Christmas 2010
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God– for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 1 JOHN 4:7-16
Merry Christmas!
A Buddy Greene Christmas
Yesterday my wife and I were watching a Gaither video and marveling again at “Mary Did You Know?” by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene.
And today We receive a letter from Buddy Greene himself! What a Christmas!
The letter explains itself:
Yesterday my wife and I were watching a Gaither video and marveling again at “Mary Did You Know?” by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene.
And today We receive a letter from Buddy Greene himself! What a Christmas!
The letter explains itself:
Hotel Universe at Bates College
Pitching in the Kingdom
As baseball near its season climax, watch for New York Yankee pitcher Phil Hughes to take a moment behind the mound to remind himself of the verse noted on his glove:
“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
9 – 11 – 10
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake x we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than y conquerors through z him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
St. Paul
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
St. Paul
Friends
“Friends are God’s apology for relations.”
~ Hugh Kingsmill
Imagination
“Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.”
– Hercule Poirot
Can You See Your Shadow?
Groundhog Day reminds me of the movie of the same name. The finest analysis of the movie was done by Michael P. Foley:
“Groundhog Day is the story of Phil Connors, an obnoxious weatherman at a Pittsburgh TV station who must cover the celebration of Groundhog Day in rural Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Phil (masterfully played by Bill Murray) is egotistical, career-driven, and contemptuous of his fellow man. “People are morons,” he tells his producer Rita, played by an adorable Andie MacDowell. “People like blood sausage.” Phil, in other words, is the typical product of modernity, the bourgeois man who lives for himself in the midst of others. Rita describes him—and us—well by quoting Sir Walter Scott’s “There Breathes the Man”:
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.”
Read the entire review.
Groundhog Day is the story of Phil Connors, an obnoxious weatherman at a Pittsburgh TV station who must cover the celebration of Groundhog Day in rural Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Phil (masterfully played by Bill Murray) is egotistical, career-driven, and contemptuous of his fellow man. “People are morons,” he tells his producer Rita, played by an adorable Andie MacDowell. “People like blood sausage.” Phil, in other words, is the typical product of modernity, the bourgeois man who lives for himself in the midst of others. Rita describes him—and us—well by quoting Sir Walter Scott’s “There Breathes the Man”:
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.Day is the story of Phil Connors, an obnoxious weatherman at a Pittsburgh TV station who must cover the celebration of Groundhog Day in rural Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Phil (masterfully played by Bill Murray) is egotistical, career-driven, and contemptuous of his fellow man. “People are morons,” he tells his producer Rita, played by an adorable Andie MacDowell. “People like blood sausage.” Phil, in other words, is the typical product of modernity, the bourgeois man who lives for himself in the midst of others. Rita describes him—and us—well by quoting Sir Walter Scott’s “There Breathes the Man”:
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsungGroundhog Day is the story of Phil Connors, an obnoxious weatherman at a Pittsburgh TV station who must cover the celebration of Groundhog Day in rural Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Phil (masterfully played by Bill Murray) is egotistical, career-driven, and contemptuous of his fellow man. “People are morons,” he tells his producer Rita, played by an adorable Andie MacDowell. “People like blood sausage.” Phil, in other words, is the typical product of modernity, the bourgeois man who lives for himself in the midst of others. Rita describes him—and us—well by quoting Sir Walter Scott’s “There Breathes the Man”:
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
The Kingdom of Love Now Reigns
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God – for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in him.God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. ”
1 John 4:7-16
Merry Christmas!
At the Gideon’s Flame Christian Film Festival
A New Life has been invited to Manila’s Gideon’s Flame Christian Film Festival. I was invited to speak briefly before the screening. Here is what I said:
Thank-you for selecting “A New Life” for inclusion in your film festival.
When I was in film school I attended a book reading group at a local Baptist Church. We read a “God Story’ each week and discussed it. The discussions were fairly dull until we got to Mary Brown’s A New Life. Then the Christians divided on what we thought of the Christians in the story. Were they examples of bad Christians or good Christians? Did they succeed or fail? Was the heroine better or worse off after having encountered them? And finally, did they further the Kingdom of God or embarrass it?
I had been praying for an idea for my first film after graduation and thought maybe this one might provide the basis. The author herself agreed, and as the production demands fell into place I came to believe I had found a means to glorify God through film, my goal in venturing out of theater into the world of movie-making.
The film has both confirmed what non-Christians believe about Christians and again divided Christian viewers over the same questions as the short story.
How does a Christian filmmaker determine if his film is a success? Does he use the world’s standards – audience popularity, invitations to film festivals, awards, box office receipts? Or is there another standard for Christian filmmakers to use?
In his book on acting for the camera, Patrick Tucker distinguishes the stage actor as playing for the numerous people in the auditorium, while the film actor plays for what he calls “An Audience of One” – the camera lens.
I believe the Christian filmmaker, unlike the secular filmmaker, creates for his Audience of One. But in this case not for a camera lens, but for the Creator God Himself. I believe that a Christian filmmaker succeeds if God is glorified either within the film narrative itself or in the impact the film has on one who watches the film.
Does the Kingdom of God break into the life of a character? Does the Kingdom of God break into the life of even a single viewer of the film? If so, I believe God is glorified and the Christian filmmaker has pleased his Audience of One. To paraphrase St. Paul, “so neither is he who films or he who shows the film anything, but only God, who makes His Kingdom grow through the film…. For it is God who worked in your film to will and act according to His divine purpose.”
May God bless you, may His Kingdom come, and may His will be done in all your film experiences.
