“Boys, life ain’t all lollipops and roller coasters,” — my high school basketball coach, after a grueling practice, and his own bout with indigestion.
I distinctly remember him downing an entire bottle of Pepto Bismol in that same day.
Is that even safe?
EPIC.
Today – I heard a message at church about being someone else’s keeper…being beholden to someone else. In the case of the Old Testament, it’s depicting the story of Cain and Abel and Cain not owning up to telling where his brother, Abel, was, when asked. (He actually killed his brother out of jealousy and envy.)
This is an extreme case, but still one worth noting where selfishness and self-centeredness can lead a person. It’s fairly safe to say, we have a love affair with egocentrism in our country.
Let me clarify. Many of us have a real ongoing struggle with love of popularity. I know I do. It’s something I battle everyday. Facebook updates, over-booking my daily schedule with hobby-based activities, profile views on LinkedIn, etc. It’s all a status check daily, and it reminds me of the child-like attention craved in grade school.
Like I said, I wrestle with social media and it’s false sense of security. If you don’t wrestle with this, then, I am thankful that you are free of it (or, can balance it with real-world interactions).
At church today, we saw a video of a guy driving a sports car recklessly around a corner with a sharp bluff below, and an on-board camera showing him going over the bluff and crashing. The camera gave us a vantage point that we really (as an audience) didn’t want.
It was a reminder (to me) that life is more than just profile updates and social media feeds. Also, it showed me that people looking out for one another is an essential part of living on this planet. No person is an island unto themselves (thank you, Mr. John Donne). We need others in our lives that can invest and mentor us and vice versa.
Someone should not only be our brother’s keeper but we should be someone else’s too. It’s the way life was meant to be lived. In a community. With real human beings. When a friend drives off a bluff, we shouldn’t stop to watch from a safe distance, but instead, we should run to help them. Letting Cain’s issue with loving his brother Abel be a lesson to us, we should love those in our lives that genuinely are there for us, and continue to be beholden to those that want us around as mentors.
Happy March 1! -Brian
Clint Eastwood is 84 years old and going strong. I watched American Sniper a few weeks ago and realized just how firm a grip he still has on directing a well-formulated film (true story or not). In the case of American Sniper, he really keeps the viewer engaged from beginning to end.
Another lesser known gem of Eastwood’s is the 1993 film A Perfect World starring Kevin Costner, Eastwood, and Laura Dern. Did you see that one?
It’s the one where Costner, aka Butch, plays an escaped convict that is pursued by Eastwood (Texas ranger) and befriends a boy, Phillip. The tone is amazing, and it is really one of the more overlooked films of the 90s and ultimately Eastwood’s career.
Phillip is a boy with a fairly broken childhood home. Costner is the least likely person (captor) to come along and sweep the boy away…teaching him some life lessons and evading authorities across Texas.
I’ve said too much, but I do think it’s one that you should check out. If you haven’t seen it, it’s one to find SOON. (It might have to be purchased, because I haven’t seen it on Netflix, Redbox, or anywhere digital recently.)
But, suffice it to say, this is one that should be savored. It has an all-star cast, but it also has something which allows it to fall into the ‘film’ category rather than just being another sentimental ‘movie’.
It is what Unforgiven, Gran Torino, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly all were. Films that offered a fresh perspective on universal stories that we’ve all heard. From towns that need a reckoning to good Samaritans standing up to fight for what is right, they all had an amazing storyline with a directorial eye that helped them become something larger than just a 2-hour show.
A Perfect World envisioned a scenario where a convict helped a fatherless boy, but the execution is so much more. Again, I’ve said too much.
What is your ‘film’ you need to go revisit? Maybe there is one that you haven’t discovered yet. I thank Mr. Eastwood for this one.
Thoughts? Nostalgia?
