Monday, January 31, 2011

There Is Only One Way Out of "The Town"

As a Christian, I am embarrassed to say that a couple days ago I watched "The Town," a movie starring and directed by Ben Affleck.  It is sexually explicit, the language, though accurate to the characters it is portraying, is explicit, and the violence is horrendous.  But, through all the muck I allowed myself to sit through, I came to understand something better than I did before.  The world is in bondage to sin, and there is only one way out of that town.

The story line of "The Town" is based around its main character Doug McCray.  McCray grew up in Charlestown, a  northern annexation of Boston, in less than pleasant living conditions.  His mother left him when he was six and his father, though he was around, was not the role model you would want for your son.  See, McCray's father was a bank robber, and unfortunately, he taught his son to do the same thing.  After being drafted into the National Hockey League and being kicked out for misconduct, McCray goes back to Charlestown where, like his father, he gets into the professional heisting business while working at a gravel yard as his day job.  If only he would have stuck with hockey.

Doug McCray lived a life that he wanted to live in no longer.  And I think if all of his partners in crime admitted to it, they loathed their current state of life also.  They all lived in a vicious cycle of sin that they could not escape.  Stealing, killing, unjustifiable anger, fighting, sex, drugs, alcohol, huge egos, dishonesty, and insecurity was a part of their everyday their lives.  Simply, their sin destroyed their lives.

It is sad that it took a movie to wake me up from my blindness, but as I watched this fictional movie, I began to realize how true to life this movie really is.  Murder both in the mind and in the flesh, thievery, dishonesty, pride, insecurities which result in eating disorders and anger, adultery in the mind and in the flesh, pornography, and hatred happen everyday in real life.  Everyday people wake up and find themselves in a town that they are longing to get out of but don't know the way.  What people must know, though, is that there is a way out of that town.  His name is Jesus.

"Sin will make you stupid."- Grandpa Ditty

Postscript


The truth is, the plot of this movie is amazing.  But ,I strongly suggest you DO NOT watch this movie.  Not with your kids, not by yourself, not if you are young, not if you are old.  The content of this movie is not appropriate for any viewer.  I might have gotten something out this movie that moved me, but it was not worth the images, the sexual ones especially, that I will never be able to forget because of my poor discretion in movie watching.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Fall of Santa Fe

Many, many, many years ago when I was in middle school, my dad bought a guitar.  Now when I say guitar, I don't mean a guitar that parents buy their five year old .  I mean he bought a real guitar.  It was a Santa Fe style Takamine that had, and still has, the voice of an angel.  And even though he says he bought it for the both of us, everyone knows he really bought it for me.  The reason he bought the guitar is a story in itself.  Allow me to tell you the tale the best that I can recall.

If you didn't know, Harlan, Kentucky is one of the greatest places in the world.  And one reason its greatness towers over all those other places in the world is because of a little music store called Abraham's.  Abraham's has been there for about an eternity and a half meeting the musical needs of the Appalachian people there in Harlan County.  I am not sure, but I am pretty it sure it was a sunny afternoon when I strolled into to Abraham's on that fateful day.

On that fateful day I walked into Abraham's a proud up and coming guitarist.  Upon entering the music store, I scurried past the amps on the left and found perched so innocently in a guitar-stand, high up on a brown counter, a beautiful Takamine guitar.  Now, this wasn't just any guitar.  This was a real guitar.  This real guitar cost $1400...up until about three minutes later.  

Now, I am almost certain that on a previous visit the employees at Abraham's asked me not to play the guitars.  Despite my previous orders, though, I decided to pick up that magnificent, $1400 guitar and play a tune.  Well, that didn't last long because before long I was asked to stop.  This is where the story gets good.

I, like a good little preachers kid, placed the guitar back on the stand and walked to the front desk to make an inquiry about something I do not remember what.  But, as soon as I got to the front, it happened.  The guitar fell off the stand.  It was not pushed off the stand.  It did not jump off of the stand.  Two minutes after I put it back on the stand, it fell off the stand.  To this day, I do not know how it happened, or why it happened, but it definitely happened.  Needless to say, those at Abraham's were not very happy about what had just gone down.  Literally.

I would love to beef up this story and say that after the guitar crashed three feet to the floor everyone rushed back to see the damage , but I am pretty sure it didn't happen like that.  After hearing it crash to the ground and worrying that it was done for, I walked back to find the guitar still intact and in much better shape than I thought it would be.  All the damage that had been done was cosmetic and the guitar still played great.  But that didn't mean I was out the dark for there was still a price to be paid for the damage done.  So, I called my dad and he walked down Main Street from the church he pastored to clean up the mess I had made.

Upon looking over the damage, the store owners decided I (and by "I" I mean my financially independent father) had two options: 1)I could either pay $150 in damages or 2)I could by the guitar for $900.  After a couple of days, my dad did the unthinkable.  Despite the fact that I was the one that messed up and despite the fact it was expensive, he bought me that guitar.

To finish up this long, over-dramatized story, the day my dad brought that guitar home for me, everything was great.  I took it out of the case, removed it from the plastic inside the case, and began to hear that guitar sing.  It sang so pretty, I wanted to tell my dad how pretty it sang.  So, I quickly made my way to the dining room where he was sitting and started bragging about how pretty my new guitar could sing.  Not long into the praise report of my new guitar, he stopped me with words the I needed to hear.  "I bought you that new guitar and you still haven't thanked me."

~

God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams, and tonight I have genuinely realized this reality.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

A Real Man

What is a real man?

I will tell you what a real man is.  A real man is one who weeps and mourns because of the lostness of his father.

That's what a real man is.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

January 1, 1 A.D.

If, granting that Jesus was born on December 25, you went into the temple in Jerusalem on January 1 in the year 1 A.D.,  you would have gotten to be a part of one of my favorite Bibles stories.  The Bible story I am speaking of is the story of Simeon.  Instead of me telling it, why don't I let the Word speak for itself.

 22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
   you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
   and the glory of your people Israel.”
 33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
                                                                        Luke 2:22-33

The pinnacle of Simeon's life: seeing the face of Jesus.  What a guy Simeon must have been.  Keeping a promise just like He still does today, what a God He still is.