HOW TO FIND FAITH AT THE MOVIES: Encountering Your Wise Ones (Part One)

Previously, in John’s series of posts, HOW TO FIND FAITH AT THE MOVIES, he described the ordinary world of the person seeking to decide about matters of faith in The Fool’s Quest to Understand. In Issuing the Call to Adventure, he invited us to begin one’s faith journey by stating the issue of faith to be decided. In his third post, The Role of Reluctance, he examined how reluctance to decide plays a key role in our adventures. Now in this two-part fourth post, Encountering Your Wise Ones, he invites us to encounter the general advice of wise ones, especially  “The Pope” and “The Popess” inside us. 

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Following the hero’s journey, as noted in my earliest post, as it unfolds within oneself on the Decision-Maker’s Path ™, we now find ourselves at the fourth milestone where the hero encounters wise ones in our continuing effort to decide one stated issue, for example:

Whether, since I will someday die, 
I want to take only those courses of action that
satisfy my love of life?

As a cradle Roman Catholic, the first wise ones I encountered, beyond my parents and siblings, were the priests and nuns at my parochial school, Christ the King Catholic Church. For the most part, these men and women were able advisers who relied heavily on the Baltimore Catechism (go here for earlier edition) for our introduction to the wisdom of the Roman Catholic tradition. Obviously, my elementary schooling was before Vatican II and well before the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Fast forward, many years in my case, and join me, in Part One of Encountering Your Wise Ones, to consider how best (4.17) to approach wise ones, (4.18) to contemplate what they have to offer, and (4.19) to find the source of their confidence; and, in Part Two, how best (4.20) to understand the significance of each wise one as a stranger, and to come to acknowledge (4.21) “The Pope” and (4.22) “The Popess” inside each of us.

4.17. Approach:  How does sin affect your approach?

While the positive aspects of our Roman Catholic tradition were constantly before us in elementary and high school, with many good results, those of us brought up Roman Catholic were also taught to understand about sin and its consequences.

Many years later when I was first beginning my study of decision-making and its role in matter of faith, I wanted to reconsider whether and how sins might influence my approach to making a decision.

Living through the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and the changes brought on by Vatican II, I remember vividly the effect one movie had on me when it first came out. The movie was Seven. After seeing it, I became much more interested sin and how it affects decision-making, especially in matters of faith.

In the movie, the villain involved the pursuing detectives in some of the most offensive enactments I have ever seen of each of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, and lust, but not in that order. The movie’s sound track was deliberately grating. The color tones of what the audience saw were hard to look at. This was not and is not a movie for children and not a movie for adults who are faint of heart.

At the same time, those who can brave the encounter may discover some things about how best to approach wise ones that our Catechisms only described in words for our tender souls. For, gradually the viewers are so offended by the cumulative effects of the movie that they are led to develop not only an aversion to the sins described, but a feeling that they could never stoop so low as to ever sin again and especially not like this.

Then comes the twist.

Not wanting reveal it, let me simply say that Johnny Cash’s song, I Walk the Line is sage advice about the way to deal with sin because you may learn how there are moments when you want nothing more to do than commit yourself to do it.

One’s approach to responding to a dilemma about an issue, especially a moral one, is influenced by temptations to sin.

For instance, those caught up in the aftermath of the scandals of the Church involving money (banking), sex (abuse), and power (Legion of Christ) have come face to face with the problems any of us, but especially youth, arrive at when approaching the wrong “wise ones” who have stepped over the line.

When Jesus was confronted about the tribute money, he was being tempted with sin and deliberately put into an apparent moral dilemma. He easily turned the temptation around by practicing justice and exposing greed.

Starting with that one example, I pay close attention to how Jesus, tempted to sin by his opponents, responds. He practiced temperance instead of gluttony, hope instead of sloth, faith instead of envy, prudence instead of wrath, courage instead of pride, and love instead of lust. His approach stayed within boundaries.

4.18. Contemplation: What are you observing in others?

How, as a human being, though did Jesus learn these boundaries in approaches to life’s moral dilemmas?

Before Jesus stepped out into an open ministry, I imagine him observing the way those around him lived, just more intently than we may.

Perhaps he went out on the nearby Sea of Galilee and experienced something like Christopher Cross sings about in his song Sailing. Given the Roman’s rule over his people at the time, Jesus may well have sought out such peace by getting away from the oppressive forces of his day.

Here’s a movie that emphasizes the importance of observing, contemplating what others do, even during such oppressive times. The Lives of Others deals with the discovery of secrets and how the discovery can change the way we interact with others in our threatening world.

In our present world of the Internet, it’s as if nothing is ultimately private any more. Once that illusion of privacy is recognized, something quite unexpected occurs as it foes in this movie. A refreshing openness happens among people who have arrived at this new way of living. People seem to live more publicly, more in the open, like the way the Jews in the time of Jesus prayed openly in the synagogues and the Temple. Like the way Jesus lived his ministry in public. Like Roman Catholics wanting to take stands on the issues of the day.

Jesus observed the differences among prayer givers and offered us a stark lesson when he commented on the way the Pharisee and the Publican prayed.

What do we observe in our day, by contrast? Well there are doubtless readers who are “lurking” in the wings, so to speak, not yet ready to comment on the efforts of this blog and its growing number of posts. There are likely many reasons for such lack of responses. What do you think is causing this?

4.19. Confidence: What stories are showing your issue?

Steve Winwood’s song Roll With It has some helpful first answers to such a question. Among his lyrics are these:

When life is too much, roll with it, baby
Don\’t stop and lose your touch, oh no, baby
Hard times knocking on your door, I\’ll tell them you ain\’t there no more
Get on through it, roll with it, baby…

Surely one of the reasons Catholic Stand was started was to illustrate approaches that would take Roman Catholics and other seekers of faith beyond their reluctance by offering observations to contemplate.

But coming out of the mode of contemplation into action is not so readily achieved without finding a way to “roll with it” and in the process concentrate, focus, and gain confidence.

I can think of no more confident a popular movie character than Patton.

One of the more famous lines from the film was given in his opening speech at the beginning of the movie by the character Patton himself. It served to frame the story of this real-life warrior: “…Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

Roman Catholics who want to take a stand for what we believe want this same level of confident concentration and focus as part of what used to be called the Church Militant, but obviously now not with the same stand as Patton. Instead of seeing ourselves as part of a military, we are to see ourselves as pilgrims who want to share the journey.

For when we look at how Jesus spoke in parables in contrast to Patton’s commanding performance, who would have expected Jesus to win the battle with Death itself by dying for not only his country but for all of human kind?

Meditating on the parables of Jesus in the context within which they were given reminds me of how Shakespeare supplied hidden messages to his Catholic compatriots during his time of religious persecution as I have noted in another post.

Link to Part Two: here.

 © 2013 John Darrouzet. All Rights Reserved.