X-Men Wolverine
Another movie that I watched this spring was X-Men Wolverine. I was really excited about this movie because I am a big fan of the X-Men movie trilogy. It was with great anticipation that I went to the theatre to watch this prequel. I have to admit that I was partly disappointed by the movie. I was hoping for so much more. I will still probably buy it on DVD when it comes out. I did discover some spiritual insights in the movie despite the movie not living up to my expectation.
The first insight comes from the sibling rivalry between Logan (Wolverine) and his half brother Victor Reed and it is simply that sibling rivalry can be a nasty thing. All sibling rivalry comes from the same place and that is a desire to be loved. The problem grows when children (and even adult children) come to see their parents’ love as conditional. This could be the case because parents are human beings who are imperfect but it does not have to be the case because parents can love unconditionally with the help of God. When love is seen as finite though then it must be seen as something that must be hoarded because it is limited therefore brothers and sisters in sibling rivalry situations strive hard to out achieve their brothers and sisters or to simply beat them down in the hopes of getting the finite amount of love the parents have to offer. The solution to this problem is for everyone involved in the situation including parents is to come to understand that love is not like material things grows smaller when divided but is rather a spiritual thing that grows the more it is shared.
The second insight from the movie is I believe one of Wolverine’s best traits and that is that he is extremely resistant to peer pressure. When the others in his group start to do things that he does not feel is moral and he feels goes against his conscience, he quits. He simply does not let them push him into doing anything against his conscience and that is truly awesome.
The third spiritual insight from the movie is once again how anger can blind us. Literally in this movie, Wolverine allows others to turn him into a monster because he is so angry over the supposed death of his wife. I think that this is a lesson that Wolverine learns in the movie as later he refuses to act on his anger and simply tries walking away from a situation that would have provoked anger in me and I believe most other people.
Wall-E
There was perhaps no movie that I was more dead set against watching last year as Wall-E. While I do believe that we have to do what we can to take care of the environment, I am tired of feeling like entertainers are beating me over the head with the message. Eventually, my resolve not to watch this movie was worn down by all the positive things I was hearing about it from family and friends and so I sat down and watched it on DVD. I fell in love with it. I can say that it ranks really high on my all time favorite lists.
The first insight is easy, we need to take care of our world for it is the only one we have. When God created human beings He entrusted to their care the earth. Sometimes, I do not believe Christians take this as seriously as we should because often people promoting “save the earth” agenda’s stand opposed to Catholic teaching on other issues like abortion. The challenge for us is not to fall into the logical false hood (fallacy = an error in reasoning) that if a person is wrong about one thing they are therefore wrong about all things. In philosophy this is called an ad hominem attack (an attack against the person and not against their argument). Another way to look at it is an old saying “a broken clock is right twice a day.” I do believe that Catholics have a responsibility to take care of the environment and the best way to do this is by doing small things like recycling in our homes. Like many acts of service to our Lord, we cannot simply wait around for someone to invite a robot to do it for us.
The second insight from the movie is our need to take care of our bodies. As human beings we are a unique combination of both body and soul (spirit and matter) and we cannot emphasize one over the other. The modern scientific mind has a desire to divide things and to make them smaller we even divide atoms into parts. The Catholic mind though refuses to divide the soul and body and sees that both are in need of nourishment.
The last spiritual insight from Wall-E comes from the touching part where Wall-E is injured and cannot remember EVA at all. It takes a few moments but eventually he regains his memories and we have our happy ending. It was a reminder to me of something that I have been telling married couples for year that memories help to determine the health of a relationship. When a couple look back upon the good and bad times with a favorable vision their relationship is strong but over time if they are not careful they can begin to focus too much on the bad memories and not enough on good memories and this can lead them to a slippery slope. On a side bar I feel that this is one of the things that makes Alzheimer’s and dementia such terrible diseases as they rob us from our memories and therefore it is important for us to aid our love ones suffering from these diseases to remember as much as possible by showing them photographs and telling them stories.
Disney’s Bolt
There are some movies that simply slip past by my radar screen. They come to theatre and are released on DVD and I have no idea that they were even made. Disney’s Bolt was one of these movies. It was not until one of the grade school kids told me about it did I even know the movie existed and I am a big Disney-Pixar fan. I love the Incredibles, Monsters Inc, and the Toy Story movies so I was surprised all the more to discover that I did not know this movie had been created. I rented the movie and loved it especially for its spiritual insights.
