, our fears, desires, and doubts will distract us from Jesus and our capacity to love will be thwarted.

Perhaps this gets at something about our living-together today. Far too many of our communities fall short of the ones in those early centuries—which were characterized by, as Joseph Hellerman points out in When the Church was a Family, such great love and charity both to each other and those around them that it drew the attention of others. Perhaps part of the problem is that we are more like Simon, inviting Jesus in but keeping him at arm’s length. Maybe we are concerned about what people think. Maybe we aren’t sure Jesus really is who he says or can do what he says. Maybe in our fear or doubt we put a fallback in place and aren't really resting in God. Perhaps we, like Simon, need to rethink our thinking and allow God to examine us, both individually and as a community, so we too can love lavishly according to our faith.

For my part, this story has challenged me to regain my focus on, as Paul puts it, “the simplicity and purity of my devotion to Christ” and consciously reject fallbacks. There is an exquisite ease and streamlined-ness to a no-fallback choice to trust that Jesus is who he says and can do what he says. It helps to push back those distractions caused by fears, doubts, busy-ness and selfishness. I needed to be reminded of that.

In the end, this story reminds us that constant and simple acts of faith save and free us, allowing God to transform us into to be the kind of people he created and enables us to be: those who lavishly love God—and others.

Heroes, redemption and community: Something comic book stories tell us about our own Story

Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures

Marvel/Disney

This Friday, The Avengers will hit theaters. It is the first—and, if its current 96% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes is any indication, potentially the best—of several anticipated blockbusters based on comic book characters expected to draw record crowds this summer. So, what is it about these stories that draw us in such large numbers?

It isn’t simply the action-packed adventure. Like all good stories, we are drawn to them because they speak to our human condition. In a 2004 Christianity Today article, Frank Smith writes, “These characters may have super strength…. But their inner battles (and their struggles in spite of them) to right wrongs and take up the challenge of evil are our own—albeit writ large, colorful and on a grand scale.” In their stories, we see our own.

In a recent Guardian piece, Tom Hiddleston (who plays Loki in The Avengers) hones in on something our stories share that I resonate with in particular: “The possibility of redemption is right around the corner,” he observes. In comic book stories, redemption is a key theme and almost always involves a radical life change. Not only are the heroes saved from something, they are saved to something. And this reminds us of something important about own Story.

Iron Man/Paramount

Avenger Tony Stark is one of my favorite examples of this. Granted, Stark is definitely a “work in progress,” but perhaps therein lies the draw. In Iron Man, Stark’s heart undergoes both a literal and figurative transformation when his proximity to an explosion requires that a device be implanted in his chest to keep metal fragments from piecing his heart and killing him. This experience both transforms his physical capabilities (the device eventually powers the Iron Man suit) and the kind of person he becomes. Faced with death and his culpability in the use of weapons his company designed, Stark rethinks his self-centered way of life. Essentially, he repents—or as Mark Scandrette puts it in Soul Graffiti, “rethinks his thinking.” He becomes a different kind of person; he rejects his old way of life and starts working out a life prioritized by protecting others and righting wrongs.

In comic book stories, however, redemption almost never takes place in a vacuum. Tony Stark needs the Avengers. His life change will be honed and shaped in a community of people who have extremely different gifts but share a common mission. Communities like the Avengers—or X-Men, Justice League, etc.—recognize and develop gifts of each of their members, encourage each other to live responsibly, and work together to help and protect those who may even despise them. Individually, their gifts are often powerful but what they can do individually is nothing compared to what they can do as they learn to work together—something Stark must work out in his new, redeemed life.

Much of this echoes our own Story. Our redemption is not simply a saving from sin and death but also a saving to a new life, one which we were created for and now enabled to live. But it takes some working out. Like the comic book superheroes, our new lives reconcile us to some but put us in conflict with others. Our new lives require an ousting of self-centeredness, embracing of sacrificial choices and head-on confrontation with injustice, oppression and systematic and individual evil. But we aren’t meant to work out our redemption alone. We were created to live and work together, a people with the common mission of working together with God to restore a broken world.

