I have been asked several questions regarding the website, so I thought a word of explanation might be helpful to all.

First question: Why the picture and the II Corinthians 5:17 verse?
When I found this picture ( after a long search), I felt it "said" in symbolic form all that I wanted the website to say. For me the rising sun and the brilliant green grass speak of a new day and "new creation". I really liked the small rock in the foreground that has somewhat of an arrow shape pointing to "The Rock" in the background. The verse is not necessarily my favorite or a life verse, but I do love the true meaning of it. N.T. Wright puts it like this: "Verse 17, one of the great summaries of what Christianity is all about. In the Greek language he (Paul) is using, he said it even more briefly: 'If anyone in Messiah, new creation'. The new creation in question refers both to the person concerned and the world which they enter, the world which has now been reconciled to the creator."
There you have it; picture and verse proclaiming the great truth that with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the new creation has begun and you can be a part of it if you are "In Him".

Second Question: What about the class Faith, Film and Fiction?
Okay, I taught this class this Spring and I have to say it was one of the best I have ever taught, and not because I was teaching it! No it was the content that was so exciting....and as the lessons developed I became aware of a much deeper reason for the class than my own personal intention when I started out. I realized as we went on how deeply compartmentalized not only our culture is but that the deep divide between sacred and secular is within us! This class was a small step in breaking down that divide and challenging people to "see" in a whole new way.
The first two lesson ( or "conversations") are up on the website and there are six more to follow. These have been filmed but have not yet been edited. The person so graciously doing this for me is immersed in her work at the moment so we are waiting.....
The topics covered in the six sessions include film ( especially Titanic and Avatar), fantasy ( Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter), fiction, and fairy ( including Disney and Pixar films). The last session concludes the series with a talk on the Book of Revelation!  Wow!

Third Question: Why are some movies like Inception on the Leslie Hand Blog and not on Movieglimpse?
When I write on movies for Movieglimpse I never use the first person. I write on things that I think are there and that everyone could see if they just knew the language of symbols or parts of a story etc. In other words I am not writing my personal thoughts, (some may disagree with that statement ...I understand). On the blog I can write about things "I see" for me...maybe lessons I get or how a scene made me think of something. Movieglimpse is directed to one audience and Leslie Hand to another...that should be obvious.

Fourth Question: Would you be so kind as to respond?
If you have visited Movieglimpse or Leslie Hand I would really appreciate hearing from you. Thanks for taking the time and sharing your thoughts.

Finally, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Leslie

There is a video going around on Facebook (why I couldn't pull it up on the internet I don't know) of Peter Jackson's first "videoblog" on the making of his new movie The Hobbit. It is a ten minute teaser; taking you around the sets, going into the wardrobe department, watching the actors "blocking" a scene, just a whole introduction or reintroduction to Middle Earth. At one point Jackson says he is used to seeing the set of Rivendell on film and now he is walking into it. Kind of weird he remarks.

Weird? Weird? He is walking into the story...into Rivendell and it is weird? Why I thought it is AMAZING! I want to be there. I want to be part of it. On the video you see all these people coming together and working to create something and they are walking into the story, not seeing it on film, not reading it in a book but living in it...really living in it.Why this had such a powerful effect on my I was ready to drop everything...my family, my life, everything. Just let me fly to New Zealand and say PLEASE can I help? I'll do whatever, just let me walk into the story!

I think the answer to why I responded this way (and I bet you would too) lies in the loss of story. The modern world ( and thus our post modern world) lost the story. There is no story to walk into. Ever since the sacred/secular split of the 17th and 18th centuries we have a bifurcated world. Yes bifurcated, or forked as a serpent's tongue. One compartment or branch is the "real world" where we live out the days of our lives. This is the objective scientific world that came out of the "Enlightenment". No God, no mystery, no magic, no "music of the spheres" just objective scientific facts, thank you very much. The other compartment or branch is reserved for subjective spirituality; whatever version you may prefer. BUT this spirituality that you may practice on Sundays, or Saturdays or whatever day is really about when you die. It is not about life here and now in the "real world". This is the great tragedy of the world in which we live.