The premise of the movie is that Bolt is a dog actor that does not know that he is an actor. He truly believes that he is this super dog and must protect his owner Penny from evil people. The television crew goes a long way in making sure that Bolt does not realize that he is on a television show because they believe it gives the show more realism. Bolt therefore is unaware of the idea of a season ending cliff-hanger and so he truly believes Penny is in trouble and therefore he breaks free of his trailer and searches for Penny. In the process he is accidently shipped from Hollywood to New York. While on this journey the hard truth hits him and he realizes that he is not a super dog but actually only an ordinary dog and this scares him at first. He eventually comes to grips with all of this and makes his way back to Hollywood and ends up saving Penny from a real life disaster just as his ordinary self.
What I love about his movie first and foremost is that Bolt’s journey is very similar to most of ours. We spend a lot of time in our life living in a fantasy world by making ourselves the center of our own worlds and we even endow ourselves with pretend superpowers like perfection, never having to say I am sorry, etc and even some that super powers that we don’t always think about such as being invisible to others and “I am the worst person in the world,” mentality”. The truth of the matter is that we are all not that different from each other. We are all human beings who make mistakes.
How often do we distort our realities by putting things as more important than people? How often do we not see the true blessings that we have or acknowledge just how selfish we truly are? If we are lucky even though it may be painful we too are jolted out of our illusionary worlds like Bolt was. Why is this so important? It is so important because we spend way too much time trying to hold our illusionary worlds together and not enough time trying to actually improve ourselves. And this moves me onto my second point and that is being one’s true self is where we find true joy.
When I was growing up and suffering from depression, I worried too much about what others thought of me and so one of the things that I did was I chose to never run anywhere. I would always walk because I thought running made me look silly. I missed out on so much. There is a great scene in Bolt where Mittens the cat teaches Bolt how to be a dog. She teaches him to fetch a stick, stick his head out the window in a movie car, and to simply enjoy being a dog. Through counseling, prayer, and friends, I got over my fear of what others thought and I enjoy simply being me. I know that from time to time I look silly playing duck, duck, goose with 4th and 5th graders are running around playing laser tag with 8th graders but I don’t care what other people think. I am joyful in simply being me. One of the great things that John Paul II did was to emphasize the fact that Jesus not only reveals to us who God is but he also shows us who we are. We can therefore move beyond our world of illusion and not be afraid of reality for even though we are not super humans in the real world, that does not make us bad. It in a way makes us realize what is important is not being all powerful but being all lovable.
The last point I want to make from the movie Bolt is the need for each one of us to have spiritual companions on our journey of self-identity. Who knows what would have happened to Bolt if he did not have Mittens and Rhino (a hamster in a ball) with him as he discovered that he was not the super dog that he thought he was. Mittens and Rhino helped him come to understand that it was alright for Bolt to just be Bolt and that if Bolt would simply do that then he would be super enough for Penny to love. (Interesting note is that throughout the movie all Penny wants for Bolt is for Bolt to simply get to enjoy being a real dog). There were many times on the journey that Bolt misinterpreted things wrongly and would have given up if it were not for Mittens and Rhino to help him through it. Who are your spiritual companions? Do you have a support group, faith sharing group, a spiritual director? If not maybe getting one or all of those would be your next step in spiritual growth.
I would like to reflect on is Clint Eastwood’s movie Grand Torino.
Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski and retired Ford worker and Korean War veteran. The movie opens with the death of Walt’s wife and the subsequent funeral and funeral luncheon. The opening scene shows us that there is quite a bit of tension between Walt and his children and grandchildren and this is the first thing I would like to reflect upon it. I found myself wanting to sit Walt and his family down together and to make them listen to each other. From watching the movie it seems that Walt’s children have gotten so busy with their life that they consciously or unconsciously see Walt as a burden and not as a family member. They are not even aware of how they show this to him through their actions. I think one of the major problems in family life is that we often begin to take the people in our lives for granted. Perhaps this is one of the many effects of original sin in our lives. I think it is therefore important to take time to examine our actions each and every day and ask ourselves how we treat people especially our families throughout the day. I think that it is also important to perform random acts of kindness for family members often. Walt’s family never gets to know what a wonderful guy he truly is and I am sure that Walt missed out on many of the wonderful traits of his family even though the movie does not make this as clear.