Of course, the parallels break down. In comic book stories, redemption is often approached as earned. In our Story, redemption can’t be earned but simply received. And with that redemption comes the indwelling Spirit—far greater than any super power—which shapes our communities and response to injustice, oppression and evil in radically different ways than that of the X-men or Avengers.

But I appreciate how these stories remind us that redemption is a transformation and how vital and intricately connected community is in working that out—and that brings plenty of God-talk into open spaces.

Finding redemption in 'The Finder'

FOX/via Spoiler TV

Athena Brooks: C’mon Leo, be the man you once were. Give me that hard drive. 

Leo Knox: If redemption was reversible, it wouldn’t be redemption.

The Finder—a quirky procedural drama on Fox from the creators of Bones—follows the adventures and cases of Leo Knox (the fabulous Michael Clarke Duncan) and Walter Sherman (Geoff Stults), who has an uncanny ability to “find” things. In the aptly titled “Life After Death,” Leo and Walter are hired by lawyer Athena Brooks, a former law colleague of Leo’s, to find out who is producing new songs by a rap singer who died years before. After Leo and Walter secure a hard drive with the music, Leo figures out that Athena’s actions led to the death of the singer. When he confronts her, she tries to appeal to the man he used to be when she knew him as a shark-like lawyer—but Leo’s response gets at the heart of what redemption means.

FOX/via Global TV

In his former life, Leo was a hard-hitting and driven lawyer who enjoyed the power and expensive suits that came with his career. After the death of his wife and child, however, he reevaluated his life and changed, focusing on helping others. 

Essentially, Leo “repented.” As Mark Scandrette puts it in Soul Graffiti, to repent is to:

..."rethink your thinking" or "reimagine" your life in view of new alternatives. The instruction to "repent" or "reimagine" is meant to shock and arrest, to incite us to rethink our goals and priorities, to call into question our previous ways and awaken us to new possibilities. We reimagine our lives by allowing the Creator to examine our thoughts, attitudes, motives, and behavior. 

Doing this, says Scandrette, is our “entrance into the kingdom dance.”  When we trust that God is who he says and can do what he says—when we rethink our thinking, turn from our old way of thinking and grasp the new opportunity Jesus gives us—we find new life. Our relationships with God, others and the world are changed—we are now enabled to live as we were created, both with God and others. As we walk and work with God in learning to live in that new life, we become, as Dallas Willard and others put it in The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible, “the kind of person who embodies the goodness of God.”

This is what redemption looks like. It isn’t simply a ticket to heaven or forgiveness of sins but a new life—a changed life. Leo’s response to Athena and the life he’s been living demonstrate this. The change in him is so deep and rooted that he is a different kind of person. He can’t go back the person he was.

If we have entered into the kingdom dance with God, we too will be transformed—and that transformation will change us into a different kind of person. We will find it harder and harder to conceive of life the way we did before. That doesn’t mean we won’t be tempted. That doesn’t mean we won’t stumble and fail. But it does mean we will more and more consistently become the kind of people who experience life—a spacious, free life—on God’s terms, the way we were created and now enabled to live. We are changed.

I appreciate the way both Bones and The Finder consistently touch upon issues of faith and give us characters like Seely Booth and Leo Knox who wrestle with those issues—and bring God-talk into these open spaces.

Promise of resurrection

mine

"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, 

but in every leaf in springtime."

~Martin Luther

“Once Upon a Time:” The power of memory and story

ABC

In ABC’s Once Upon a Time, all the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest have been flung from their world by a curse conjured by the Evil Queen and into a small town in Maine named Storybrooke without any memory of who they are. When Emma Swan—the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming who was transported from the Enchanted Forest into this one through a magic cupboard as an infant to save her from the Queen’s Curse—comes to town, however, things begin to change. People begin to remember. And the last few episodes have begun to illustrate the power of memory and story when it comes to faith.

Emma came to Storybrooke to return Henry, her son whom she put up for adoption as an infant, to his adoptive mother, Mayor Regina Mills (who is the Evil Queen). Henry sought out Emma because he knows she’s the one who can break the Curse. How? He has a storybook that tells him what’s really going on. Emma and most of the townspeople believe Henry’s book is full of fairytales, but we know differently: We know Henry’s storybook is true.

