Saving Power of Imagination!

My introduction to Woody Allen movies was through his later film 'Midnight in Paris'. I liked Woody Allen's use of imagination in the movie. 'Midnight in Paris' is a story about a couple, Gil and Inez, engaged to be married that go to Paris for vacation to celebrate their engagement. The lady's personality is that of a 'philistine' in that she lives in the 'material' world cares pretty much for nothing else other than good food, dressing well and exciting sex. The man on the other hand has a finer tastes for life. Gil is thrilled that he is in Paris the city of dreams for the quintessential artist.

The man and the woman see and experience very different worlds in Paris. Inez goes about the city uninterested, disenchanted and ends up having an affair with the guide. Gil on the other hand, finds his imagination getting fired up. He can't get enough of the city and goes about exploring it. Inez sees no point in enjoying the night walk in Paris. Gil goes it alone. It is in one such midnight walk that a carriage pulls by and he is asked to hop over into it. He gets transported into the Paris of the 1920s when it was thriving richly with a host of young Bohemian artists. He meets everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein and spends the night in their August company. This happens every night. Gil lives a dream life in his imagination. He is a happy man.

The question here is... What do you make of Gil's imaginary world? Does it really matter that the guy has such a powerful capacity for imagination? Or may be he needs to see a Psychiatrist? Why make such a big deal of this imaginary world? Should we just dismiss this cinematic depiction of the power of living in an imaginary world as a crazy old Woody Allen's attempt at making mediocre movies towards the tail end of his career.

I think the answer to this question is implied at the end of the movie in how Paris changes the lives of the couple. Gil is not looking for anything specific in Paris to satisfy him. He surrenders to allow himself to be surprised by his imagination. The more Gil is drawn into this beautiful imaginary world, the happier he is in the real world. That he does not get any sexual satisfaction from his bride to be is immaterial to him when compared with the beautiful imaginary world he is a part of. The woman on the other hand presumably gets ALL she the exciting sex she thinks will make her happy, but ultimately ends up dissatisfied.

When Inez finally confesses that she has been has been having an affair with a mutual friend of theirs and wants to break-up, Gil isn't the slightest bit perturbed which infuriates her all the more. Gil was living in such a beautiful world of imagination that the pleasures offered in the real world seemed mediocre. His imagination was powerful enough to make life satisfying for him. He did not need a 'hot wife' after all. He has his eyes set on a world where ones satisfaction isn't determined by ones needs but by ones ability to be eternally surprised by imagination.

I think there is a Christian principle here. Just like Gil is satisfied by the hope, joy and love offered by the imaginary world do that he does not care much for the mediocre pleasures of the real world, the Christian is to be satisfied by the hope, joy and love of the Heavenly world so that sometimes when we have to give up some of the pleasures of this world it wouldn't be that big a deal.

The Bible uses our imagination to enthuse us about the great goodness of the Heavenly world. The Bible talks abstractly about the next world in terms of the length, breadth and height of the treasures God has prepared for those that love Him. Then the Bible also talks concretely about streets of gold, sea of glass, great mansions. This abstract and concrete figures of speech is meant to fire-up our imagination so that in the imagination empowered Hope of the things to come, we would endure the hardships of this world.

If we do not use our imagination to envision, explore and be enthralled by the Hope we have in Christ we, like Inez will see a very 'reductionistic' world and will ultimately begin seeking after silly pleasures to satisfy us. Christians like Gil have to be people with fired-up imaginations so that we see that there is more to this world than meets the eye. We should go about exploring the world through the Word of God. The imagination empowered vision of the World painted by the Bible will help us set our priorities right and live a happier and FULLER life in this world and the next. Unless Christians use their imagination to see the BIG world that God created and called us to be in, we would become a bunch of petty people seeking after silly stuff in a reductionistic world. Imagination saves us from this narrow focus by helping us SEE the great things God has in store for those that love Him.

Safe House, Away from the Messy World?

Word enthrall me. Safe House is a movie so full of noise, but very few words. So there wasn't much in the movie to captivate me. But hey, I would gladly pay 10 bucks to watch the gritty Denzel Washington anytime. Denzel is one of the few rugged men still left in Hollywood which is increasingly permeated by the pretty kind.

In spite of all the bombastic baloney, a few words caught my attention which is what I want to write about. Towards the end of the movie, when the safe house keeper writes a report to his superior, his superior tells him that some part of his report would be redacted. The naive novice objects, 'But that wouldn't be the Truth as you and I know it'. His seasoned superior replies, 'Sometimes, Truth is messy. We don't want a scandal. Truth will give us sleepless nights.'

