Movies Have the Power to Move Us and to Heal

Marie and I love the redbox. For a dollar you can buy two hours of intimacy, happiness or hope. We plug in the string of small white Christmas lights she wound around the headboard of the wrought iron bed, pop the dvd into our thirty nine dollar player and turn on the 150 pound tv we got free for helping our friend Steve move. His deplorable ex-roommate SpongePolly Squarepants had left it behind after ditching him for $8000 back rent. She was a devout Christian but had no sense of honor or responsibility, just a fervent desire to volunteer at the church and a willingness to exploit the kindness and misplaced affections of a vulnerable man with a weakness for alcohol and cheap women. You see how stories are intertwined with stories, wound around like the Christmas lights adorning the wrought iron frame of our lives.

The movies are the bright light in the dimness. We hold each other and laugh or cry together. Under the safety and comfort of a warm quilt and snacks we put ourselves in the story and consider honor and love and loyalty, what it means to choose someone and wait for them and overcome the inevitable obstacles and disappointments. Through our tears or our laughter or the arousal of our senses and emotions we consider what's worth living for. And we kiss with new tenderness and hope. They are the most delicious hours of our fractured, wounded lives. They ease the tension and regret and disappointment.

We watched "The Proposal" with Sandra Bullock and "Hachi" with Richard Gere. "The Proposal" is a flawed and predictable movie but we loved it anyway. We loved Sandra Bullock with her genuineness and spark and spunk. You knew where the movie was going but didn't mind the stunts that moved it along. Underneath our busyness and our business, we all have a vulnerable core. We want to be chosen and loved. We want to become part of a family and have hope and traditions and a place to go on holidays. We want to be kissed, chosen, cared for, and most of all, we want someone to believe in us and our dreams. The movie had a good heart. I don't care about the Oscars or the Raspberries. I celebrate anything with a good heart, anything that encourages the heart in us.

"Hachi" was an incredible story of tenderness and devotion, a story of the power of finding room within yourself for vulnerability and friendship. It reminded Marie of her mother's love for her father, and that is the highest compliment I can think of. Sixteen years have passed and she is still his devoted bride. Her memories of him and his gentleness and strength are the most treasured possessions in her life. He is still standing behind her shoulder, still gazing at her as if she were the most precious and beautiful women on earth. Genuine love is more powerful than all our flaws and limitations. It changes lives, communities, destinies. It is enduring and transcendent. The power to believe and to care can smash through our pretensions, the veneer of cynicism and bitterness we use to hold the world at bay. To believe in something, to care for someone, to accept the hard work of loving them and the risk of losing them, it's worth waiting in the cold. Ultimately we become a monument to our devotions, whatever they are, no matter how carelessly we misplace them. Reclaim your devotions. Hold them close.

My daughter says good-bye to her husband today. He leaves for Fort Lewis and then for Afghanistan. His son Ethan turns two in thirteen days. He's not the first father to leave his kids for war, nor the last, but it's desperately sad that leaders and nations do THIS so carelessly, send young men to The Hurt Locker for an ill-considered cause and an uncertain and unattainable objective in a hostile and far away place. Afghanistan won't be any safer or more secure and neither will we, no matter how many strong good young men we send to dismantle explosives in the street. There will always be more C-4 and newer and more sinister ways to hide it under a coat or in the trunk of a parked car. Of all the senseless dramas we play out, this is the most cruel and idiotic, and unfortunately, timeless and inevitable.

I don't want my daughter to hurt. I don't want her husband to come to harm. I hate the sophistry and rhetoric and false certainty that sends him there. I hate the military machine that deems it expedient, the crazed religionists and their senseless rage and the glee and fervor they stoke to keep this insanity in motion. I'm afraid there's not enough tenderness and hope in the world, and too much greed, too much fervor to destroy. The imbalanced hateful evil is winning the day. But Ethan and his puppy will wait for daddy to come home. May the days of waiting pass quickly and end with mercy and grace.