And so do the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin (played by Robert Carlyle, whom I must say, portrays both Rumplestiltskin and his Storybrook counterpart, Mr. Gold, with relish). Over the season, it’s been interesting to observe the drive of those with evil intent to keep the memory of the Enchanted Forest reality and the truth of who they are from the townsfolk in order to maintain power. While Regina’s purpose is pretty clear (taking revenge on every person that’s hurt her) and Rumplestiltskin’s motivations are a little more murky, both use the knowledge of their shared story (and the inhabitants lack of it) to maintain power for their own purposes.

But in spite of their efforts to keep the townsfolk in the dark, the story seeps through—not only as fairytales in books but in the personal lives of the Storybrooke townsfolk as well. Who they are, their gifts and strengths, weaknesses and flaws, relationships—all of it seeps through no matter how hard the Queen tries to keep it away.

When people start remembering, it affects them differently. Some, like town counselor Archie Hopper (aka Jiminy Cricket), don’t remember their lives in the Enchanted Forest, but with Emma’s help they start to recall their gifts, hard-earned virtues and strengths which enable them to make decisions for good and love instead of selfishness and evil. For others, like Snow White and Prince Charming, it is confusing; they remember only bits and pieces and it just doesn’t make sense (and that causes some problems in their decision making). For those like the Mad Hatter (and, one could argue, the Queen and Rumplestiltskin as well), it is painful; the memory of how they’ve failed or what they’ve lost is overwhelming. But for some, like the Huntsman, it is freedom; in spite of all the pain and suffering he recalls from his life in the Enchanted Forest, the Huntsman’s returned memory of it makes sense of his present condition and frees him from turmoil he’s been struggling with for years.

Emma is the only one in Storybrooke without a memory to regain. Her memories are of this world only. But perhaps in Emma we find someone with whom we can most identify. In Emma, we see the power and wisdom we gain in trusting the larger story in which we live.

ABC/"Hat Trick" via Hulu

Emma resists the idea that Henry’s book and her part in it is true, but it’s getting harder for her to do so due to her encounters and experiences in Storybrooke. An encounter with the Mad Hatter in “Hat Trick” gets at this:

Emma: You’re insane. 

Jefferson: Because I speak the truth? 

Emma: Because you’re talking about magic. 

Jefferson: I’m talking about what I’ve seen. Maybe you’re the one who’s mad. 

Emma: Really? 

Jefferson: What’s crazier than seeing and not believing? Because that’s exactly what  you’ve been doing since you got to our little hamlet. Open your eyes. Look around. Wake up.

Emma is gradually beginning to consider there might be something to Henry’s storybook. We know that if she decided to step out and trust that it is true, she would not only be better able to understand herself and purpose but also help the townspeople remember who they are and restore their purposes and relationships—and have much greater power in confronting the injustice and oppression of the Queen.

I enjoy Once Upon a Time in part because so much of this story echoes our own. We too live our lives within a larger Story, one that is always seeping through into the world around us. If we look around, we can see it reflected in the physical world, and if we pay attention, we can hear it in the stories we tell.

If we, like Emma, begin to trust our own Story is true, we start to understand who we are. We discover we too suffer under a curse and that there are those that would keep us from the truth. But we also discover that there is One who’s relentlessly working to free his creation and us from the curse so we can be once again the people we are created, called and enabled to be. We discover that there is One who, as Henry Nouwen puts it, “loves us with an unconditional love and desires our love, free from all fear, in return.” We discover what we were made for—to love God and others—and the kind of world we were created for. And that not only helps us understand ourselves and our purpose but repairs our relationships and enables us to join with God as he works to free and redeem his creation.

The story we choose to live by makes a difference—and stories like Once Upon a Time help us remember that. And that brings God-talk into these open spaces. 

TV Snapshot: Stories that begin “Once Upon a Time”

ABC

Emma: They're just stories. The Mad Hatter is a character in Alice in Wonderland--a book. A book I've read. 

Jefferson: Stories. Stories? What’s a story? When you were in high school, did you learn about the Civil War? 

Emma: Yeah, of course. 

Jefferson: How did you learn about it? Did you read about it, perchance, in a book? 

