In
the movie You've Got Mail,
there is a wonderful line where a character says, “You are what you
read.” Just as we digest food and make it a part of our bodies, we
digest books and make them a part of our minds. I think the same
thing of books could be said of movies.
When
I was 5-years-old, my mom took the kids to see the movie Krull.
For those unfamiliar with the movie, it is a film tries to blend the
science fiction elements of Star Wars with the magic and fantasy of
The Lord of the Rings. Most people remember it as the movie with one
of the coolest 80's weapons: the flying, bladed Glave. Or as it is
sometimes referred to: the
“Really-Cool-Magical-Weapon-That-Can-Only-Be-Used-At-The-End-Of-The-Movie-Because-It-Would-Be-Too-Expensive-Otherwise.”
The
movie centers around Colwyn, a prince who is betrothed to the
beautiful Lyssa. It is prophesied that their offspring would rule
the galaxy. An evil alien lord hears this and kidnaps Lyssa. Colwyn
begins a quest worthy of Joseph Campbell to find his lost love.
Along the way he assembles a motley crew of outlaws, a wacky wizard,
a sage guide, an orphan child, and a cyclops named Rell.
Many
years earlier the Cyclopses had two eyes. They made a deal with the
evil alien lord to give up one of their eyes in order to see the
future. The deal was kept, but the only thing they can see is the
exact moment of their death. If they try to avoid it, it will only
guarantee horrible suffering.
In
the last act of the movie, Rell the Cyclops stays behind as the rest
of the heroes make a mad dash for the dark fortress, because he has
foreseen his time to die. His friends make it to the fortress, but
are held off by the dark lord's guards (basically Storm Trooper knock
offs). If they don't breach the black fortress, they will lose Lyssa
forever and the world will plunge into darkness. But at the last
minute, Rell comes riding on a Fire Mare with a full force James
Horner score at his back. He saves the day, but meets with a truly
horrible and painful end, as was his fate for avoiding his
pre-destined death.
After
the movie, my mom took us all out the Chuck-E-Cheese. We we talking
and laughing over a large pizza and a large pitcher of cold Pepsi,
when I turned to my mom and asked, “I don't understand why the
Cyclops came if he knew he was going to die. Why did he do that for
them?”
My
mom looked at me and said, “It was because he loved them.”
Now,
you have to understand that in my 5 year-old mind, love was that
thing that involved kissing or something that made you write poems on
paper Valentines. I'm sure someone had used the word “love” in a
different context around me before that, but I cannot remember. Even
my parents telling they loved me was still somehow connected to the
warm, fuzzy Hallmark part of my life.
But
Rell the Cyclops loved his friends. I couldn't processes it. Rell
was not warm and fuzzy. He was big, burly and always sad. He didn't
write poems or kiss anyone. Instead, we was often silent, always
helpful, and he died awfully. What did that have to do with love?
I
think this is the biggest mistake we make about love from the time we
are children and even, sadly, through adulthood. We attach love to a
feeling. How many of our movies are about chasing that feeling?
Remember Baby says to Johnny in Dirty Dancing “I'm so scared that
I'll never feel the same way I feel when I'm with you.” Or how
99.999999999% of the songs on the radio are about how love makes us
feel? For some of my students, they cannot grasp the idea that love
is not a feeling. I tell them that if it is, then it is an absolute
waste of time.
Here
is why: you cannot hold onto a feeling. Emotions come and go.
Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad. We know we will not
feel these things forever (unless we suffer from something like
depression). And emotions are irrational. How many of us have felt
sad when everything in our life at the present moments tells us we
should be happy? Or how many of us have been scared that there's a
bugler hiding in the bathroom cabinet, even though there is no
rational way that could happen?
Feelings
aren't bad. They also aren't good either. They just are. Fear of
getting in a car with a stranger can be good. Happiness at causing
someone else pain can be bad. The value of our hearts does not lie
in our feelings, but in our choices.
To
choose something is to make an act of the will, not the passions. I
remember at the end of the Great Gatsby, Tom talks to Nick about
someone he's lost. Tom has just done something horrible, but he
tries to explain to Nick that it is okay because when he thought
about his own personal loss, Tom “cried like a baby.” Tom
thought that having a cathartic moment had some sort of moral value.
To which I say: who cares?
We
have feelings. That doesn't makes us human, but that doesn't make us
good. I feel pity. But what good is that pity if I don't do
anything about it. The Letter of James 2:15-16 says: “If
a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them, Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,
but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is
it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
As
Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of the Chamber of Secrets: It is
our choices that show us what we truly are. And to make a choice
requires an act of the will. Rell the Cyclops knew that helping his
friends would not feel good. But he chose to help them. He set his
will against death and acted for the good of another over himself.
That is what led to his death.
And
that is love.
Love
is a kind of death, and no I don't mean it in weird Goth-y sort of
way. But love is sacrifice. You cannot love unless you put someone
else before yourself. Only then does love have any value or meaning.
It is better than a feeling, because you can choose to do good for
someone even if it doesn't feel good, but you can't feel something
good just because you want to. I've sadly heard of too many
marriages ending because the feelings were gone. But building your
relationship on feelings is building on a house of sand. It shifts
the foundations and then it crumbles. But real love doesn't change.
It will last as long as you will it. And the feelings will come as a
by-product of the love.
Now,
I didn't understand all of this when I was 5, but I began to get it.
And this past year when I Joseph Ratzinger's Introduction to
Christianity, it all clicked.
He wrote that Jesus did not have to die on the cross to save us. He
could have saved us simply by willing it, because He is God and He is
all powerful. So why did Jesus have to die? Ratzinger said it was
because that is the only way we would ever know who God is. God is
complete self-giving.
What
do I get from the cross? I get hope, salvation, Heaven, assurance,
guidance, consolation, and the forgiveness of my sins.
What
does Jesus get? Me.
I
often say that he got screwed on that deal. Because He doesn't need
me to be happy. But instead, He went through horrible torture and
gave everything away, including His own life so that I could be
happy. Why? Because He loves me. The cross shows me God's nature:
God is love.
That
is what Rell showed me in that dark movie theatre 19 years ago. This
one-eyed man taught me to see love.
You are channelling C.S. Lewis again.. :) A lot of the points you made about the nature of love remind me a lot of some of his writing.
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