Throughout the movie we have the privilege of seeing Walt go through a conversion. He moves from being a very prejudice man to seeing his Vietnamese neighbors as his real family. The only way this happens is that his neighbors continue to invite and invite him over to their house. They see past his gruff exterior. He on the other hand has to accept the invitation. I have seen so many people miss out on good times because they refuse to take the chance to accept the invitation from someone to go do something. Native Americans used to counsel each others that if they were to be captured they were to try to share a meal with their captors because it was always harder to dehumanize someone to the point where you can kill them after you have eaten a meal with them. Maybe if you are having a problem with someone invite them out to dinner. Remember though that you will have to be patient because we are often very suspicious when people start being nice to us.
Perhaps the greatest lesson from this movie is how Walt is very much in line with being a Christ-like figure for his Vietnamese neighbors. Fr. Bob Barron and his website www.wordonfire.org can do a better job of explaining this but here is my take which is heavenly influenced by his commentary on the movie. Walt is first of all not from the Vietnamese world of his neighbors but yet enters into their world in the hopes of friendship and bringing about peace. Walt, like Jesus, shows his neighbors how to live a good moral life. Most powerfully though Walt represents Christ when he stops the violence in this little world not by escalating the violence but by absorbing it through a non-violence (on his part) self-sacrifice. As he dies he says out loud that “He has the light” and his death brings about peace for everyone in the neighborhood because the violence has been absorbed.
One last scene that I love in the movie is Walt goes to confession. The priest who is hearing his confession has been on his case the entire movie since Walt’s wife had died to go to confession and when Walt goes he confesses a few sins but nothing too major and the priest is startled and asks him “if that was all” expecting some major sin. Walt responds that these few sins have bothered him all his life. I bring this scene up because people sometimes ask me what it is that I think when someone comes to me in the confessional. I am first truly humbled by the fact that the person trusts me to be an instrument of God. Second I am amazed at the grace of the sacraments: sins big or small simply evaporate away in God’s mercy. Third I pray that the person will realize the fresh start that they have and not continue to beat themselves up for the sin and/or will try to improve their relationships by trying to find new ways to love. I have never felt superior to the person going to confession and I have never allowed what I have heard to change my opinion of the person who has confessed to me.
Transformers: Revenge of the Falling
The big block buster last year at this time was un-doubtable was the movie “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” The Transformers have come a long way since I was a kid. These fully computer animated robots have evolved much further than I could have ever imagine. I love when at the beginning of the movie when Optimus Prime transforms from truck to robot in order to talk to some military personnel by satellite conference everyone is in awe and one of the soldiers remarks: “If we are made in God’s image whose image do you think that he was made in?” (or something similar).
One of the things that I love about this movie spiritually is this great line from Optimus Prime: “Sam, fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing.” At this point of the story Sam just wants to be a normal college student. He does not want to stand out in any way. He wants to have no responsibilities or at least as few as possible. Optimus Prime though has come to Sam and has asked Sam to speak to the leaders of the humans to remind them of all that the Autobots (the good Transformers) have done for them. Sound familiar at all? How many times does God step into our life and asks us to remind others of all the good that He has done for us? In other words how many times has God asked us to preach the Good News (The Gospel) through our words in actions in times that may result in us having to stand out from our peers at the risk of becoming unpopular? God calls us out of our “normal” lives and asks us to be His messengers.
He does this constantly throughout the Bible. Moses was safe in the desert living a very comfortable existence when God called him through the burning bush. Joshua probably had his ideas on how to defeat the city of Jericho which probably did not include them marching around the city seven times. David was comfortable in his sins of adultery and murder when the prophet Nathan came to him and Mary and Joseph were making plans for a comfortable life together when the angel Gabriel came to them. We also here from Jesus over and over again that He will return at a time we do not expect Him. Will we be ready? Fate (God rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing).