Emma: History books are based on history. 

Jefferson: And storybooks are based on what, imagination? Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere. You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution for their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.

Emma: Here’s the thing, Jefferson. This is it. This is the real world. 

Jefferson: A real world. How arrogant are you to think yours is the only one? There are infinite more. You have to open your mind. They touch one another, pressing up in a long line of lands, each just as real as the last. All have their own rules. Some have magic. Some don’t. And some need magic… like this one.

I love what this exchange between Jefferson (aka, the Mad Hatter) and Emma Swan in Once Upon a Time’s “Hat Trick” says about where stories come from—and why we need to hear them.

                   

We know the fairy tales Emma and Jefferson are referring to are true. Jefferson and all the people from those fairytales have been ripped from their own world and thrust into ours by a curse—most without any memories of their past. Jefferson has actually been to many of the worlds referred to in fairytales (and Wonderland is definitely not one of his favorites).

In Once Upon a Time, the stories of other real worlds have leaked into this one as fairytales—and that echoes one of my favorite ideas of J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson as related by C.S. Lewis:

The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened. . . . The Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call ‘real things.’ 

The same article refers to Tolkien thoughts about mythic types of stories:

No, said Tolkien. [Myths] are not lies. . . . 

Man is not ultimately a liar. He may pervert his thought into lies, but he comes from God, and it is from God that he draws his ultimate ideals . . . Not merely the abstract thoughts of man but also his imaginative inventions must originate with God, and in consequence reflect something of eternal truth. In making a myth, in practicing ‘mythopeia’ and peopling the world with elves and dragons and goblins, a story-teller . . . is actually fulfilling God’s purpose, and reflecting a splintered fragment of the true light. 

God’s Story leaks and seeps into the stories we create and tell. They reflect something of the truest and best Story, the one in which we all live and breathe. They echo eternal truth, “reflecting a splintered fragment of the true light,” telling us something about the world we live in, who we are, why we do the things we do and—if they are really good—about the One who created it all.

And that is why stories that begin Once Upon a Time keep bringing God-talk into these open spaces.

A new gig

MWR graciously invited me to write a periodic column about popular culture and faith and named it after this blog. My first column? It's all about how the stories we find on television, film, in books and elsewhere in culture bring God-talk into open spaces: 

I love good stories. Most of us can name favorites — a novel, short story, film, television show, something we read in a magazine or newspaper or heard somewhere. 

There are as many ways to tell good stories as there are forms of art and human creativity. Each form brings unique aspects to the story being told. 

One of my favorite things about all good stories is the way they bring God-talk into open spaces. 

Among other things, good stories explore what it means to be human and live in this world. They get at who we are and why we do the things we do. They tell us something about ourselves, the world we live in and the people around us. 

And the best stories are true — not that they actually happened but that they reflect human nature and the way the world works. They reflect, in essence, something of the truest and best Story, the one in which we all live and breathe....

You can read the rest here at MWR.

Films on the road that bring God-talk into open spaces

Arts & Faith has put out another top 25 list, this time “Top 25 Road Films.” What do these films have in common? Darren Hughes explains:

The “on the road” theme has such staying power, in part, because there is a shared ethic at work in these stories. Some people, including a majority of A&F voters, would argue it’s a God-breathed and essential ethic—that each of these stories reflects a fundamental desire for spiritual improvement or progress toward sanctification or, more simply, a moment of epiphany or grace. (Not by coincidence, American evangelicals have taken to calling their lives “walks with God.”) 

As habitual storytellers, we humans have transformed this ethic into countless odysseys, coming-of age tales, and allegorical paths towards enlightenment. Hollywood has celebrated the “freedom of the open road” and the glory of a trial by fire. Ultimately, road movies offer us a brief glimpse of potential alternatives to the soul-sickening “everdayness” of our lives.

My favorites of the films they list are 2001, Apocalypse Now, Up and The Thief of Bagdad (the whole family enjoyed those) and The Searchers (one of my all-time favorite films). The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada has been on my list forever; this list may be what I need to finally seek it out.

While most of the following may be somewhat déclassé additions (though a couple are, arguably, among the best films out there), here are some more “on the road” films I’ve enjoyed that share those movements towards “a moment of epiphany or grace”—and have brought God-talk into these open spaces along the way.

