A three movie weekend

1. So, this weekend, Ben and I have decided to avoid the crowds for James Bond, and instead, concentrate on three very good "looking" movies, at least from the previews:  Argo, Cloud Atlas and Flight.  I can only say that going to one movie on a Friday, a 2nd on Saturday and a 3rd on Sunday is, for some, a most unusual triple play.  It was a habit I picked up in NYC when I would do just this for cheap entertainment, as all movies at my around-the-block theater (68th and Broadway) were $6 before Noon.  This time around, the trio is having a tremendous impact on me - so much so that I choose to write some here.

2. But before I forget, Argo was stunning in what it revealed about the rest-of-the-story about the Carter Administration that the history books never got.  Cloud Atlas was absolutely exquisite in inviting the viewer to follow a multi-layered story so gorgeous in cinematic layout and so explosive in meaning that traditional story-telling can never reach.  And Flight (which we are about to go see), well, I just really enjoy Denzel do his thing.

3. What is it when a movie empowers or inspires a viewer so thoroughly that his very own life is suddenly transformed (or at least significantly shifted enough) to take new directions in what he says or does?  Well, that is EXACTLY what happened to me today, a Sunday where I gained so much clarity about love that I did something I have never done before:  I went into to see my local ecclesiastical leader and told him exactly how I wanted to proceed with our apparent stalemate regarding my marriage to Ben.  (For non-Mormons, it's mainly a story about a lay ministry that is super-pressured to follow policy in order to hold onto their position that they generally enjoy very much - so much so that they administer rather than minister.)  In a most glorious few minutes of clarity before sunrise, I saw exactly what I wanted to say (with the movie still rattling around my head and attempting to penetrate my screamingly underdeveloped heart vis a vis Knowing) and then, just hours later, perfectly speaking the very sequence of sentences out of my mouth.

4. Absolutely stunning. I am now in control of my destiny.  Ready to rely on intuition if I am to believe it's from within me. Revelation if I am to believe that it comes from without. My own experience.  All the right brained stuff that academia drilled out of me in favor of what others (e.g. footnotes) have said before.  I have, almost without a blink, picked up my pen and started to write the next chapter of my life EXACTLY the way I want.  For some of you, this might seem strangely pedantic, even a no-brainer. For others, you understand what it is to have spent one's whole life trying NOT to make waves, so as to fit in.  After all, I'm now 8 cities, 3 faith based communities, and 7 academic institutions deep.  Trying to adapt to one's new environment with the best possible outcome is, with all due respect, one of the requisites for moving on. Whatever the income.  But, the price I paid, well. . .

5. I think that much of the coming out process centers around the search for, the acceptance of, and the celebration of one's ego.  Something that most people do in their teens and 20s.  I know - I watched a few thousand ex-students get to get this.  For certain reasons that I wish not to bore msyelf in rehashing, I didn't.

6. So what can I say about this three-movie weekend?  That I sought stories.  Other people's stories so that I could triangulate with theirs, Ben's and mine.  For me, the days of reading fiction books have come and gone - actually they disappeared the moment I went off to college.  Magazines, yes.  Non-fiction, yes.  Why I needed to step away from fiction is just starting to become apparent - I saw it as an absolute waste of time.  My life was fascinating enough to not want anyone else's fantasies.  But, I saw no use of  fantasy.  No use of entertainment. No use for wasting time.

7. In the end, storytelling is, to be sure, as old as the campfires of previous centuries and millennia.  Ben is showing me that life is not so much about achievement, about materialism, about chasing one's resume, about life making sense from post-industrial, urban, European-American way of living.  And that the tools for one's life do not have to begin with FEAR - that is, of not ever ever being good enough.

8. I suspect my own family fed me this porridge for starters - I do understand the fear deeply embedded in 1st generation Americans, (even though I am 3rd on one side, 4th on the other). And so did Princeton, with its "it's lonely at the top" warning somewhere during Freshman Week. And so did BYU as a newly-minted doctorate, with it's "make no mistakes and all will be well".

9. And then, so did this deeply enjoyable and deeply frustrating church I joined in 1988.  Mostly to find a really great community to soothe the pain of the rugged individualism that I had carried along all my days until then.  But, I think I also joined this church to affirm my deepest engine - the engine that drives me to escape my core belief - no, it's much much more than belief - it's almost wired in my consciousness - that I am almost always dangerously close to not measuring up.  And now, my story shifts.  For the measure is no longer relevant. Rather, it is the proximity to my mission that now stands front and center.