J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote the The Hobbit and created Middle Earth lived in the story. He walked into everyday of his life. He saw the earth for the great stage that it is. He knew The Author of the story well enough to imitate His creation with his own "sub-creation" and gave us The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Peter Jackson and Company are taking Tolkien's "sub-creation" and sub-creating themselves. They are artists of every kind creating costumes, weapons, music, worlds really. They are living in the story, walking into every day and playing their parts well...really well.

No wonder the "reel" story is so much more appealing than the "real" world of post modernity. We have no "wizard workshop", no Shire, no Rivendell. The bifurcated world is perhaps the serpent's greatest achievement; for it is not only an objective fact in the world it is a subjective experience in our hearts.

The other day I was having snow cones with my four year old granddaughter Lily Grace and she asked me to tell her the story of Spooky and Scooter. Of my three children and seven grandchildren Lily Grace is the one who likes family stories. So I started to tell her the abbreviated stories about the night we got her mother, Spooky the cat and how Scooter (her mother's dog) discovered a crab hole at Pawley's Island. "No start from the beginning" she said. I had only shared these stories with her one time, but she had already committed the details to memory and would have nothing to do with a shorter version. So I went back to the beginning, as we sat on the swings and ate snow cones.

When I had finished she asked me the question "are Spooky and Scooter in heaven?". Since my time was limited and not wanting to get into the philosophy of whether all dogs (and cats) go to heaven I simply said yes. I know some people will not like this answer but at the moment it seemed like the right one. Then Lily Grace said this; "yes I know they are because sometimes when I look at the clouds I see their little claws coming through."

Oh how cute you say. Well I have been thinking about that comment and reveling in its profundity, not in "how cute it is." I thought how easy it is for a four year old to see heaven (God's space, domain, kingdom. dimension) breaking through into our world of space, time and matter! I know many adults, no make that most adults who cannot connect the two. For them God remains in this remote place called heaven to which they hope to go when they die (or could care less, depending on their belief system). But for most whether yea or nay they see no connection, and certainly no "in breaking" of God's Kingdom into this world.

For Lily Grace Scooter and Spooky are not far away; she sees their claws peeking through the clouds. The veil has been rent! I rejoice in that because that means for Lily Grace the Lord is not somewhere out past Pluto, He too is very much a part of her world. I would love to hear all she has to say about that. We will save that conversation for the next time we sit on the swings and have snow cones.

I have been thinking a lot about fear lately. A few years ago I was graciously given a few days on Bald Head Island. I knew it only as the quaint island off the North Carolina coast, the one you had to take a ferry to, and drive golf carts on. I didn't realize it was at the very tip of Cape Fear.

My daughter and I were cruising around in our golf cart the first day and we came to a small boat that had the words Cape Fear written on it. It was just parked by the side of a road. We started to turn down the road but another sign caught my eye, Shoals Alley golf carts only. My mind interpreted this as only the golf carts that belong on Shoals Alley can enter! Crazy I know, but that is the point, fear of doing the wrong thing or being in the wrong place made me interpret it that way. So we turned and headed off in another direction.

The next day I was walking and once again came to this spot. Well I am not in a golf cart I reasoned so I can walk down Shoals Alley and I did. I came out on the most magnificent sight for the small "alley" led straight to the Atlantic Ocean. It was a glorious morning and the sun was brilliant over the water, I literally ran down to play in the surf. I found myself on the eastern side of the island and after awhile I decided to walk down and around the corner to the southern beach and explore my way back to our house.

My final morning I was up and out before anybody was out of bed. I was so anxious to get to the beach as the sun came up I skipped my morning cup of tea. Down the road to Shoals Alley and there I paused because this time I read the sign correctly....only golf carts Leslie...no cars, no trucks, no buses, only golf carts! Funny I thought, how could I have read it any other way?

I came out at the same point and once more danced my way down the beach and then I got very bold. I decided I would go out to the very tip of land where the eastern edge met the southern edge and this would truly be Cape Fear. There was a small sand peninsula that jutted out into the ocean at the corner of the island and this is where I was headed.

