tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8176732908069622424.post5190321994435709244..comments2023-03-18T06:31:13.168-05:00Comments on Go Sit In The Corner: Brokenness and LoveAGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11241567321225195878noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8176732908069622424.post-12897010574470811792007-03-02T19:08:00.000-06:002007-03-02T19:08:00.000-06:00Among your series of thoughtful posts these past f...Among your series of thoughtful posts these past few days, the post on "Brokenness" tying into `Leaving Las Vegas' is a real show stealer in some ways! Pretty impressive stuff and showing depth and insight that makes one re-read it a few times. This part could really relate to, not recently, but have had friends like both the critic-examples, and in the movie. AG wrote,<BR/> <BR/><I>"When discussing this film with others, I’m always surprised to encounter this reaction: “Well, if they really loved each other they would have actually helped each other,” as if being the one last person someone has to just hold on to isn’t help and mercy and charity are overrated. In this line of thinking, anything less than Sera forcing Ben to stop drinking and Ben helping Sera out of the cycle of prostitution is not really love, but enabling. But what a weak vision that focuses exclusively on sins and sets up people to fail! Ben won’t stop drinking: to paraphrase he is drinking as a way of killing himself, or killing himself to drink. And no single human person other than Christ can be so much to another that he or she could plug up all the holes and heal what is likely years of sexual and physical abuse from childhood into adulthood to “fix” Sera. Don’t even get me started on the utter ridiculousness of Jerry Maguire’s (Tom Cruise's) line: “You complete me.” Ugh. <BR/><BR/>Early on, Ben looks Sera straight in the eye and tells her, "You can never ever ask me to stop drinking. Do you understand?" Her response: "I do, I really do." </I><BR/><BR/>I know well of that dilemma (and yes, I thought Leaving Las Vegas was `depressing' too, but had a bit of that reaction where it didn't seem so unfamiliar couldn't relate to it like the critic quoted couldn't) . This is what makes the post so special --- it speaks of a real-life aspect of daily life when talking about a movie. <BR/><BR/>In one way, it is a dilemma have faced in analogous ways in that I have befriended at times in just that `avoid up-front critical' approach type way, where I just made sure to be a "be there" person to someone's reality. It seemed enough to let the world handle the steady message of criticism and emphasis on their sins, either moral or of non-status; its not as if its not being said enough, while seeking to provide just some uncritical and accepting-as-are figure in their life and goings on, in hopes that it encouraged space to grow. <BR/><BR/>Moreover, another aspect of that commonplace tendency to find fault is its highly selective, giving nearly complete pass to particular sins while lambasting others, even when the relative harm to another or oneself is about the same. The watching for the plank in one's own eye first is a useful restraint here.<BR/><BR/>In prior experience, some of the ones so befriended did go on to some kind of pull-out or recovery, but the Sera response to the brokenness absolutely required that I put the value on the present, not the outcome.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, it was a very moving post. Not only have I offered such, I have received it when it counted. That is how learned its importance, and what that kind of love can look like. <BR/><BR/>One other point touched on the quote "I once made a devoutly Christian friend watch this movie with me. At the end, she said that she found the last scene, when Ben and Sera make love for the first (and last) time, morally wrong. Yes, extramarital sex is wrong." <BR/><BR/>I don't know why, but her reaction seems trivial. He is sinking, as a prostitute Sera's career has already involved her body in countless empty moments anyway; that scene with Ben at least, was one real moment of love. Though it did not turn out so in that movie, a moment of real love has the power to preside over the transformation of a broken man's life, as in the proverb of the "The Prodigal Son". To be stingy about offering it in such a circumstance, seems over-scruplous.<BR/><BR/>Again it is very hard to square what seems a hyper-emphasis on intercourse sin to the exclusion of others with the divine message of `all are broken' and of forgiveness for anything repented. On the larger level there is one philosophical note would like to make: Ben says to Sera "you can never ask me to stop drinking", it can be posited that while those terms must be accepted, a possible response of value would be `No, I will never do so. But will toast if it you do." <BR/><BR/>For sometimes what the other is really lacking is the sense that anyone else cares, in that real, non-seeking to critique or rebuke, accepting way. <BR/><BR/>- AurelianAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com