Crossing the Threshold series #5

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                                             You Are Here

We now come to our “you are here” star and we find ourselves in what is called the Postmodern World. But what exactly does that mean? You know something is wrong when experts have a hard time defining it. Richard Tarnas says that you can’t really have a postmodern worldview because the postmodern paradigm is fundamentally subversive of all paradigms. Make sense? Or how about this one by Jean-Francois Lyotard postmodern is “incredulity toward metanarratives”, which simply means the Postmodern worldview is that there is no large story, no metanarrative.

So here is a picture definition of postmodernism that may help you understand the world in which you live. Watch the end scenes of James Cameron’s 1997 movie Titanic. After the Titanic sinks fifteen hundred people are left splashing around in the frigid dark waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. They are all desperate to save their own lives by clinging to whatever piece of wreckage they might be able to find. There you have Postmodernism. Remember in this world there is no metanarrative, no large story of God and his plan for saving and redeeming the fallen creation. People are entitled to their own private subjective spiritual beliefs; their own “piece of wreckage”, whatever they think might save them. However those beliefs cannot enter or interfere with the objective reality of the secular world. Hence the world is divided by man into two compartments; the sacred where you may privately believe in whatever god you want to and the secular where science is god and man is king.

This is the fourth post in the series Crossing the Threshold.

                                              The Modern World

Years ago I read the Introduction to Peter Kreeft’s book Heaven the Heart’s Deepest Longing. What I gleaned from that introduction helped me learn how to teach 2500 years of Western Civilization in about five minutes in a way people seldom forget. I use my body as a diagram.

Looking out at the ancient world there were two small people groups around the Mediterranean Sea that became the source for all of Western Civilization: the Hebrews and the Greeks. Think of these two peoples as two streams (my calves). One was the Classical stream from the source of Reason, the other the Biblical stream, rose from the source of Faith. These two streams became great rivers (my thighs!) The Greek stream flowed into the Roman river which created a world empire but remained essentially Greek in its mind. The Hebrew stream flowed into Christianity. Jesus did not create a new religion. He was the Jewish Messiah; the King of the Jews. These two great rivers came together during the Middle Ages (my torso) and created what can best be called a Christocentric world.

I like how John Eldredge describes this world in the book he coauthored with Brent Curtis The Sacred Romance

         “Once upon a time the Western World had a story. Imagine you lived in the High Middle Ages. Your world was permeated with Christian imagery. You marked the days by the sound of church bells and the weeks and months according to a liturgical calendar. You lived in anno domini the year of our Lord. It wasn’t football season it was Advent. Your role models were the saints, whose feast days were regular reminders of a drama greater than yourself. The architecture of the Cathedrals, the music, literature and sculpture all gave you a vision of transcendence, reminding you of the central elements of that great story. Even the everyday language reflected the Christian understanding of life’s story, expressions like God be with you, upon my soul and by Christ’s blood. Birth, death, love and loss all of your personal experience would be shaped and interpreted by that large story.”

The world had a large story; a metanarrative and everyone’s small story fit into that large one giving their life meaning and purpose. That world no longer exists, for the High Middle Ages was ripped apart by two movements: The Renaissance (my left arm) and The Reformation (my right arm).

Starting in the 1300’s Europe began to feel a number of “birth pangs”. The Black Plague rapidly spread killing one third of the population while wars, religious strife, economic depression, occultism, invasions from the east  and corruption within the fundamental institution of Medieval society the church led to a season ripe for movements of renewal. The Reformation longingly looked back to the river of Biblical faith. It wanted to cleanse the church, reform it and purge it of its corruption. The Renaissance which means “rebirth” was something entirely different. For what emerged out of the Renaissance was something that had never existed before in human history; a secular society. For the first time a civilization was being built on a foundation that had no spiritual life, no religion, and no god as a source for its formation.

The Renaissance was followed by other movements; The Age of Scientific Discoveries, The Enlightenment, the Democratic and Industrial Revolutions and by the time the Modern World emerged it was evident that man had been “reoriented”. No longer did he give allegiance to God; he was now the Captain of his own ship sailing along on a sea of secular humanism with the notion that progress and the wonders of technology could take him anywhere he desired to go.

The Victorian Dream had briefly tried to keep God in the story as a remote author saying that he gave man all these wonderful discoveries and technologies to build his kingdom on earth. But by 1900 belief in science, pursuit of raw power, and a thirst for glory, had ejected God from the picture altogether. No longer was man God’s steward of creation, his Genesis vocation, now he was his own god and he was out to conqueror the world.