Book of Eli. This film centers on a mysterious sword-wielding stranger who is protecting an ancient book and on a journey through a post-apocalyptic landscape of a not too distant future. While the film garnered rather negative reception when it released, I liked it. I appreciated the Western genre elements and themes, and plot-wise, I enjoyed how all the clues for the twists are there (and there was one twist I didn’t expect). And I also thought some of the God-talk in the film is worth contemplating. You can read the rest of my thoughts here.

Children of Men.  In this post-apocolyptic film, adapted from P.D. James' novel, women can no longer conceive. The world hasn’t witnessed a baby born in almost two decades and the human race is looking into the face of its death. As a result, the world is falling apart, oozing with wars, anarchy and despair. Many try to flee to Britain, one of the last surviving governments, itself under martial law as the chaos threatens to undue even this last refuge. It is here we meet Theo, a Brit who is chosen to protect and bear a secret that could change the fate of man: Kee, a woman who is almost nine months pregnant. Their journey is to make their way through the treacherous Britain towards a rendezvous point with the benevolent and mysterious Human Project, with whom she can have her child in safety.  You can read the rest of my thoughts here.

Déjà Vu. A “road trip” through time rather than distance (and arguably a film that might not belong on this list), ATF agent Doug Carlin is investigating the blowing-up of a New Orleans ferry (killing over 500 people, including children). He joins a special government task force that wields a mysterious and experimental technology that allows them to peer back in time four days—in great detail and with no point-of-view restrictions. Carlin intuits that the death of a woman, Claire Kuchever, a few hours before the explosion is connected to the crime, and has the task force focus on her. As he observes her, his attachment to her grows—and he sets out on a journey through time to save her and prevent the ferry explosion. You can read the rest of my thoughts here.

Logan’s Run. In this classic dystopian sci-fi film, Logan’s people live in a gigantic domed city bubbled off from the world—in fact, they don’t even know there is a vast land teeming with life outside. As a people, they have an extremely limited and very dangerous understanding of who they are and the world in which they live. On the surface, it appears they have lives filled with pleasure with every need provided for. But when each person reaches 30, they report to the Carrousel, where they are told they have a chance of Renewal (or rebirth)—but actually they are killed as a method of population control. As Logan and Jessica journey through and then outside the city, they also journey towards a fuller understanding of reality and the world they live in—and bring that knowledge back to free the rest of the city. You can read the rest of my thoughts here.

Lord of the Rings. Arguably one of the ultimate road trip stories, the journey of Frodo and the fellowship is laced with many moments of grace, sanctification, and epiphany. You can read some of my thoughts on the films here and here.

Pitch Black.  This is a 2000 sci-fi flick about a group of passengers on a transport ship who crash land on a desert planet and journey across a land infested with flesh-eating pterodactyl-like creatures that come out in the darkness to reach a transport that can get them off the planet. I must have seen this movie at least half a dozen times (admittedly, mostly the edited version of this rated R film they show on television). It’s a pretty decent film as far as science fiction films go (and I have hard time thinking of another planet-rise as amazing as the one in this film), but what draws me back has more to do with Riddick and his journey. You can read the rest of my thoughts here.

Serenity. This sci-fi film that continues the small-screen Firefly on the big screen is as much about Captain Malcom Reynold’s personal journey as it is about the "road trip" of the crew of Serenity through space. You can read a bit of my thoughts about the film here and the series here.

True Grit. There are now two big screen versions of Charles Portis’ novel that follows the journey of 14 year-old Mattie, who hires the morally questionable but effective Marshall Rooster Cogburn to go after the man who shot and killed her father. Interesting, the films end in different places; the Cohens’ film more closely follows the book while the John Wayne version changes the ending towards a more hopeful note. You can read more of my thoughts on the Wayne film here and the novel and its ending here. For what it’s worth, an original film poster of the Cohens’ version hangs on our wall (which means we liked it).

Zathura. In this sci-fi film, two brothers start to play an old board game and find themselves (and their house and sister) suddenly thrust into outer space. The only way to return house and home to Earth? Continue playing the game. Granted, this is a different kind of “road trip” but the message of the film—“there are some games you can’t play alone”—is a good one. You can read more about my thoughts on this film here.

