Escaping the Hot Weather

Here we are at 39 weeks and three days, still waiting.  It’s going to be 38 degrees today and I’ve been trying to come up with creative ways of keeping cool at home (we don’t have an air-conditioner).  I’ve thought about putting a wet towel over the fan, and sticking my feet in a bucket of water, but that’s about it.  Of course, drinking lots of ice water should also be part of the plan. 

There was also the option of going to the local library to sit in their air-conditioning.  Or the shopping centre, but that would involve a lot more walking rather than sitting.  And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get into the hot car to drive somewhere. 

One of my neighbour friends messaged me this morning to invite me out to the movies, which was something we had talked about earlier in the week as a way of escaping today’s heat.  So at least half the day I’ll be somewhere cool.

We’re going to see “How to be Single”, which is a comedy that has come out recently.  Hopefully the endorphins from laughing will do some good for my waiting!

Suspend your morals while I tell you a story

Last night I watched a romantic comedy with a friend and I couldn’t help remembering something J said to me once (or maybe it was someone else, or I read it somewhere.  Anyway, I just remember the conversation I had with J about it).  I’ll tell you what it was in a moment, first I want to write about the movie. 

In the movie we watched there was this guy and girl, best friends, who clearly felt more for each other than friendship, but were always missing each other and were never able to be together until the end (…spoiler?  I haven’t even named the movie, but it’s a romantic film so of course they get together in the end).  All through the movie I groaned whenever one of them was close to telling the other how they felt only to find that the other was in a relationship with someone else. 

As I reflect, this movie wasn’t as bad (subjective term) as some romantic films.  Neither of the main characters cheated on their clearly-wrong-for-them-partner to be with their best friend (a.k.a. love of their life).  But both of them ended up with dissolved marriages before the end.  But that’s okay, right?  They can finally be together now. 

And I know there are other films where you as the viewer are waiting and hoping for a marriage to break up so that the ‘real’ lovers can freely be together.  Of course, the film makers always spin it to make it okay in our minds.  The marriage wasn’t happy, the spouse was having an affair, the spouse was…etc. (because it’s often the spouse’s fault).   

Here’s what J said:  Why is it that in movies we still root for the characters who have fallen in love, waiting and hoping for them to get together, when it is at the expense of a spouse or partner?  We want them to be together even if it means breaking up an existing relationship that one (or both of them) has.  Why are we okay with broken marriages in movies for the sake of ‘true love’?  Somehow we suspend our morals, not just our disbelief, when we get hooked into such a story. 

While I suspended my belief in the importance of marriage during this movie there were a number of other things in the film that did grate against my morals, and I noticed them.  Drunkenness (when does good ever come of it?), lying (this one especially grates when you just want the character to tell the truth about their feelings!), and sex outside of marriage (this one doesn’t always grate, particularly if it’s with the ‘right’ person, the love interest).  So I didn’t suspend all my morals.  But it’s not as though the film was asking me to endorse those things in the same way. 

More could be said on this topic from the perspective of the action or crime-drama genre.  Sometimes we suspend our belief that every life is valuable and murder is wrong when we watch these genres.  We may even suspend our views on justice if it means the bad guy gets caught. 

So what should I do?  Give up romantic comedies and just watch G-rated films (or no films at all)?  Maybe.  I don’t want my culture (or the pop-culture seen in films) to shape my morals.  But I don’t want to disengage completely from my culture either. 

I guess part of this issue can be dealt with by moderating the amount of input these things have in our lives.  As a Christian I get my beliefs and morals from what God says is right and wrong because I believe that he created the whole world and everything in it, including us, and so he not only knows, but made, the best way to live.  So the input of the Bible, God’s words, in my life should be far greater than any input I get from my culture.  In fact, the Bible should shape the way that I view my culture, and everything else. 

I’m sorry that movies can cause me to suspend my morals for the sake of the story.  But after it is over I remember reality, I turn again to look at God and ask him to shape me, knowing that I am a work in progress.  And maybe in the next film, whatever genre it is, I’ll see more of it through God’s eyes. 

Someone to Blame

Last week J and I went to see Into the Woods at the cinema.  It was a fun movie to go and see if you like fairytales and musicals, which we do.  Into the Woods was originally a stage musical (lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine).  It combines the classic fairytales of Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Cinderella with a fifth storyline linking them all together. 

After the movie J and I got talking about a particular song.  This song was all about blame.  Because each of the characters’ stories were linked together there was always a way for everyone to excuse the consequences of their behaviour by blaming it on someone else.  Some of the lyrics include:

Baker:  It's because of you there's a giant in our midst,
               and my wife is dead!
Jack:    But it isn't my fault, I was given those beans!
               You persuaded me to trade away my cow for beans!
               And without those beans, there'd have been no stalk
               To get up to the giant in the first place!
Baker: Wait a minute, magic beans for a cow so old
               That you had to tell a lie to sell it, which you told!
               Were they worthless beans?  Were they oversold?
               Oh, and tell us who persuaded you to steal that gold!

The characters go on at this, trading the blame back and forth between them all.  The witch eventually concedes to accepting the blame herself if that’s what they want.  But she still thinks that she is right. 

The movie (/musical/song writer?) offered a kind of solution to the problem of the blame game.  I also found this song very interesting.  Here are some of the lyrics: 

People make mistakes,
Holding to their own,
Thinking they're alone.
…
Witches can be right, giants can be good.
You decide what's right, you decide what's good.
Just remember:
Someone is on your side.   (Our side)
Our side--
Someone else is not.
While we're seeing our side   (Our side)
Our side--
Maybe we forgot: they are not alone.

This song gave a very relativist idea of what is right.  It was a good reminder to look at things from other peoples’ perspectives of course, but after singing this the characters still did what they had originally planned to do. 

One way of presenting the atonement (Jesus’ death on our behalf) is that there is a dilemma between God’s justice that says evil and sin must be punished, and God’s love for his creation which means he doesn’t want anyone to die.  God solves this dilemma by talking the blame and the punishment upon himself in Jesus. 

The characters in the movie were all to blame but no one was willing to accept a punishment for their actions (or anyone else’s), there were enough other people to pass the blame off on anyway.  They solved their problem by killing the punishment (the only innocent party in the movie).  But that doesn’t really finish the issue. 

Even if you play the blame game forever eventually someone has to take the punishment.  Someone has to pay for what has happened.  Someone has to make it right. 

Jesus did this, ending the blame game once and for all.  He willingly took the punishment for all the blame in the world, even though none of it was his.  And he made things right, he made things good.