As I walked out on to the tiny finger of sand I was stopped in my tracks by utter beauty and a sight I will never forget. The sun was rising over the ocean and there at the point where land and water merged sat a row of pelicans. They were facing the east and basking in the warmth of the sun and all that was before them was the vast Atlantic Ocean. One slowly turned his head around and gazed at me, as if to see who it was that was daring to intrude on their worship. Worship you say???? Yes Worship. I felt as if I was standing on holy ground, there was a presence of the Lord that I cannot describe.

I could not go any further, to disrupt them was unthinkable. So I stopped and prayed and yes worshipped God. Slowly I made my way back to the house, then back to the mainland, and back to my life, but for weeks the pelicans haunted my mind. Why was I so fixated on them? What was the Lord telling me through them? Finally I got out a symbol dictionary and there I found my answer. Pelicans are a symbol for Christ shedding His blood on the cross*. The moment I read this the Lord spoke to my heart. "I will be with you in the deepest place of your fear."

I have been thinking a lot about fear lately. My friend Stephanie lies unconscious in a hospital with a broken body from a severe car accident. She is expected to make a recovery  but she will awaken to the news that her 39 year old daughter was killed leaving behind a husband and two young daughters. This will break her heart.

"I will be with you in the deepest place of your fear". So be it Lord.....for Stephanie.


*Hall's Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols.

My dentist thanked me for recommending the movie Mama Mia to his wife. He was checking my teeth the other day and told me how much she loved it. His opinion of the film was simply Pierce Brosnan cannot sing. I said "I know but women don't care". The entire conversation took me back to some thoughts I've had on midlife and Mama Mia.

The movie's main character Donna lives with her daughter on a small Greek island. She has spent the last fifteen years running a small resort hotel that she built. Now her daughter Sophie is getting married and Donna is facing the empty nest alone.

The Villa is named quite appropriately Villa Donna, it is a metaphor for her life. It has been all work and no play, an isolated life on an isolated island and now the Villa is beginning to deteriorate, a sure sign of middle age. This sad condition makes Donna sing a song of lament about men and money.

In my dreams I have a plan, If I got me a wealthy man, I wouldn't have to work at all.............

How many lonely women are singing this tune?

The movie comes to a climax at Sophie's wedding. There is a beautiful scene where Donna sings to her first love of her absolute brokenness..The winner takes it all. She has lost, its over. She has come out of the villa/house that she built and is stripped. There is nothing left for her and now she is losing the one thing she has lived for, her daughter. Empty, broken she stands on the rocks; a picture of a life broken on the rocky terrain of midlife.

What happens next is wonderful if you understand the language of symbols. Donna finishes her song and flees to a path that is beautifully lit with small lights. She climbs the steep trail following the lights to the top of a high hill attached to the main island only by the rocky isthmus. There she finds another house....the House of the Lord.

Inside before all the assembled wedding guests she is compelled to make a confession of her long held secret and to ask Sophie's forgiveness. The moment she does this something beautiful happens. She finds the love of her life and Donna the brokenhearted becomes Donna the bride. The marriage supper she has prepared for Sophie turns out to be hers.

How many people crash on the rocks of midlife when the house they were building begins to crumble and fall ( as surely it must)? Many never recover nor do they see the small lighted path that leads to another house, where love Himself patiently waits.

I liked it. Not that I understand all of it, but I did like it. The movie gave me a way of "seeing". So here are some random, and I do mean random thoughts on what I was seeing.

Reality
The movie has two realities or two dimensions, the dream world and the real world. Seeing that whole concept was powerful. We live in a world of two dimensions or realities; there is what we consider the "real" world and there is the Kingdom of God. I liked seeing the dream world of Inception as it reminded me of our "real" world.....the world we create, the world that is decaying and falling all the time. The Kingdom of God is so much more than we could ever imagine; it is the reality of which our world is a mere shadow of.
Perhaps planting the thought that there is a world apart from God that we can rule and create was and is the first and greatest "inception".