There probably isn’t a more fitting symbol of man’s arrogance as he enters this new age than the White Star Line’s luxury ocean liner the Titanic. Named for mythological deities of ruthless greed and power the largest ship ever built was promoted as being “unsinkable”. Divided by economic classes into first, second and steerage, she was the perfect metaphor for what the industrial titans in her first class were actually doing to the rest of the world; dividing and conquering. On the night of April 14, 1912 she was making her maiden voyage crossing the Atlantic when she struck an iceberg and sank. The entire 20^th century might be viewed as Titanic’s descent to the bottom of the ocean floor. Wars, genocides, economic depressions, weapons of mass destruction, totalitarianism,….death and destruction of a magnitude never seen before in history.

This is the third post in the series Crossing the Threshold.

                                                 Homo Spiritus

Now we can start with our history lesson. Let’s take the year 1400AD. You can use “1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” if it is easier to remember; a few years won’t make a difference for our purposes. In all the time before the year 1400, for as long as man existed on planet Earth he lived in a “sacred” world. By this I mean he had knowledge of something wholly other than himself, a different order of being, and a power before which he knew he was nothing. In other words a god. Opposite this god, this sacred, was the profane which simply meant darkness, chaos, an abyss. So it was natural that man wanted to live in as close proximity to the sacred as possible. Therefore he would consecrate every aspect of his life; food, sex, work, home, everything to his god.

Werner Herzog produced the documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” in which he went deep into the Chauvet Caves in Southern France to film the oldest known cave paintings by Homo sapiens. Herzog says we really should call the early cave dwellers “Homo spiritus” (one spirit) rather than Homo sapiens (one knowing) for there is clear evidence of religious ceremony within these most ancient caves. Think of that; from the beginning of time man has been a worshipper and has lived in a sacred universe.

Thousands of years after the men painted the cave walls in Chauvet the Apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill in Athens and gave his famous sermon recorded in Acts Chapter 17. Speaking to all the Athenians he said “…I observe that you are all very religious in all respects” (NAS). This is not what is so typically thought of today as St. Paul making an “evangelistic” call to a crowd of non-believers so they can “get saved” and go to heaven. He is telling them that “yes you are all religious men ( for there is no other kind) and you live in awe of the gods because you have statues everywhere to please them…in all respects you make every part of your world sacred. Now let me explain to you, your own statue to ‘an unknown god’. There is only one true god who has now made himself known through the incarnation, death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. It is he that I proclaim to you”.

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkein believed that the step from paganism to Christianity was not that great a step, for all men believed in a god, in the sacred, in something more than themselves. All men were worshippers. No the great chasm was the one that separated the Christian World of the Middle Ages and the Modern Western World. We must now explore that rift in order to bring us to the “you are here” star on the map of history.

This is post #2 of the Crossing the Threshold series.

                                                  The Sacred Secular Split

We live in a divided world. It wasn’t always this way. We will get to how it became divided shortly, but it is important to understand the division and how it affects your life today.

The Modern Western World has two basic compartments; the secular and the sacred. Some people try and live their entire life in one compartment or the other; most of us however go back and forth without ever thinking about it. Let’s take what you “do” for example. Work, school, entertainment, neighborhood activities, vacations, sexual intimacy, all go into the secular box while things like worship services, bible studies, prayer meetings, volunteering for the homeless, and mission trips all get thrown into the sacred compartment.

It isn’t just what you do that gets sorted into one box or the other. It affects everything in your life; the music you listen to, the art you appreciate, the books you read, the movies you watch, everything is labeled and sorted sacred or secular. I know some people whose voice changes depending on which box they are in at the moment!

You see the division is not just confined to the external world. No, the division goes deep into your internal world dividing you at the core of your being. Sensing something is not quite right you may try and bridge the divide by taking the sacred box into your secular world; saying a prayer at work for instance. Or you’ll bring your secular world into your sacred box by inviting someone to go to church with you. But neither of these constructs ever seems to work very well and there is a reason why. The world was never designed to be divided into compartments of sacred and secular. When you go along with this man made order you are going against the design of the world’s creator. You are going against God.

Several years ago I taught a class called Crossing The Threshold: A Journery into Transformative Worship. I wrote notes to go along with portions of the class and am going to be sharing them in the next few weeks on this blog . If you want to listen to the talks and see the other notes handed out in class they are all under the Teaching page on this site.

