'Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include'. Thus spoke the young priest in his radical Easter Day homily in the wonderful film version (shown on Christmas Eve) of Joanne Harris' absorbing and insightful novel, 'Chocolat'. What a glorious celebration follows in the village square - a picture of heaven. 'We've got to measure goodness by ....whom we include...' Surely Jesus would have been alongside Vianne Rocher in her Chocolatier enjoying the chocolate even in Lent, welcoming the despised, the oppressed, building bridges of acceptance and transformation.
On Christmas Day in the evening we sat down and watched Edward Scissorhands, a Tim Burton film made 10 years earlier than Chocolat in 1990. Millie our daughter liked it very much and not just because Johnny Depp played Edward Scissorhands. There's a bit of a 'Beauty and the Beast' element to it, with themes of self-discovery, isolation, misunderstood gentleness and stifled creativity. The genesis for it came from a drawing by the then teenaged director Tim Burton which reflected his feelings of isolation and being unable to communicate with people around him in his suburban home in Santa Clarita Valley, California. As in 'Chocolat' I became aware of one who disturbs our comfortable assumptions, who is a friend to the lost and lonely.
'Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include'. Thus spoke the young priest in his radical Easter Day homily in the wonderful film version (shown on Christmas Eve) of Joanne Harris' absorbing and insightful novel, 'Chocolat'. What a glorious celebration follows in the village square - a picture of heaven. 'We've got to measure goodness by ....whom we include...' Surely Jesus would have been alongside Vianne Rocher in her Chocolatier enjoying the chocolate even in Lent, welcoming the despised, the oppressed, building bridges of acceptance and transformation.
On Christmas Day in the evening we sat down and watched Edward Scissorhands, a Tim Burton film made 10 years earlier than Chocolat in 1990. Millie our daughter liked it very much and not just because Johnny Depp played Edward Scissorhands. There's a bit of a 'Beauty and the Beast' element to it, with themes of self-discovery, isolation, misunderstood gentleness and stifled creativity. The genesis for it came from a drawing by the then teenaged director Tim Burton which reflected his feelings of isolation and being unable to communicate with people around him in his suburban home in Santa Clarita Valley, California. As in 'Chocolat' I became aware of one who disturbs our comfortable assumptions, who is a friend to the lost and lonely. 
1 comment:
Will be praying for you; just received the email.
as to Chocolat, weel, I'll just have to watch it again, now that I've got a good excuse
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