The Kick and the Totem
In the movie there is a "kick" to get back into the real world and there is a "totem" that everyone has to have so they can identify whether they are in the dream world or the real world. They made me think of the two sacraments the church has been given; baptism and communion. We are baptized into Christ; it is our "kick" into the real world of God's Kingdom. We also need something to remind us, to orient us as to what world we are really in. For two thousand years the Lord's Supper, or Communion, or the Eucharist...whatever you want to call it has been our reminder. It awakens us to the reality of what the cross did to bring us back into the Father's world.

Guilt
I liked seeing the truth of what guilt does to the human mind. It torments it. Dom suffers guilt over Mal's death. This unresolved guilt torments him by Mal showing up in his mind. When he makes the confession in front of Ariadne he is released.

Strongholds
In the film the 'dream team" is trying to get into fortified areas of another persons mind; either to steal an idea or in this case to plant one. I likes seeing these fortified areas and how powerfully defended they were. It gave me a way of seeing what the Bible refers to as fortresses.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:4,5.

If the enemy has established a stronghold in our mind he knows how to defend it. There will be a battle to blow it up!

Garden Imagery
The movie ends with Dom getting "home" and seeing his children in the garden. The imagery suggests that Dom and Mal were once the children of the father figure Miles and they left the garden to live in a world of their dreams. Only one returned. Oh by the way Dom means "Lord" and Mal means "evil".

I was having coffee with a friend the other night and she reminded me of a list I had made several years ago. She told me how after receiving it she had tucked it away in her underwear drawer!. One day while walking through the valley of Alzheimers disease with her late father the list had surfaced and it gave her courage to love him well until the end. Now she keeps it on the front of her computer.

I thought if it had so much meaning for one person it might be worthwhile posting it for others. The list came to me one Saturday morning as I was sitting in bed thinking about the movie The Holiday. I was thinking of how the "dominant" woman Amanda and the "desolate" woman Iris were each living in unloving situations, so I wrote down what this place of "unlove" looked like. Then on a whim the women trade places for the holiday and suddenly find themselves in a whole new atmosphere.....love. They are transformed by love and so are Miles, Graham, and Arthur.

God is love (1John4:16), He creates the atmosphere in which all the things listed below about love are true.

Love:
    Restores that which is lost and much more than you can imagine.
    Makes Real
    Sets free, releases from bondage
    Makes beautiful
    Honors
    Bestows favor
    Lifts up and invites in
    Fills the emptiness, the void
    Rewards
    Sees things clearly
    Applauds
    Brings Joy
    Understands and is kind
    Restores dignity
    Is open and generous
    "Anything is possible"
    Wants to know you
    Pursues the beloved

Unlove:
    Masquerades as love
    Accuses
    Deceives
    Cheats, unfaithful
    Uses
    Is selfish
    Wants its own way
    Wounds with words and deeds
    Does not repent
    Gets angry
    Casts down, depresses
    Makes inferior
    Immobilizes with fear
    Lifeless

There is a scene in the new Robin Hood movie that haunts me. Well there are lots of scenes that do that, but this one in particular stays with me. King Richard the Lionhearted's ship is being pulled up the Thames River and everyone is frantically preparing to meet him. The glory is returning to the castle. They fully expect to see their king come riding in on his white horse and then all will be well.....all will be well.

The scene that I love is when the ship docks and a single man carrying a covered crown walks up the plank. You know who he is but they don't. The tension mounts. They do know that a covered crown means death. The glory is not returning. Or is it?

By the end of the film everyone sees who the King of France surrenders to and everyone knows who slays the dragon with a sharp two edged sword out of his mouth. It is none other than the stone mason's son.

Israel was waiting for the glory to return to the temple. Ezekiel ( Ezekiel 10:18) had seen the glory of the Lord depart and there is no time in the second temple period when it had returned. Yes, Israel had returned to the land and built a second temple but the glory ( God's presence) had not returned. At the end of the book of Malachi they are still waiting.....................

And then he comes. A carpenter's son, a common man walking around Galilee doing all kinds of things; healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead. But they did not recognize him, did not see the glory. They were looking for something else, perhaps a decked out king riding a white horse and yelling "look what they do for Messiah".

This scene haunts me because I wonder would I have recognized him? Do I recognize him? Or am I looking for the wrong thing and missing the glory?

* Godfrey wears the dragon emblem.

