Surrogates

Fatigue has finally kicked in, I feel wiped out my brain has stopped working so I thought I would take my mind off Baptism and Exegesis/preaching on Esther by reflecting on a film!

Yesterday night I watched Surrogates, it's a Bruce Willis film so you know what to expect, but I really liked the concept. People living through their surrogates, no need to be real with anybody, fed up of being a bald middle aged man (I am neither bald or middle aged) then be a woman. Anything you want...shiny happy people!

************Spoiler alert*************

The plot starts with the invention of surrogates and then the eventual spread to 99% of the population using them, I guess that most people don't want to be real. It takes the idea of masquerade and takes it to the whole new level. Never knowing who you really are dealing with...people can live a real life but who wants to, you are not the image that everyone is telling you, that you should be.


Some people lived through a surrogate as they were too fearful to go outside, others because they want to live a totally different existence...how far from reality is that?

I won't spoil the rest of the film but it asks in a hackneyed kind of way why do we need to live real life?

It reminds me of a friends blog post about clothes that we are obsessed with the outside but it also reminds me about Jesus' words:

Matt 15.17-20 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.

[ESV]

True life is not about living a projection of yourself but living life and life in its fullness (John 10.10). With my spiritual director I have been asking the question how real am I with people? The answer is that at times I say what I think people want to hear, and if I have been misunderstood rather than being awkward I let it go...maybe that is the Englishman in me! Yet I cannot shake this sense that if I can actually be myself in Christ then it would take a lot of the pressure off me. Not having to perform to everyone's expectations.

I am convinced it is the best way to live, a freedom to live life that has been hard one by Jesus Christ...

Dying you destroyed our death,
rising you restored our life.

Jesus, come in glory,
Jesus, come in glory,
Lord Jesus, come in glory.

Feel free to let me know what you think...

Invictus

I have just finished watching Invictus it brought back a whole host of memories it was the first rugby world cup I remember and I also remember hearing about Nelson Mandela and his release. The rainbow nation, doesn't it sound a bit like how the church should be, black and white, young and old joining together?

Watching the film was an inspiring reminder of what happened and what could have happened, I don't normally listen to audio books but when it is read by Desmond Tutu then it is always worth a look in the book was God has a dream. If you bring them together it paints a picture that hope can win through and that forgiveness is a potent weapon. What is the greater victory, annihilating your enemy or your enemy becoming your friend?

I like Clint Eastwood films, Million Dollar Baby, Grand Torino, and Flags of our Fathers/Letters from IwoJima he allows the characters to talk.

Finally here is the poem:

Invictus-

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

By William Ernest Henley (1849- 1903)

The Book of Eli

Having to work through my paper based journal (for my Liturgical Scrap book) I came across my write up of the Book of Eli. So I thought I would post it as I want to try and keep these resources togther.

  *****SPOILER ALERT*******

An interesting film which starts after the apocalypse, we are drawn into a back story as Eli walks alone along the road, encountering inhospitable terrain and violence.

As he travels he believes firstly he is called by God to take the book to a safe place and that God will protect him. In the back story we find out all Bibles have been burned during the war, and this maybe the only copy left.

•  What does this say about God?

That God has a message for mankind and he has given them a second chance. In a slight twist when the Bible is printed (it is the first book off the press) it is put on a shelf next to other religious books including the Koran & the Torah, this seems to suggest a pluralistic approach to religion.

When he is asked what he has learned from reading the Bible, Eli says:

"To do to others as you want them to do to you"

 Gary Oldman (plays Carneige) always plays slightly unhinged villians and this one is no exception:

Carneige: "God is good"
Eli: "All the time"
C: "Some of the time" He then shoots Eli in the chest and says:
C: "Where is your God now?"

 Carneige wants the Bible to be able to control people.

•  About man?

That man returned to chaos when given a second chance, that in rebuilding society it will be a multi faith as well as intellectual but those who are iliterate are abused by those with intelligence and power, there was no hospitality without a catch. Not exactly utopia.

• God's nature?

God seems to be in the background, protecting his servant by sending Solara and later him getting to Alcatraz with the book, but God is not meek and mild.

Worth having a look at, I think it is better than the road.

Handy film guide

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-04-12/

The Road

Last night I watched the Road a film about a dystopian future, much in the vain of the Book of Eli or the slew of video games which abound. As always there is an attempt to ask questions of human morality in the face of survival, cannibalism or loving your neighbour?

Any road we travel on has choices, do we get somewhere at the expense of others? The film shows that survival and protecting what you value muddies the waters of morality even with some quasi-Christian idea "the fire burning inside". As a film it does what it says, it paints man's creation, which is a bleak one. The film didn't hold my attention the whole way through as though it is well acted it is ground that has been well trodden. Still worth a watch but not a light hearted Friday night choice.

I would agree with Peter Bradshaw's review that it fails to catch the full horror of the situation and it is true that it is far more graphic in Cormac Murphy's book. Though I would add I am not sure I would be ready for that film! Zombies are far less disturbing as they have been corrupted by some plague or other. Cannibalism on the other hand is a corruption of the person which is equally dehumanising but more frightening in my mind anyway.