How do we retell our Story?

Director Gary Ross/Lionsgate via IMDB

In “Gamesmakers Hijack Story: Capitol Wins Hunger Games Again,” author and blogger John Granger gives a lengthy but insightful critique of how the film version of Hunger Games changes the story we find in the novel. In particular, he points out how director Gary Ross has changed the story in subtle ways to be sympathetic to filmmakers' art and Hollywood, some things of which Suzanne Collins’ book was critical. Whether or not you agree with all of Granger’s observations and conclusions, he makes a striking point: Ross indeed changes the story, retelling it through a lens affected by his own experience and perspective.
                                                                                                          

As I read through the article, I wondered if Ross and the screenwriters were conscious of why they made the changes they did. Was it intentional? Or did it happen unawares? Then I started to consider this more personally: how do we retell our own Story? And how aware are we of why we retell it the way we do?

On a personal level, I encountered this issue when I started reading children’s versions of the Bible to my kids. I found myself bothered by how some of the individual stories were retold (or completely left out) and how that affected the Story as a whole. I was particularly bothered by overt threads of doctrine, most often of the Four-Spiritual-Laws variety. Often, the doctrines themselves were not wrong, but they were very limiting to the text. I constantly found myself adding to the stories and doctrine as I read in an attempt to give my kids a fuller version of the individual stories and the Story as a whole.

Recently, I ran into this again when I looked for material for some basic instruction on what it means to be a Christian, baptism, church communities, etc., for my eight year-old son. Again, I found the material limited in scope. Salvation was explained as a matter of forgiveness of sins but little if anything was included about God’s transforming love, the restoration of our relationships not only with God but each other, the power God gives us to live new lives both as individuals and a community, and how to work with God in our transformation. Granted, these are big ideas for little minds, but then so is the justification theory of atonement which played all the way through the material.

Now, lest you think I’m all finger-pointy at the specks in the eyes of others and not able to see the log in my own eye, I readily confess I do this too. We all do. How we understand and retell the Story is affected by a wide range of things, from our own walk with God and those who mentored us to the theology and doctrine we pick up as we go (both intentional and unintentional). Most of the time, we aren’t even aware of how our understanding of the Story is shaped until something causes us to examine it.

Which is why, I’ve discovered, it is so important to constantly return to the Story itself.

It has been said on many occasions that modern generations have the most access to the Bible yet we are the most biblically illiterate. I get that. We are busy. We juggle a lot. Our attention spans are short. We have too much information coming at us from too many directions. It’s incredibly distracting and, in the end, sometimes it’s simply easier to be spoon fed our Scripture from the pulpit than read it for ourselves. And then when we do go to it, we find aspects of it hard to understand. Or it makes us uncomfortable. Some of it we may even find offensive. Again, I will be the first to admit there are far more than a few parts of our Story with which I continue to wrestle and struggle.

Really reading the Bible, it’s hard work. God’s Story doesn’t fit into a neat box. It is wild and alive. It is always revealing, a sharp sword that cuts through the veils of the worldviews we’ve built up. But we need to be constantly confronted with the parts that challenge our ideas of how the world works, who we are and, most importantly, who God is. In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis records the sense of God stripping away his false beliefs and understandings—knocking them down like the house of cards they are—and revealing himself instead: “Not my idea of God, but God.” God constantly confronts us with our own limited beliefs and perspectives because he wants to be known for who he is. Returning to the Story is one of the ways we can work with him to do that.

It’s important that we are constantly examining our beliefs and perspectives against the Story because what we understand our Story to be and who we understand God to be is what we will communicate to others through both how we live our lives (individually and together) and what we say. And as the people through whom, as Dallas Willard puts it, God “is tangibly manifest to everyone on Earth who wants to find him,” it’s important that we work with God as hard as we can to get that right.

I appreciate Granger’s article on Hunger Games, not only because it opens my eyes to the subtleties of how we retell stories in general but also because it challenges me to examine my own filters and how I retell our own Story. And that is bringing a little bit of God-talk into these open spaces.