A lapse by Maynard
I need to step away from politics for a moment. Politics will drive us crazy, because it’s always focusing on how the other guys are up to no good and we’ve got to beat them into submission. Some political battles are of vital importance, but we must guard against turning into political animals. Maybe this is why our boys and girls in Washington lose touch with us: As they become immersed in eternal squabbling, they fall prey to their own demons. Life is a perpetual two-front war, and both fields require vigilance.
Lately, HBO has been broadcasting a 1987 movie, Raising Arizona. This is one of my favorites. It’s an offbeat comedy/drama about a pair of misfits (Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter) who can’t have a baby of their own, so they decide to steal someone else’s.
Why am I so touched by this film? I don’t want children myself, but we can all relate to the sense of wanting things we’re never going to have. What are we supposed to do when we realize a terrible burden has been placed on our shoulders, but not on the guy next to us? That isn’t fair! And so we answer one unfairness with another, assuring ourselves that our actions are righteous.
Don’t tell me you’ve never been tempted. To be human is to be tempted. The test of our character is how we react to temptation. (And the follow-up test, once we’ve failed the first test, is to see whether we learned anything from our mistakes.)
When I figure out how to save the world, I promise to post it here. Until then, let’s just try to stay balanced. Some might find a moment of needed solace in the HBO schedule or on Amazon.
RAISING ARIZONA is one of my all-time favorite films, too. I haven’t seen it lately, but it is a forgotten comedy of greatness, to be sure!
Maynard is right about needing to keep a balanced life, and not go overboard with political obsessiveness. In a way, it almost seems like a temptation in the opposite direction. I get burned out and discouraged over the latest political bad news, and everybody in my life is telling me that I am WAY too worried about stuff I can’t do anything about. So there is a temptation to just quit pushing so hard, quit telling everybody you know about the latest outrages that the MSM won’t report. That is the temptation to quit and let the opposition win.
I personally think it is good to take some time off, but we can’t quit, because that’s how things got so bad in the first place. The bad guys told us lies, and we didn’t know what to do, so we did nothing, and now that things are so bad, we seem to be always fighting just to keep from going over the political cliff.
As a Christian, I got interested in politics in recent years, after seeing our religious liberties being erased and threatened. I did not want to let the bad guys force their values on America while I did nothing (like most people ignore it all and do nothing). But I have been thinking recently that I am straying too far from the Christian Walk, getting too far into politics which only distantly affect the Christian values I want to protect.
I feel I have definitely taken my share of little daily bites out of the bad guys, and maybe even a few big bites, but I need to be more worried about the will of God, not the luxury of my great Western lifestyle. They say that Christians in oppressed countries are way more hardcore Christians than the cushy-life Christians in the USA, and I understand and agree with that assessment.
For Christians, we have the story of when Jesus walked on water. Peter says, “Lord, if that is You, have ME walk on the water, too!” Jesus tells him to come and walk on the water, too. Peter starts out okay, staring and focusing on Jesus, but when Peter realizes what he is doing, Peter starts to look around at all the troubled waters all around him, which causes Peter to lose his focus on Jesus and become overly concerned with the waves–Peter starts to sink, but he manages to utter the shortest prayer in the Bible, “Lord, save me!” Jesus gets Peter back on his feet and they both get into the boat, but Jesus admonishes Peter with the all too familiar line, “Oh, you of little faith…” Peter was walking on the water when focused on Jesus, but Peter blew it by getting worried by the world around him.
Bottom line for me: Take a break, let someone else get some game time, but after I get rested up, get back into the game with a renewed focus and intensity! Let the waters rage around you, but stay focused on the truth. Jesus says the Word of God is the Truth. That’s what I need to stay focused on, and it has cleaned up my life immensely in the last eight years.
Hey Maynard,
I think I need a brief hiatus from the political scene myself. The mid-terms were too painful and bewildering, and we can obviously beat our breast all day to no avail. Better to find some interesting distraction. Since you brought up Raising Arizona, here’s my suggested list of DVD’s to rent this weekend:
– “The Black Robe”: great, little-known movie about the attempted Christianization of the Huron Indians in the 1600’s. Really, very interesting historical fiction.
– “The Power of One”: with Morgan Freeman. What a fabulous actor, and thought-provoking movie. Deals with apartheid in South Africa. A real look inside our own souls. Every man, woman, and child in America should see this film.
– ” Man on Fire”: Denzel!!! This guy is another great, great actor. This is a hard look at retribution, and what is fair in life. Not for the faint of heart.