The superior did not want to be troubled by the Truth. He just wanted 'personal peace'. Francis Schaeffer  in his book 'How Then Shall We Live' says that the modern man having emerged into the post-Christian era has only two goals in his life, 'affluence' and 'personal peace'. As long as he is not troubled by the plight of people around him, he'll live in his self-contained sub-urban house with a beautiful wife, pretty kids and happily amuse himself to death.

The fact of the matter is, God did not design a world where some people can live in a bubble unperturbed by the plight of the sick and the poor and the persecuted. If people were to ignore the poor and the persecuted, God intervenes and brings the smack down on the elitist culture. In fact this is what happens with Judah. During the time of Isiah, the elitists in Israel (actually Judah) did not care for the poor and the needy and God brought judgement upon them.

Isiah 1
23 They do not bring justice to the fatherless,
   and the widow's cause does not come to them.
 24 Therefore the Lord declares,
   the LORD of hosts,
   the Mighty One of Israel:
“Ah, I will get relief from my enemies
   and avenge myself on my foes.
25 I will turn my hand against you
   and will smelt away your dross as with lye
   and remove all your alloy.

God's people are not supposed to live in cozy cocoons and turn a blind eye to the messy Truth of the fallen world around us. We are to hunger and thirst for righteousness in ourselves and in the world around us. We are to deal with the messy Truth of people dying of hunger, women trafficked from around the world to be made the prey to licentious men, Christians being killed in droves where they are religious minorities, the disintegration of life among the poor pushed to the periphery to make space for our cozy cocoons.

Dealing with these messy Truths will give us sleepless nights. But that is what God wants His people to do. In fact, in Isiah 1 the Lord says that He will not accept their worship unless they take care of those oppressed among them.

15 When you spread out your hands,
   I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
   I will not listen;
   your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
   remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
 17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
   correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
   plead the widow's cause.

It is interesting to note that God did not reject Israel (actually Judah) because it did not worship Him. Judah worshiped the Lord, but they did it just to placate their need for 'personal peace'. God wasn't to be fooled. Christians today can sometimes think that because we are able to have great weekly worship services that they are good Christians. Alas, we may just be turn-a-blind-eye-to-messy-Truths elitist Christians and not even know it. The Church is not to be the safe house away from the world. We are to make the world a safe house of God for the poor and oppressed who need a safe house.

Positivist Christian vs the Faithful Christian

I was reading Jim Collins book 'From Good to Great'. He coins a phrase called 'Stockdale Paradox' which I think is a great analogy to explain Christian hope. The story is about an American Colnel Stockdale who was tortured as POW in Vietnam. He was one of the very few who made it through the brutal POW life. Below is the narrative of the meeting between Jim and Stockdale.

When Jim asked Stockdale what gave him the strength to make it through, Stockdale replied...
"I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade."

When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
"Oh, that's easy, the optimists."

Collins was confused. He thought Stockdale's statment about not losing faith make him sound like an optimist. Collins questions him on how optimists were different from him.

Stockdale replied...
"Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

The POWs had two types of faith. One prevailed, the other did not.
1. One faith believed that circumstances would change. When that did not happen, the faith died along with that the person too.
2. The other faith believed that no matter what the circumstance, the self was powerful enough to make it through. The self remained powerful enough to make it through.

Among Christians too we have two kinds of people. The optimists believe that life will provide for them what they want at just the right time as long as they have the positive attitude and work hard enough. They expect they'll be married when they are 25, have a beautiful suburban house when they are 27, kids when they are 30, a great executive position when they are 40, become a Church Elder when you are 45, a director when you are 50 (if not a CEO) and have grand kids by 60. For whatever reason when that does not happen, they'll begin to grumble, they'll be angry at God, go in to a bout of self-pity or even depression or worse end up in mid-life crisis induced addictions from alcohol to drugs to illicit sex.

Then there are the Stockdale believers who don't quite expect that everything in life will turn out the way they expect it to. But no matter what happens, they TRUST God would work it all out for good (Rom 8:29). The Christian believer's faith has a better foundation than Stockdale's. Where Stockdale has faith in his self, the Christian's faith is based on the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Christian does not just say he'll make it through because he has a strong will. The Christian says he'll make it through because Christ has already secured a place for the Christian in Eternity.

Stockdale then added:
"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

This an important point we need to remember. We should not try to deny or trivialize the brutal realities of life. Instead, we should acknowledge that life is tough and that we live in a fallen world. We need to remember that NOTHING in this world can separate us from Christ.

Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

 The positivist Christian who expects external realities to turn for the good will be disappointed, because in a long enough timeline we will all die. On the other hand, the faithful Christian is more than a conqueror, not because he has a better attitude or luck or marriage or achievement or pleasure, but because even if life deals its worst cards, he has faith that he will not be separated from our Lord who has secured for us a place in Eternity by dying on the Cross for us.