What Berke Breathed mocks is real and sad. We, as a society, have lost our virginity. We have lost our virtue. So far gone is it, that we think vice is virtue.
Kyrie Eleison! I relate to my shut-ins more closely everyday. For what is the holy trinity of shut-in conversation? 1. It sucks to get old. 2. Medicine is too expensive. 3. The world is going to Hell in a handbasket and I feel sorry for kids these days. I never used to agree with them so enthusiastically as I do now.
Now, at over 50 years of age, I remember seeing movies with friends as an undergrad and later suggesting and watching them with my parents when they came out on VHS (let the reader understand) only to be shocked or embarrassed by the content of a scene or two that I did not remember. I don't recall my father _ever_ using any sort of profanity, even when I might think it appropriate. A few years later, in 1987(?), I saw a movie with which I fell in love. It really affected me.
ReplyDeleteLast week I saw it sitting on the shelf at the library in DVD format and brought it home. Remembering my proclivity to forget inappropriate scenes and surprised by its "G" rating, I warily let my 8 year old daughter watch it with me. I still found it profound and moving, amazing in its power and even accessible to a child. Though much must have gone over her head, she remained riveted to my laptop screen reading the subtitles. "Babette's Feast" is rife with pietism and sentimentality and pseudo-Lutheranism, yet this is one movie that still surprises me for its power and art and all this with a “G” rating. I can't think of another “modern” film that fits so well into this category, IE, excellent film with nothing objectionable.
Now I do like a good "James Bond" or "Mission Impossible" on occasion, but why do so many think we need either profanity or violence or nudity in all of our films? These are not necessities in great films, in fact, they are detriments.
Hmm. The world may be more tattered and pernicious than the clergy appreciate. In talking to patients, my impression of the trinitarian conception of the ailing is as follows:
ReplyDelete1. It sucks to get old.
2. Medicine is too expensive.
3. The world is going to Hell in a handbasket, but at least I've got my Medicare ... so who the sam-hill cares what the kids will get?
Your (unworthy) servant,
Herr Doktor