– “Cinderella Man”: I boxed myself in my younger days, and consider myself something of a boxing historian. When I was a kid I would rent all the old boxing fight films on 16MM, with the projector, at the local library. Saw all the great ones, all the way back to Jack Johnson. This flick is authentic in virtually every way ( although one could argue that it painted Max Baer in a bit of an unfair light). In my mind, this fight between Baer and James J. Braddock, is the greatest fight in history. Set in the Great Depression, it is one of the greatest human interest stories ever told ( as I misquote Damon Runyon).
– “The Last of the Mohicans”: more historical fiction, and James Fenimore Coopers classic work is an accurate depiction of places and events in my home state of New York. Daniel Day Lewis is really tremendous, and Madeleine Stowe is another woman who you could fall in love with in a movie.
– “Hard Times”: The greatest work of Charles Bronson, and again, set into the backdrop of the Great Depression. James Coburn’s best work as well. I’ve watched this thing 10 times at least.
– “Ben Hur”: My man, my president, Charlton Heston! Heston, a Jewish prince, sent into slavery, returns for his revenge.
– ” From Here to Eternity”: set in WW2 Hawaii, with a cast including Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, and Montgomery Clift.
– ” Tora, Tora, Tora”: a pretty good historical account of Pearl Harbor, but a great flick.
– “Mississippi Burning”: William Dafoe and Gene Hackman. A true all-time great flick about the KKK and the civil rights movement of the early 60’s. Hackman gives a powerful performance.
– “The French Connection”: again, one of Hackman’s best, playing the real-life hero/cop Popeye Doyle, sent to France to break up a drug ring.
Some others: Gladiator, Alexander, The Patriot, Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ ( which I could only watch one time), Saving Private Ryan, and The Bridge on the River Kwai ( Alec Guinness and William Holden’s best!).
STG that scene wherein John Goodman and William Forsythe escape from prison, popped into my head…for whatever odd reason…while I was taking a shower this morning.
Weird.
Thanks for reminding us that there is more to life than politics,Tammy! I sometimes feel like just washing my hands of our government and living life like those people we all know who have no idea what’s going on in the world,and don’t care. Only problem with that is that one day you will wake up and not recognize your own country. Oh and I’ve never seen ‘Raising Arizona’ but I will definitely rent it this weekend!
Maynard is right. I sat down and watched my DVD of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To The Forum (1966)” tonight, starring Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford and Michael Crawford.
I know that Broadway purists loathe Richard Lester’s big screen adaption of the play (he cut half of Sondheim’s songs in the name of fleshing out more comedy into the movie), but this is one of my all-time favorite comedies, right up in the top five with Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Airplane and The Producers (hmm…lots of Mel Brooks and Zero Mostel in there!).
I spent the rest of the evening walking around the house singing “Comedy Tonight” and “Everybody Ought To Have a Maid” instead of being aggrivated.
Laffs ARE very therapudic!
Three more all-time great movies:
“Zulu”: With Michael Caine, set in British-dominated South Africa. A tremendous movie, great actors, great story. Character of the Zulu people comes to the forefront.
“The Ghost and the Darkness”: Actually, a true story which is fairly accurate, based on the real events outlined in the book ” The Lions of Tsavo”. The British set forth to build a bridge over the Tsavo River in East Africa, using Muslim workers from the north and east. In this very true story, two male lions methodically dined on the workers while evading traps and drives to kill them. In all, 140 workers were killed and eaten before Chief Engineer Patterson was able to track them down and kill them. The two lions are stuffed and still on display at the Museum of Natural History in Chicago ( http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/exhibit_sites/tsavo/default.htm). Read the book too- it’s even better than the movie, and all true.
“Breaker Morant”: Here it is, perhaps my all-time favorite movie, another set into the Boer War, with three British soldiers railroaded for murder. A truly great movie, and Michael Caine’s best work, which says a lot. All about character, conviction, and dignity. If you want to know what those three words mean, see this movie.
Ah, to escape this world for a while…..
For sheer laughs, I recommend “Bedazzled”. The original English version with young Peter Cooks & Dudley Moore. Very sharp, appropriately insane at times, and somehow genuinely touching. I do NOT mean the utterly mediocre hollywood imitation of a few years ago.
For more muted laughs, where the “genuinely touching” is central to the story, can one do better than the all american “Groundhog Day”?? And the longing for Redemption is something all of us out of mere youth can understand.
For one of the most haunting studies of wonder at the beauty of this earth and the oddity that is life, and the sheer exhilirating power of discovery, I recommend “The New World”. No, not a movie for everyone, with a style that seems to polarize its audience, but wait for a day when the ebb of life leaves you stilled and ready to see and listen and, just maybe, it will surprise you.
For escapism of a more literal sort, escape our time, and even planet, with “Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow”.
And, for unserious fun at the ways one can escape, try the golden oldie “The Great Escape”.