I stayed up till midnight on New Years Eve, did you? First we watched a rather silly movie, “The Philadelphia Story” with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. We weren’t impressed much with it. The story goes that there’s this girl (Katherine Hepburn) who has very high standards. This is one reason why she left her first husband because (she claims) he drank far too much and she never drank at all. The night before she gets married she gets drunk and goes swimming with Jimmy Stewart (who is not her soon-to-be-husband) and then expects her fiancee to “accept” her as she is. Her fiancee is portrayed as this old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud who is inexplicably bothered that his soon-to-be-wife caroused the night away with another man. The moral of the story is supposed to be that no one ought to have such high standards, we should all just be content to get drunk and let people get drunk and do whatever we’d like with whoever we’d like. The only thing that redeemed the movie were the actors and actresses. I love movies with Katherine Hepburn and it was fun to see the dialogue and interaction between Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. But other than that, I wouldn’t recommend it. And that brings me to an article I read yesterday, I think it was called, “How Not to Watch Movies Like a Twelve-Year Old.” The author points out that children are self-centered. They want things to be about themselves. They watch movies to please themselves. But the best film/book is one that pulls us out of ourselves and in a weak and diluted way portrays the Gospel. The good story is one where we meet a character with faults, with perhaps “fatal flaws” and yet we learn to love them despite these problems. Even though this character may be one we would avoid in real life, a good story invites us to love them. “Entering a good story is primarily about learning to love some ugly person.” And I don’t think that means a physically ugly person but a person with an ugly heart and soul. Because after all, this is what God did for us. While we were yet sinners God loved us. The author of this article points out that a good story doesn’t call us to love an unrepentant ugly person. We should not be invited to love and embrace an unrepentant serial killer. But we should be ready to welcome the repentant and sorrowful sinner, as the father did for his prodigal son. Unlike secular and pagan themes of violence and revenge, the best story is one of grace, mercy and love towards a repentant rebel. So I think explains why I didn’t like “The Philadelphia Story.” There were plenty of rebels in there, but none of them repentant. In fact, the movie ended with everyone rejoicing in their low standards and amorality.
ANYWAYS…are you having a good start to the new year? I’ve got an awful of things to do. Quite busy. Very busy. Our family is going to have a poetry recitation on Saturday, I need to decide what poem to memorize. I remember the days when I memorized all sorts of long poems. Can’t believe I could actually do that. Ah….to be young again. 🙂
And I’m trying to keep up with the Bible reading. I joined this Facebook group where we are trying to read the Bible in one year, using Robert Murray McCheyne’s reading schedule. It is 4 chapters a day. So far it has been a little hard to keep up with, but I expect I’ll fall into a routine soon and it will get easier.
I hope you noticed the nice sidebar button for my new book. My wonderful graphic designer friend (over at Prairie Rose Designs) did it for me. I’m very, very excited about finally publishing my book. It is still in the works, but slowly progressing. If you’d like to help edit it, let me know.
