I'm up early...

I happened to go to bed at a somewhat decent hour last night, so here I am... up before 12:00pm on my own accord. A strange feeling.

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty busy day, at least as far as busy days go for me. I had a planning meeting for the Warm Beach junior high camp... I'm counseling again, wh00t. This time should be a little be different from last year, because I'm actually in charge of leading a workshop for the kids too - I get to teach creative writing. Now I can be just like all those looney, smoked-out hippie English teachers I had in junior high and high school...

Anyways, as a bookend to my previous post... I enjoyed "Signs" a lot. Though it wasn't as ground-breaking as "Sixth Sense", I thought it was definitely better than "Unbreakable". Though "Signs" definitely has a supernatural aspect with the whole crop circles/aliens thing, the movie itself is more of a family drama, or the drama of ordinary people dealing with difficult circumstances.

The acting was good, especially with Mel Gibson playing the role of a doubting father and ex-minister. While the movie had its share of scary moments and family drama, the scene that moved me the most happened almost at the end of the movie. Gibson, his brother (played by Joaquin Phoenix), and Gibson's two kids are hiding out in the basement of their house. Gibson's eldest son (about 7 years old) starts having a severe asthma attack, but unfortunately, no asthma medicine is around. Without the medicine, Gibson has to talk his son through the attack. Just previous to this scene, Gibson has flashbacks to the night his wife was killed in a random car accident, and his cradles his son, whose body is wheezing and wracked with pain, you see his face wracked the hurt and bitterness of a man who has seemingly has been victimized by cruel circumstances. At the height of his son's asthma attack, Gibson hoarsely shouts up to sky, "I HATE YOU!", in an obvious cry to God.

It was a powerful moment.

Maybe the scene just moved me because I sympathize a lot with Gibson's character, and when he shouted that line, he was able to somehow summon the depth of emotional content behind it. On more than one occasion, it is something I have myself have shouted and thought myself justified for saying it, as much as a part of me wanted to desperately not believe that there was a reason to say it at all. What is it about hardship, pain, and loss that can so powerfully scar our trust?

Faith is a hard mystery sometimes.
posted by G at 11:49 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33