                                      Orientation

When you start out on a journey it is important to know the place from which you are starting; that is if you have any hope of finding the place to which you are going. Take the giant map in the shopping mall for example. You first need to find the star that says “you are here”. Once you discover it, you can orient yourself and find where you are and where you are going. Or remember how you spent an entire day of orientation in a new school, where you were given the lay of the land so to speak. After that day it was possible for you to navigate the maze of classrooms and winding halls. Even the most famous road trip, Dorothy’s trek down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City began with orientation from the good witch Glenda. It wasn’t enough for Dorothy to know she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

To orient means to set right by adjusting to facts; to put oneself into correct position or to acquaint oneself with the existing situation. Unfortunately most people never receive an orientation lesson to life. No one says to you, here you are on the map of history and tells you what that means or why it should matter to you. After all history is just a boring subject often taught by boring teachers who rarely connect the subject to your personal life. It is flat, dull, in the past and irrelevant to your life in the here and now. Or is it? Could it be that history is more like a story with an author, a plot, a setting, a theme and characters? Christianity maintains that history is His story; God’s story. If that is true wouldn’t it be important to know where you are? To know what part you play so that when you step out onto the stage of history you can play it well?

Fellow pilgrim you and I are going on an amazing journey over the next few posts. This journey will take us out of the ordinary world, crossing the threshold into a very special world. We will meet interesting characters, cover vast amounts of terrain, have a few awesome encounters and return home like all good pilgrims do having been transformed by our adventure. But we need to know where we are. We need to find the “you are here” star on the map of history.

Years ago I went to a Christian counselor and one of the most helpful things I learned from him was what he termed "Styles of Relating". He had studied material from Dr. Karen Horney on the three predictable styles of relationships one adopts as a survival method to overcome pain in childhood. The three styles are: move away, move toward, and move against. The styles are pretty self explanatory. Move aways are people who detach in order to survive; they become independent, self controlling and self reliant. Move toward are people who have to have control of another relationship for their security and self worth. And of course move against are those individuals who have to dominate and rule whatever situation they are in.

I remember hearing a lecture by Dr. Neil Anderson where he gave the example of three sons born to an alcoholic father. Each son he said would respond differently. One would remove himself ( move away), one would appease or pacify ( move toward) and one would fight ( move against); hence the three styles.

The counselor I was seeing explained these are unhealthy styles of relating and the answer involved giving up my style and adopting a healthier life style by which I could respond to another person appropriately. Sometimes that would mean submitting, sometimes it would mean detaching, and sometimes it would mean over coming; in other words learning to do all three when appropriate.

But is it that simple? I think not. First let me say I found the understanding of these styles most helpful. It brought great clarity in my own personal life.However I think there is a better way of seeing these styles and more importantly a better way out of them.

As the counselor said these are "unhealthy" "neurotic" "compulsive" ways of relating. I would  say they are "fallen" ways of relating. These are the styles humans have succumbed to because of the Fall. They were never God's original intent for how we relate to Him or to one another.Yes I need to stop doing them but I don't think the answer is as simple as adopting " A healthy attachment to another whereby I can move away, toward or against when appropriate". Correcting fallen behavior by behavior modification never works. No matter how hard I may want out of my old move away self; all the moving toward and against "when appropriate" simply does not work.

The answer is I must die and be raised to a new life whereby I am adopted into Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul was saying when he wrote these words " I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me" ( Galatians 2:20).

So what does this look like really? And how might I better understand this?I think the first place to start is with the understanding of two narratives; The Ego Story and The Theo Story. You will live in one or the other.

The Ego Story is the fallen story ( narrative) we are all born into with the "I" at its center. The best definition of sin I know is incurvates en se....life curved in on self. I must die to this story and be raised in Christ to The Theo Story. It is important to note here the differences between the two.

Ego Story: Author- Me, Actor- Myself, Director- I

Theo Story: Author- God the Father, Actor- Christ the Son, Director-The Holy Spirit

The way in which I come into the Theo Story is by being adopted into Christ Jesus. I am restored to God the Father in Him. I become a Christian ( which means little Christ). This makes me a co-actor with Jesus. This is my part in the grand narrative. Its not all about me anymore; I have died and been raised to live in union with Him. It is His life....His story.

So how does this connect to the styles of relating?

The styles of relating are connected to my old fallen self. I need to understand that as a new creation in Christ I must now grow in Him, grow up  to His full stature. This will mean not only looking to him as an example but more importantly habituating his practices so they seep into my very being; transforming me and conforming me into His image.

What are His practices? They are what the church has called " The Three Offices of Christ"; Prophet, Priest and King. Every Christian whether they understand it or not is called in Christ to be a prophet, a priest and a king. It would take volumes to unpack the full meaning of what I have just written but for my purposes here I want to suggest this: The three offices of Christ are the reality to which the three styles of relating are the perversion of. Move away is a distortion of prophet, move toward is a distortion of priest, and move against is a distortion of king.