Another great scene in the movie is when Optimus Prime is trying to protect Sam from Megatron. Megatron’s motives seem to some sense to be good. He needs the information in Sam’s brain to produce food for other transformers. Unfortunately the only way for him to get this information is for him to remove Sam’s brain (and thus killing him). Megatron in the midst of the battle shouts out “Is the future of our race not worth a single human life?” Optimus Prime realizing that Megatron’s intentions are good but the means by which he is trying to go about it is evil responds “You’ll never stop at one!” As Catholics we believe that both the intentions and the means both must be good and the only way that this can happened is if each person is treated as a person. John Paul II I think said it best “the opposite of love is not hate but rather objectifying”. (Objectifying- using another person as an object to get what I want instead of seeing them as a person.) Megatron probably did not hate Sam but he did objectify him. In Megatron’s mind Sam was nothing more than a tool a thing that he needed in order to get what he wanted. Optimus Prime though on the other hand saw Sam as a person.
One last insight from the movie was that Sam shows us the virtue of perseverance. He spent all this time looking for the “matrix of leadership” only to have it turn into dust before he could use it. He persevered though and believed enough to gather the dust and make his way to Optimus Prime. His perseverance is rewarded and Optimus is brought back to life. When I saw this scene I could not help but think that Sam’s belief here was no wilder than Abraham’s trusting God to fulfill his promise despite being asked to sacrifice Isaac. Sometimes I wonder if we Christians do not give up a little to easily despite the fact that God can do more than we can imagine.
So as I conclude today I wish and pray that we may all grow in vigilance, respect for all life, and in perseverance so that we will be “transformed” into God’s instruments.
Watchmen
The movie the Watchmen was the first movie I hated in theatres but have come to like watching over and over again on television. The movie is so densely packed with stuff that I think I missed too much of it in the theatre to truly appreciate the movie with all its complexity. For those of you who missed the movie here is a quick synopsis. In an alternate timeline ordinary police officers begin to put on masks in order to put an end to crime. These police officers/vigilantes become known as super heroes despite most of them not having any super powers. Their presence though alters the course of history. Dr. Manhattan (the only one that really has super powers) is a man/god because of a scientific experiment gone bad along with the Comedian help the United States win the Vietnam War; so in an alternate 1985 Nixon has been elected to three terms and the Cold War is about to become nuclear hot.
The movie begins with the death of Edward Blake (the super hero formerly known as the Comedian and current government agent.) Rorschach (the only Watchmen not to go into retirement when a law outlawing masks went into effect) begins to search for answers regarding Blake’s death. The movie ends with Adrian Veidt (the former super hero known as Ozymandias) setting off nuclear explosions around the world framing Dr. Manhattan. The result is that the United States and the Soviet Union stop fighting each other and united against the perceived new threat from Dr. Manhattan.
The movie introduces its watchers to some deep theological and philosophical discussions about morality. It does so first through the character of Rorschach. Rorschach is a tough as they come detective who has a no nonsense style of dealing with criminals. When he catches them, he is not above becoming their judge, juror, and executioner. There is no mercy in Rorschach or as Rorschach puts it he does not compromise with evil and so the first moral question that comes up in my book is forgiveness and mercy the same thing as compromising with evil?
I think to answer this question in a Catholic perspective means that we look at mercy not as a forgetting of a debt but rather the forgiving of it. Maybe an example using money might be helpful here. If John owed Suzie $10.00 and Suzie forgave John his debt it does not imply that Suzie no longer remembers a time in her life when John owed her money but rather she made a conscious choice not to reclaim the money. Mercy in this case does not deny reality but goes beyond the demands of justice. Mercy therefore is not weakness but rather strength. Ultimately we believe that justice and mercy meet in God and at the end of the world all the injustices of this present life will be fixed by God.
Another moral question that arises from watching this movie deals with the ending of the movie. Night Owl, Silk Spectra, Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach all know that Ozymandias is the one who set of the nuclear attack and not Dr. Manhattan but in order to keep the peace they all, except Rorschach, agree to keep this as a secret. Rorschach refuses and is destroyed by Dr. Manhattan. The moral question from all of this is there ever a justified time to lie or is lying always evil.
I would like to start trying to answer this question by first making a distinction between lying and not giving someone information that they do not have a right to. For example, if a Kevin comes to talk about a problem him and his wife are having, and later Bob asks me if I had heard that Kevin and his wife were having problems and I reply “no”, I am not lying because Bob has no right to the information because Kevin came to me with the understanding of confidentiality.
I personally believe that building anything on a lie must less world peace means that ultimately everything will fall apart and so it is better to simply address the issues as directly as possible. With that understanding we must know the truth about a situation before we act because we also do not want to misjudge a situation.