Recently I saw the movie Letters to Juliet. I liked it so much I saw it a second time. The more I have reflected on it the more my heart has been touched.

In the film Vanessa Redgrave plays the part of a beautiful Englishwoman named Claire Smith. In her youth she had met and fallen in love with a handsome Italian, Lorenzo Bartolini. Fearful of what her parents would say and knowing what she "ought" to do she returned to England and lived the life duty required of her.

Now elderly she has come back to Italy to look for Lorenzo and to explain to him why she did not meet him. The whole film is this journey of looking for Lorenzo.....and there are a lot of Lorenzo Bartolinis! Each door she knocks on is humorous until the last one. This Lorenzo is in the grave and that is when Claire follows her grandson's advice and stops looking.

But a funny thing happens. She sees a sign for a vineyard and suggests to her new friend Sophie and her grandson that they stop for one last glass of wine before they part ways. And wouldn't you know it she sees her Lorenzo, oh not the one she knew years before but his grandson. As she makes the connection the real Lorenzo Bartolini rides majestically in on his horse!

True love wins. Claire and Lorenzo have a storybook wedding, followed by a beautiful marriage supper. The audience breathes a collective sigh for there is something so touching about "finding your first love".

So what is the heart lesson? Claire chose the world and people's expectations over her heart and her first love. So do we. When she finally goes looking for him she knocks on a lot of doors. I have too. Maybe this will be the place I'll find life, maybe the next door will open, and ......you fill in the blank. When Claire finally comes to the end, to death so to speak and stops all of her trying she is led into the vineyard. And guess who owns the vineyard?

The beautiful scene of Lorenzo coming up on horseback and seeing his lost love is a picture of just how the Lord comes for us. When we get to the end of all our trying, when we resign ourselves to the death of all our own arranging we shouldn't be surprised that we are led into the vineyard. For death is always followed by resurrection and that is what you are seeing at the end of the movie. Is it any wonder the film concludes with a marriage supper?

Last week I flew to Texas and is my habit, I selected an aisle seat when I made my reservation. When I arrived at my reserved seat 19D, a woman with a baby was standing in the middle of my row. It turned out that she and her husband, along with a two year old child and the infant she was holding were all seated in separate rows. So she stood there ready to ask me if I would mind swapping seats. "Show me your seat" I said and she pointed to 19B. Looking across the aisle I saw a man with a one year old in his lap seated in 19A and a woman seated in 19C. The row looked pretty full to me. As I was assessing the situation a man behind us started to volunteer to move somewhere. This made me feel extremely guilty so I reluctantly said "okay I'll move to 19B."

The lady still did not have the three seats in a row that she desired and she looked at me in 19B and said "you want your seat back" and with that she took off for the rear of the plane. Her husband soon followed saying they would ask the stewardess for assistance. My logic told me I'd better get back to my assigned seat 19D until it was all sorted out.

Now the stewardess came forth and it seemed to me that she was explaining the situation to the entire plane. So once more a man made a motion to move but this time the stewardess looked directly at me. "Okaaaaay, I'll go." I will be totally honest I did not want to sit in a middle seat next to a man with a child on his lap for a two and a half hour flight. I just didn't!

Well not too long after take off I started a conversation with the woman next to me in 19C. We talked like old buddies all the way to Texas. I "happened" to have some notes from the movie Avatar that I had printed off the night before not really knowing why I was taking them with me to Texas. She needed them. She "happened" to give me some really good advice, sort of her philosophy about life. It is never too late to start something new....and you need to take risk and step out. I needed to be reminded of that. The child in 19A never made a peep, never fussed, just sat and played with her father for two and half hours.

There is a great lesson in all of this. It goes far beyond giving up my seat and helping others and doing what a Christian "ought" to do. I obviously failed at that because my reluctance was very evident to all. The lesson is I never asked the Lord what seat He wanted me to select when I made my reservation. I knew what I liked and what I wanted so I went for it and it never entered my mind to inquire of the Lord and say where do you want me? Maybe He would have said "take your pick", or maybe "19B", who knows???? The really scary part for me is I know how many major decisions I make in my life in the same manner I selected my airplane seat. I do what I want.