Now lets go back to where I started. The counselor tells me I am a move away so I need to learn how to move toward and against "when appropriate". What does that look like? If this is all I know may I not just do it all in a fleshly way using another fallen behavior to compensate or balance my move awayness? Does this not leave me in The Ego Story?

How much better it would be to say for instance; your weakness is in exercising authority and of knowing you have "a voice". You need to study how Jesus operates in his kingly office. Go through the gospels and pay careful attention to how he leads and exercises authority.

Practicing his offices is one of the ways we "put on Christ" ( Romans:14) or are clothed in HIm ( Galatians 3:27). We study him with the intentionality of a disciple. We leave the old ways of fear and control behind and step into the freedom of following the one True Human, in so doing we become truly human ourselves.

In 1998 I went to see the movie Titanic. At first I’ll be honest I didn't’t want to see the movie. I remember dropping my sixteen year old daughter and her girlfriend off at the theater and saying “I know how that story ends”! Eventually I succumbed to the pressure and went to see the movie….six times (lots of pressure). I was undone to say the least, and so were many others making Titanic not just a blockbuster but a phenomenon.

James Cameron did the impossible; he captured the epic sinking of Titanic while weaving a beautiful love story over it to capture the human heart and the human tragedy. From the haunting opening scenes of the actual footage of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean to the touching scenes of Rose’s reunion with Jack at the end; the power of the movie was well for lack of a better word…titanic.

The Titanic was in the news the other day; it was the anniversary of the discovery of its resting place. This is not what propels me to write on Titanic today, no it’s another story much in the news these days. I am referring to the story of refugees from Africa and the Middle East seeking asylum in the West which has been so poignantly personified by the horrific tragedy of three year old Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body washed up on Turkey’s shore.

So what is the connection?

Titanic in its historical context was a floating palace; the symbolic culmination of the “Gilded Age” while at the same time being a technological wonder presaging what was thought to be a new epoch of material acquisition unknown to man. She was thus a metaphor for the world at the beginning of the 20^th century sailing along in a bright blue universe. And like that world she was divided into three classes; First-, Second-, and Third-class or “Steerage”.

To grasp the full meaning of the word steerage I quote from Wyn Craig Wade’s book The Titanic: End of a Dream:

“The Titanic carried accommodations for a potential 1,024 third-class passengers, the vast majority of whom would be emigrants. Depending on the booking, portions of third-class quarters could be converted to freight and baggage compartments--- a tradition lingering from the days when “steerage” had meant exactly that. In the 1860’s, for example, it had been legal to transport human beings to one shore and then carry cattle in the same quarters on the trip back. One shipboard notice of that era adjured first- and second-class passengers “not to throw money or eatables to the steerage passengers, thereby creating disturbance and annoyance”. Things had now changed considerably. American immigration laws still made it mandatory to keep gates securely locked between third-class and other passengers; the policy was intended to limit the spread of infectious diseases.”

If you have seen the movie Titanic you will remember those locked gates. The ship is sinking; those in steerage are desperately trying to escape the incoming flood and those locked gates are keeping them trapped in certain death. In one memorable scene Rose and Jack break through a wall and are told by the official steward in a neat and tidy uniform “That’s White Star Line property….You can’t do that”!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiJ80lr3Mg

And there is the connection. Every time I hear the First-class Post Modern West say to those in “steerage” trying to escape the flood of death sweeping over the third world “You can’t come in here; you’ll have to go back”. I think of Titanic and those locked gates.

The “unsinkable” ship went down. She was a portend not to the heights to which man in his pomp could ascend but one to which man in his arrogance and greed must descend. Her corroded ruin on the ocean floor is a prophetic picture of the 20^th century’s descent into wars and destruction the likes of which the world had never known.

So here we are today in 2015. The Third and Second Worlds have been under water for some time. Those on the upper deck have ignored the tragedy below while taking tea and listening to music. But we cannot ignore it anymore; the flood is coming. This is not a religious, political, cultural, economic, or east –west problem. When a three year old boy created in the image of God washes up on shore like a piece of “steerage” it is a human problem. Something is wrong with humanity.

So if my hope were in humanity to “fix” the problem I would be lost. But it is not. For just as James Cameron could not write a screenplay simply about the disastrous sinking of the Titanic and the loss of 1,522 souls, but had to write a larger story of sacrificial love; a love so powerful it transcended death….so did God.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17

"Rescue won't come from anybody else! There is no other name given under heaven and among humans by which we must be rescued" Acts 4:12 NT Wright translation.

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves" Colossians 1:13 NIV.