As Catholics we believe that Jesus is the truth the way and the life and we need to build our society of peace on Him. We can do this by building our society of peace (or the kingdom of God) by love and not by force. How often though in our lives do we try to keep the peace with little white lies instead of simply admitting our faults? Admitting our faults though can be scary because it leaves us vulnerable and we have to admit that we are not in control.
The reason for the new world peace in Watchmen is all based on a lie and therefore we know it won’t last and that is why Ozymandias is the bad guy and not a hero
Despicable Me
My first movie that I am going to dive into this July is the movie is the cartoon Despicable Me. To be honest with you, when I saw the previews for Despicable Me, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I did not want to see a movie that glorified a bad guy. I believe there is a part of our society right now that is celebrating people who do bad things because they are frustrated with “being good.” There seems to be more and movies and songs that celebrate people who have lived a good life choosing to bad things either for a moment, a weekend, or an extended period of time. While I can understand this to a certain point I really wonder if our society should be promoting it. It used to be that movies and songs (at least most of them) held up the person who stayed the course in the midst of adversity but now we seem to be celebrating those who give into momentary indiscretions. How are these movies influencing our society ?
A friend of mine told me that I needed to watch Despicable Me and I gave in one night during the snow storms of last winter and downloaded it from ITunes. I will admit that I found the movie enjoyable and spiritual insightful. The first thing that I really saw in the movie was that the main character Gru voiced by Steve Carell is bad because he is trying to earn his mother’s love. Throughout the movie and mostly through flashbacks we see Gru trying to impress his mother and failing miserably at it. It was not that Gru was unsuccessful or untalented it was just his mother seemed like she could care less about him. It reminded me of a poster that I sometime see hanging in doctors’ offices and teachers’ lounges.
If A Child Lives With. . .
by Dorothy Law Nolte
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive.
If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to feel guilt.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to be appreciative.
If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with recognition, he learns that it is good to have a goal.
If a child lives with honesty, he learns what truth is.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to trust in himself and others .
If a child lives with friendliness, he learns the world is a nice place in which to live.
The second thing that I really enjoyed about the movie is that Gru’s heart is changed by three little girls that he ends up adopting. He learns to look past his past hurts only when he chooses to love the girls. At the moment of his greatest triumph – he actually steals the moon – he realizes that it means nothing without the girls. Demonstrating the simple fact that we are made to love and to receive love and that our value comes not from doing or being successful. I think it is also very powerful story because it portrays children in a very positive light. These three little girls enter his life and change it forever for the better. Our society often likes to tell us that children are more of a burden then they are worth but the reality is each child is priceless.
So while I still do not like the idea of idolizing bad guys, I think that Despicable Me has enough of a conversion story (as I think about it – things are completely opposite here from what I was complaining about in my first paragraph. He got tired of being bad and so chose to become good), that I am glad to count Despicable Me as a part of my movie collection.
The Fighter
This week’s movie that I would like to look at is The Fighter starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. Mark Wahlberg plays “Irish” Micky Ward who is a professional boxer and his older half-brother Dicky Eklund played amazingly well by Christian Bale. The movie starts off with Micky trying to make a name for himself in the boxing world while being managed by his mother Alice and trained by Dicky. Dicky, whose claim to fame was once having knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in a televised HBO match, is now having his life filmed for a documentary for HBO. He thinks that the documentary is about his comeback but it is really about his addiction to crack cocaine and how far he has fallen.
The movie does a good job of showing the dysfunctions in the family and it is seeing some of these dysfunctions that I see some great spiritual insights. First in Dicky’s drug addiction, I see a sad and tragic sequence of events that seem to be effecting more and more people in our world today. The country singer Tim McGraw wrote a song called “Drugs or Jesus” a while ago pointing out that most people are trying to fill a whole in their heart and in the end they either fill it with Jesus (faith) or with drugs (other poisonous things). Dicky has definetly not chosen Jesus and it is shown by the way he cares for himself and others. He is more interested in getting his next hit then being there for his family. We must pray for those addicted to drugs and for their families and we must help people find Jesus in order to fill in that hole. Luckily Dicky has a wakeup call in prison when he sees how far he has sunk when he sees the HBO documentary. What becomes important to him then is his family especially his younger brother Micky.
