For parts one and two, click here.
Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins (Andre Royo), best known as “Bubs,” is a street-dwelling drug addict who serves periodically as a police informant. Season four finds him taking a young man (more…)
Posted in Art, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Religion, Television, tagged Bubs, Forgiveness, Guilt, The Wire on August 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
For parts one and two, click here.
Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins (Andre Royo), best known as “Bubs,” is a street-dwelling drug addict who serves periodically as a police informant. Season four finds him taking a young man (more…)
Posted in Art, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Movies, Religion, Video, tagged Forgiveness, Frances McDormand, Healing, Martin McDonagh, Pain, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri on March 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »
To access parts one and two, click here
So we’ve just seen Mildred and Jason act rashly based on misinformation and knee jerk judgements, and we’ve reflected on the matter thus:
Anger, even when it is just, can blind us. It [can be] like smoke and vapors that fill our eyes, restricting our vision and narrowing our sphere of action, so that we are more likely to act recklessly and impulsively.
This goes to show precisely what wiser souls have said before me: (more…)
Posted in Art, Books, Christianity, Current Events, Fantasy, Religion, Video, tagged A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez, Forgiveness, Redemption, Terry Brooks on August 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I got a lot of enjoyment out of Terry Brooks’ novels in high school and college. His philosophy of fantasy closely resembles (more…)
Posted in Art, Evil, Philosophy, Television, True Detective, tagged Forgiveness, Guilt, HBO, Marty Hart, Matthew McConaughey, Rust Cohle, Woody Harrelson on May 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »
NOTE: This is the third in a series of commentaries on HBO’s True Detective, season one; for the other two, click here.
You may skip the first post if you wish. I would, however, read the second (the one focused on Marty Hart), only because I am following a pattern set by the series itself: Marty (Woody Harrelson) is the initial primary focus, and next it will shift to his partner, Rustin “Rust” Cohle (Matthew McConaughey); this current post will function as a transition of sorts.
So here goes… (more…)
Posted in Catholicism, Christianity, Current Events, Dialogue, Evil, God, Jesus Christ, Love, Religion, Video, tagged Forgiveness, George Zimmerman, Justice, Race Relations, Trayvon Martin on July 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Youtuber Brett Fawcett offers some inspiring thoughts on the George Zimmerman trial and verdict.
Posted in Catholicism, Christianity, Family, Movies, Religion, tagged Chris Columbus, Forgiveness, Home Alone, John Hughes, Macaulay Culkin, Redemption on December 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Those of you who read the first part of this pair-o’-posts remember that it dealt with “Home Alone’s” portrayal of both family tension (traceable to the Fall in Eden) and the goodness and importance of the human family, the latter being shown by what happens to Kevin McCallister when he is separated from his own family.
What about redemption? Is the rift that opens up between Kevin and the rest of his family healed? If so, how?
As I said in the first post, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” on both sides. Let’s look at how this works for each in turn.
Any parent could relate to Kate McCallister’s anguish as, while flying over international waters, she learns that she and her family mistakenly left her 8-year-old son home by himself. Furthermore, any parent could feel Kate and her husband’s (John Heard) frustration when the family repeatedly attempts to contact the neighbors to inform them of their emergency, only to find that they have all left for the holidays.
As the movie progresses, we follow Kate’s frantic and seemingly hopeless quest to get back home to Kevin. She is looking for a flight to Chicago right in the middle of the Christmas rush, when there are very nearly no flights available to…well, anywhere.
The rest of the family, in the words of Megan McCallister (Hillary Wolf), is “rotting” in a Parisian apartment worried about the helpless little brother they left behind. Certainly, a situation like this would be enough to change one’s mind about even the brattiest younger sibling.
But it is Kate’s journey that should intrigue us most. In the mother’s search for her son, we see the breadth and depth of human love…particularly within the family. We cannot help but feel the extent of her motherly devotion when we see her travelling from Europe back to America and then all over the States, bartering her way from airport to airport, tirelessly and adamantly arguing with anyone who tries to tell her she cannot catch a flight home, and going without sleep for nearly sixty hours in the process.
If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that this level of dedication and self-exertion is necessary (even if not always to that extent) whenever there has been a major falling-out between two parties (family, close friends, a romantically involved couple, etc). Whenever something has happened to upset the relationship, someone must go out of his or her way to restore harmony.
We could think of it as being like a substance that has been stretched too far in a certain direction. Sometimes, the only way to put it back to normal is to stretch it a bit farther than normal in the opposite direction.
As for Kevin, we notice that the redemptive process works quite a bit more slowly in him. At first, he is feverishly excited over his newfound “freedom” and wowed that he “made (his) family disappear.”
But before long, he starts to realize that fundamental truth of human existence:
It is not good for … man to be alone (Genesis 2:18).
Kevin learns about the value of belonging through aloneness, of interdependence through isolation, of family through solitude.
In his childhood innocence, Kevin even connects his separation from the rest of the family with his own guilt. Fans will recall the heartbreaking scene in which, lying in his parents’ master bed, he looks at a family portrait and says: “If you come back, I’ll never be a pain in the butt again. I promise.”
Almost immediately afterwards, he experiences what I would call “mutual metanoia*” in an encounter with his neighbor, “old man Marley” (see my December 5 post at https://intothedance.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/home-alone-a-great-work-of-art/ for more information on that). Upon learning that Marley has long been estranged from his son – and, by extension, from his young granddaughter – because of a heated argument they had years before, Kevin strongly encourages him to give his son a call and see if reconciliation might be possible.
Through the encouragement of an 8-year-old, Marley overcomes his fear of the possibility that his son won’t speak to him, and reconciliation does indeed ensue.
Finally, I think it’s fair to say that Kevin’s appreciation of his home and the family to whom it belongs sharpens when he has to defend it against the invasion of Harry and Marv, the “wet bandits.” Bravely and ingeniously confronting the burglars from whom he had fled in terror earlier, Kevin learns selfless love through the exercise of courage.
It is interesting that this stage of Kevin’s journey comes immediately after the conversation with Marley. It’s as if the hope he gains (namely, for family reconciliation) from this exchange strengthens his resolve.
Let’s imagine for a moment that the events of “Home Alone” were factual. All things considered, the accidental separation of Kevin and his family could be seen as providential. Through this unhappy circumstance, God brought about healing for a family in need of it.
Such things are reflections of the ultimate Unhappy Circumstance – the immolation of God’s only Son upon the Cross – whereby the rift between God and man (and, by extension, the rift within each human person and among the whole human family) was healed. That is what Christ’s Coming (Christ’s Mass) was all about.
And I think it is fundamentally for that reason that “Home Alone” is such an endearing Christmas movie.
*”Metanoia” means “repentance.” This signifies a change of direction – we could think of it also as a change of heart and mind.
All images obtained through a Google image search.