Thomas Aquinas said, “Magnaminity is to open the soul”
On the spiritual path and moving toward mindfulness we need to grow. A way of growing is coming to know ourselves. Our true selves not our false selves, the masks we wear at work, when we socialize and sadly in our relationships. We need to strip down and get to our core.
In order to get there we must question, contemplate, and feel. Beauty as depicted in all forms of art is the ultimate truth and this, draws us to God. As an example reading a scripture passage and meditating, using your imagination to place yourself in the scene to see how the story relates to you and what you can and need to learn from it is one of the tools used by the spiritual masters. Called Lectio Divina.
I believe we can do the same with film. In every good work in the theater or cinema we have a cathartic experience. We identify and experience what the characters do. We can go futher and stretch our souls by asking questions and searching for the moral or teaching in every good movie. So this is the purpose of this blog. To enrich our movie going experience to delve deeper and discover the hidden voice telling us what we need to hear to move toward transformation.
My first movie is “The Light Between Two Oceans.”
This is a story of love, forgiveness, and making amends. It deeply affected me and the storyline stayed with me days after I left the theater. My heart was full of love.
Here are the questions I asked myself?
1)When I have to make a choice what do I put before everything else? What did the main choose?
2)What is the consequences of that choice? When in my life did I choose something I knew was not “right” and against my conscience but chose it anyway because of someone or something else?
3)What is love? Is it protecting someone? Is it pleasing someone? Love is defined in the catechism as willing the good of another? Is that what the main character, Tom did for his wife, Isabel? What were the consequences?
4) Have I ever tried to build my own happiness on the misfortune of someone else? In the film what was the consequence to the other characters as a result of what was done?
5) In the film there was a line said by Hannah’s husband Frank, “to forgive you only have to do it once; to hate or be bitter you have to keep on making that choice. Is there someone in my life I need to forgive? Am I spending too much of my time and energy nursing old wounds or flaming my anger?
6) Isabel was unable to let go and accept she was not meant to have a child of her own. Hannah would not let go of Frank or Grace. Both had dire consequences. What in my life will I not accept what am I holding onto? Am I insistent on getting what I think I want instead of what is meant to be?
7) What character do you most relate to?
8) Do I practice gratitude and am thankful for what I do have instead of what I lost or never had?
I most related to the Isabel because I have a tendency to not accept what God has planned for me. I try to make things happen and spent most of my life concerned about the future and what was next. That is why I practice mindfulness and gratitude. And much like Isabel she did not realize what she had in her marriage and husband. That is a gift of which I do not take for granted and is one of God’s greatest blessings!
Meditate on this, “Be kind and compassionate to one another forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.”