Before the BBC started making the worst adaptations of British novels ever they Masterpiece Theatred Our Mutual Friend. My parents taped it back when we had things called VCR's. At every family movie viewing experience I requested Our Mutual Friend to the point where I was banned from saying the title. That's right, banned.
Never fear! I was not daunted! I soon began requesting OMF. OMG acronyms are so gr8!
Let me give you a quick run down of OMF: It's Charles Dickens so there are lots of intersecting story lines, social commentary, a variety of precious old rascals, and some loving. The loving is what I want to talk to you about, of course.
There is a moment in the film I always mull over for days after watching the movie. (Spoiler alert!) John has continually professed his love for Bella (and not that dang vampire loving Bella–this is a mature girl played by Chuck from Pushing Daisies) and they've reached the point where they are either irrevocably separated or Bella can choose to leave a comfortable life of luxury and fashion in order to return John's love and live a humble life with him. Ta-da! She chooses John and when he sees the choice she's made he runs to greet her with the most radiant and innocent smile.
The word innocent, here, used to signify a lack of pretense, calculation, expectation, or any other -tion word. It seems a smile of unadulterated love, of being entirely in the moment, of being entirely belonging to another. Holy vulnerability.
To be honest, I kind of believe that men are more capable of this smile than women. And when I speak in generalities like that I mean, I'm pretty sure ALL men are more apt to smile like that than I am. And it may be a reason I love them. Although I can't remember ever causing a smile of holy vulnerability and it's small wonder, I am fairly certain I can be really difficult to date. (Now ask yourselves the question: difficult to take out to dinner or difficult to the date of 24 March 2011? The answer: Yes.)
Lest we poke at my hyperbolic, romantic notions and point out that I just saw the actor Steven Mackintosh pretending to be in love with the actress Anna Friel, may I point out method acting? Ok, so that's over, moving on.
What I have realized at multiple points (or maybe every day) of my life is that I do not embrace vulnerability enough. If you could see inside my head, heart, soul, etc, you could see the list of times I draw into myself: when I'm happy, when you're taking me to a day of exploring some earth works art and you bring up your recent divorce, when you just wrote a short story and try to share it with me, when we've arrived back at my apartment after your band has just played a show and you start talking about all the time we've spent together lately, when I'm screening a documentary I've worked on, when anyone notices that I've just pulled out some fabric and I've started hand quilting.
I keep rewatching this vid below, will you watch and join me in many discussions about this?
24 March 2011
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I don't know how you knew, but this is exactly what I needed.
ReplyDeleteRandom thoughts in response
ReplyDeleteIsn’t that what the Savior taught, love thy neighbor as thyself. That is why Pr. Monson is so cheerful all the time. As Elder Holland said in the last session, “Nothing gets him down.” He said that Pr. Monson has had a challenging life and it continues now. Imagine the stress he might feel as he encounters the suffering of members and the tremendous weight on his shoulders as the prophet. But he “is irrepressible through it all.” He knows who he is. He knows there is a Savior. He knows that “great is the worth of the soul in the sight of God.” He knows he is loved by his Divine Creator. That gives him the courage that Brene Brown speaks of. There is no fear in love. I am a child of God and He has sent me here.
I am reading a book by Parker Palmer titled, The Courage to Teach. He speaks of the same concepts in relation to teaching. He says much the same thing with some different terminology. Instead of wholeheart he speaks of wholesight. Actually I think he uses both terms. He says that our fear causes a disconnection with our own souls. I will need to look into her work.
I thought of reverence as I listened to her.
Reverence, spirituality, love, wholehearted
Christ was the most vulnerable. How can you go around proclaiming, “I am the Son of God, I am the Savior of the world.” Think of what that opens you up to! But He knew who He was. He had enough courage to experience all of our vulnerability so that He could know how to succor us in our infirmities in the flesh.