Coming of Age Can Come at Any Age

Just a few days ago my wife and I saw the recently released film, "Nim's Island." Trust me ... do yourself a favor and see this at least once ... if not twice.

A research scientist, Jack, lives with his 11-ish year old daughter, Nim, on a volcanic island in the middle of the South Pacific ... away from the public ... completely away ... well almost. They receive shipments occasionally and communicate with the scientific community and National Geographic via satalight. Early in the movie Jack launches out into a two day expedition, leaving Nim alone ... with her animal friends ... and adventure novel featuring legendary hero, Alex Rover. Think Jason Bourne with Indiana Jones's personality and swave. Well, maybe not Jason Bourne ... as the kicker with Alex Rover is his famous escapes from impossible predicaments. On the other side of the world Alex Rover ... the real Alex Rover ... Alexandra Rover is attempting to complete yet another novel in her long-running series.

While Jack is out at sea doing research a surprise monsoon hits, keeping him stranded with no communication back to Nim. Nim is left to fend for herself and her animals ... and her island. With Alex Rover as her archetype (the picture in her mind she's striving make reality for her life) she faces brave challenges with swash-buckling courage.

Meanwhile a monsoon hits of another variety. Alexandra Rover is past her deadline for turning in yet another novel ... and she is marooned on the island of writer's block. If she could only get out for a while, perhaps she could scavenge up some fresh ideas. However, Alexandra ... the mind behind Alex Rover ... suffers from some variety of agoraphobia and possibly obsessive-compulsive disorder. In other words due to the workings of her brain, mind, and heart, she is physically paralyzed by fear to leave her apartment. She fears germs. She fears any food but Progresso Soup. Some kind of "progress" huh?

At any rate Alexandra and Nim make contact. Alexandra, believing Nim to be in trouble gets brave and decides to go to her. Meanwhile, Nim, believing her island is under attack by modern-day pirates, decides to live the Alex Rover life and fend her island off from the "invaders" (who are really tourists from Australia on a Pirate-themed cruise. So while Nim is leading the swash-buckling life created by Alexandra ... Alexandra herself takes on swash-buckling courage just to turn the door knob of her front door.

One of the high points of the movie for me ... and there are many ... was seeing Nim and Alexandra (who does eventually make it, by the way) meet. Alexandra just about reaches the island, when her stolen row boat acquires a huge gash from some rocks. Nim, thinking Alexandra to be her still-missing father, swims out to save her from drowning. Once on the beach Alexandra informs Nim that she is the real Alex Rover.

Nim ... looking paternalistically and quite disappointingly at the frail and pathetic Alexandra ... is simply in disbelief. "No, Alex saves people. He doesn't need saving."

Yet over time Nim opens up her mind and heart to this wafe, who opened up her mind and heart to the wide world to come to her so that Nim would not be alone. Both females came of age, despite their age ... and backgrounds.

What a lesson for us in the church ... in particular those of us in dying, gray-haired, traditional churches. Jesus wants very badly for us to take him at his word and live a dangerous Christianity. There is still time, despite our ages and backgrounds, to come of age.

There are many other parallels and metaphors that could be discussed, which makes this movie so much richer in content, meaning, value, and values than what is normally put out by Hollywood. I'll be meditating on this movie for some time to come. Please, do yourself a favor and see this movie at least once ... if not twice ... if not thrice.

Anyone Know Where They Keep Some Extra Towels Lying Around?

"One will never question our authority again." This is a line from the recently released movie, "The Golden Compass," which I actually saw last Friday. Peter T. Cattaway has written an excellent synopsis of the movie and the trilogy from which it came in this month's "Christianity Today" magazine. Please check it out. http://www.ctlibrary.com/51955

In my opinion this movie, like "V for Vendetta," released in 2005, follows a trend that seems to hearken back to the glory days of the French Revolution. The authority is all-encompassing and absolutely evil. It is to be questioned, disbelieved, and overthrown. The catch is when both movies are speaking of authority, they are not speaking of any individual in authority per se, but of authority in general. If we just overthrow authority, we can lead ourselves. We have no need of anyone to tell us what to do.

The problem in both movies, like the revolutionaries in France soon found, once the authority is overthrown ... then what? In "V for Vendetta" the "hero" is V, a man seriously maimed in body and soul by the government. For the rest of his life he will plan the day when he will take the ultimate revenge on the government by overthrowing it. He has faith that the population will rise up and create a more perfect society, free of the overshadow of the authority.

In "The Golden Compass" Lira is a little girl who doesn't like to be told what to do by anyone. She comes into her own when she realizes the megalith battle for civilization has fallen into her pocket via the last golden compass in existence. The others have been confiscated by the Magisterium (the overshadowing authority). The golden compasses are "truth meters," allowing anyone who knows how to read them to find any answer to any question. However, the Magisterium wishes to be the only answer-man on the block, monopolizing "the truth." Lira's responsibility is to take the golden compass she possesses to her uncle (who is really her father), so that he can make contact with another world like their own. In the mean-time she leads an effort to free all the children who have been captured by the Magisterium for a special surgery, which will free them forever from the burden of wanting to question any "truth" given by the Magisterium ... or any part of their authority. "One will never question our authority again."

As in "V for Vendetta," once the authority is overthrown who will be responsible for care and feeding of the masses? Keep in mind the masses are filled will people who will never be told what to do. Also keep in mind the ones responsible for caring for the masses are in essence defacto leaders ... and they will be filled with individuals who will resist being told what to do (which will in essence include being told what to do with their authority).

Anyone know where they keep some extra towels lying around ... for a little blood ooze? Secular humanism ignores ... all the way to the guillotine ... human sin nature.

This 1792 model of a French guillotine is courtesy of Michael @ http://boisdejustice.home.att.net/

I Find the Impossible Far More Interesting

http://imdb.com/title/tt0414055/

The red, hot Spanish Armada boils with the Spanish Inquisition cresting on England's horizon, ready to crash over Queen Elizabeth's Protestant (non-Roman Catholic) Christianity. Elizabeth's Catholic cousin Mary is a few conspiratorial letters and an assassin's bullet away from inheriting England's throne and "saving" England from the clutches of the Protestant devil. Elisabeth's beloved citizenry and court ravish the possibility to see their "virgin queen" hook up and knocked up. Her own desires for true love and friendship increasingly lurk around every corner of her private chambers...and actually mug her heart in public. Cosmo would certainly have a royal feast!

"That is the difference between you and I ... I find the impossible far more interesting," Queen Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) pointedly suggests to her loyal chief advisor (Geoffrey Rush). The impossible is poignantly captured in the recently released "Elizabeth: The Golden Age." In a word this film is powerful, and is so precisely because flawed, but real, human flesh painstakingly clothes the painfully naked realities of the real world in which the real Queen Elizabeth once lived. Simply glossing over an air-brushed history book often cloaks the tenuous high wires on which history's models have balanced their struggles, fears, hopes, and dreams. While our world is certainly under the ever-watchful eye of the Almighty, the consequences we have to live with spawned from our all-human choices are all-real.

As believers, whether we like to admit it or not, we live in God's very real world inside very real human flesh. Tenuous are often our choices that are fraught with very real consequences and entangled in very real, intricate, and often intimate contexts. This may not be "super spiritual," but it is super scriptural. And we are still yet commissioned for Gospel, cross-centered Mission. What will we do with our days (or opportunities) given to us by God? Will we succumb to the same-old, same-old? Will we give up out of desperation? Or will we dream God's dreams of Spirit-empowered ministry and world-transformation. Every choice is fraught with risk. Personally, I find the impossible far more interesting.