I think the movie also should serve as a warning for parents because Alice (the mom) clearly demonstrates a greater love for Dicky then she does for Micky and even more amazingly a total lack of awareness that she is doing it. While I know each child needs a different amount of attention, support, etc from their parents, I think it is important that parents also take the time to make sure each child knows that he or she is loved and to just now assume it.
The last thing I would like to point out in the movie is Micky’s determination. Micky went from allowing his mother and others tell him what to do to being his own boss in a positive way. He knew what his goal was and he was going to reach it. He chose to train hard, he chose to let his half-brother back into his life, he chose to stick with Charlene (his girlfriend/future wife) and he chose who is manager and other trainers would be. He also trained hard to be a champion. As Catholics we should be as dedicated to our faith. We should train hard through prayer and good works and we should avoid things that will lead us away from our goal. Micky began to succeed when he stopped caring what others thought of him and did what he needed to do. In a similar way we succeed in our faith when we don’t worry about what others think and we practice our faith with true devotion and energy.
A-Team
One of my favorite television shows growing up was the A-Team. I loved all the action and drama and how crazy each of the characters was. You had Hannibal who thought anything was possible, B.A. (Bad Attitude) Baracus (a.k.a Mr. T.) who was one tough dude with a loving heart, Face Man who was a kind and caring conman; and who could forget the wild and crazy antics of “Howling Mad” Murdoch their pilot. I admired their friendship and their willingness to help other people despite their own personal problems (they were outlaws and were convicted for a crime that they did not commit.) Almost every time the A-Team came on, you could find me sitting in front of the television. It was only after seeing a commercial for A-Team reruns on TV-Land that I realized how no one ever got hurt on the show. Despite being trained marksman and blowing things up, I do not think one villain or bad guy ever died on the show. TV-Land’s catch phrase was something like “In this day of senseless violent why not choose the safe alternative—The A-Team—no one ever dies in the A-Team. It was much excitement that I looked forward to watching the new A-Team movie starring Liam Neeson that came out last year.
Enough reminiscing about the past though, the first Spiritual Insight I would like to write about is the idea that leaders can sometime betray you. In the movie Hannibal, B.A. Face, and Murdoch are betrayed by their leader General Morrison. I love though that despite the betrayal the A-Team does not give up what they believe in. With our “Church being a hospital for sinners and not a hotel for saints” (St. Augustine) there have been times when people in authority in the Church have at least failed us if not betrayed us. It is important at those times to remain faithful to what we believe in and that is the love of God and the saving power of Jesus Christ. My faith in Christ does not rest upon my faith in the Church but rather my faith in the Church rests on my faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. The sure fact that the Church has survived this long shows us in my mind that there must be a higher power protecting it.
The second spiritual insight I would like to share is the power of a team. One of the things that make the A-Team such a great military unit is its team work: each of them while very different from each other come together to form a community and care deeply about each other. Hannibal for example shows it after escaping from prison by rescuing the others from their military prisons. I know in my life that I have grown a lot in my faith when I am a part of a team. Being a part of a core team working to serve the youth of the parish, being a part of a group of friends who study the Bible, and being a part of a priest support group have all been ways in which my faith has been infinitely nourished. I feel God’s loving care and concern for me often through these groups. I feel that many Catholics are not living up to their full potential because they have not joined a prayer group of some sorts.
The third and last insight that I would like to focus on is based on one of Hannibal Smith’s catchphrases: “I love it when a plan comes together.” Most of the time in the TV show and to a lesser extend in the movie, Hannibal’s original plan falls apart in the midst of the operation but he quickly comes up with alternatives that help save the day. Sometimes in life we can become mad and angry with God when we feel that He is not paying attention or when our personal plans fall apart. I have found though that if we are faithful we will see that God’s plans always come about and are always much better then we could have imagine. The challenge is to trust. The apostles had to trust that Jesus’ plan of the cross was better than their plan of military conquest. Sometimes we must trust that God’s plan of love and forgiveness is much better than our plan of power and revenge.
While I thought the TV show was better than the movie, I did enjoy the A-Team movie and hope that there is a second. It was nice thinking about some of my childhood memories and remembering what it was about the show that I loved so much and I guess in some ways the reason why I value team work, planning, and loyalty so much is because of the show that I watched as a kid. I wonder what children who watch TV now will value. I pray that they will emulate only the virtues and none of the vices.