Salvation in the Bible means rescue; rescue from death and the dominion of darkness. Unfortunately for many people today the word salvation in reference to Jesus Christ's death and resurrection has come to mean a religious conversion to Christianity, not a rescue from death.The word conversion implies the change of ones mind or belief. "I used to hate vegetables, now I am a vegetarian; I've been converted". Yes, a religious conversion can be a bit more dramatic but so can the conversion to becoming a football fan. " I used to hate sports but then I moved to Green Bay Wisconsin; now I'm a cheesehead". The problem is when we replace rescue with conversion we lose the full meaning of what it means to be saved from death and given a new life in Christ.

Jessica Buchanan was an American aid worker in Africa when she was abducted by Somali land pirates in 2011. She was held captive for over three months and then dramatically rescued by Navy Seals. In an interview with 60 Minutes's Scott Pelley she describes her ordeal. Watch the clip below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkkgSy2jPpY&feature=youtu.be

Jessica was betrayed by the person she entrusted with her safety. She was taken into the dominion of darkness and held in a helpless state. Her vivid description is powerful and leaves little to the imagination. Death surrounded her and held her in a tight grip.

This is the condition into which every human being is born. There was a betrayal which brought humanity into into the dominion of darkness and made it subject to death.

After three months of horrific treatment and inhumane conditions, a bodily infection worsened and Jessica's body began to rapidly deteriorate. She made a last call to tell the outside world she could not hold on much longer. She believed because she was , in her words," just an aid worker" she was not worthy of being rescued. However, to the President of the United States who was well aware of her circumstances, Jessica was not just an aid worker she was an American.

By analogy most people feel deep down they are "nobodies". Strip away all the glitter and false selves and most people feel they are of very little significance or worth. However to God the Father who created human beings in His own image they are of inestimable value and precious in His sight.They are His children. 

The President gave the orders to send in an elite team of Navy Seals to rescue Jessica. Her recounting of the operation is gripping and powerful. They knew who she was; she did not have a clue who they were. They had everything she needed; food, water, medicine. All of this was beyond her comprehension. They laid their bodies down over hers literally, to protect and save her.

If we could actually see into the spiritual realm when a soul is being saved from the dominion of darkness we might just see something like Jessica's rescue for :

" Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?" Hebrews 1:14

Certainly we would see the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep covering them with His body and blood.

After Jessica was on board the helicopter and it took off she broke down and began to cry. The Seals handed her an American flag. As she says in the interview, she had never been so proud to be an American as she was at that moment. It would be impossible for Jessica to live a life after her abduction, captivity, and rescue as if it had never happened. There would be no going back to the old Jessica, she had been forever changed by her ordeal and will forever be singing the praises of those who risked their lives to save hers.

Jessica was rescued not converted; so are Christians. "Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story---those he redeemed from the hand of the foe." Psalm 107:2

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Sometimes Christians speak in a language the world does not understand; a kind of Christianese if you please. Words like sin, salvation, redemption, baptism, born again, sanctification, and sealed with the Holy Spirit get tossed around lightly; and the assumption is made that everyone knows and understands these terms and their deep theological meaning. But the average person doesn’t have a clue about their “theological “ meaning and so when a Christian speaks in Christianese, well it just sounds like a bunch of religious gobbledygook and they want no part of it.

Jesus got this. He knew how to communicate the most profound truth in the simplest way and one which went straight to the heart…he told stories. So in the spirit of using the ordinary, common, everyday happenings to explain the beauty of salvation, please watch the story of Charlie.

http://www.lifebuzz.com/charlie/

Charlie the stray dog is found on the streets of Los Angeles he is homeless and ensnared with painful burrs. There couldn’t be a more powerful picture of what it means to be “lost” ……homeless and ensnared with something that brings pain. This is the human condition apart from God the Father; we are simply homeless and entangled in sin. You can see what this condition did to Charlie; fear and shame are in his eyes, his whole posture tells you he is unloved, uncared for, and without hope.

And then one day he is picked up off the streets, given a new name and an incredible transformation. Someone loves him enough to see there is something more to Charlie than the ugly coat and the painful burrs. It is a fast forward film project that shows the removal of the painful burrs and the old fur, the washing and cleansing of all filth, and the immergence of the brand new Charlie. The finishing touch is the scarf put on in slow-motion as if to signify his complete transformation. And Charlie feels it, you can see in the way he holds his head and the brightness of his eyes.

This is a salvation story and the reason it resonates with human beings and brings people to tears is because at some deep level they  are seeing what salvation looks like…..the lost are found, cleansed, healed, restored, loved, sealed with a symbol of ownership and given a home. Sometimes, its that simple.

I went to see Nebraska yesterday....well I got there in a round about way. I actually went to see Her but that lasted all of five minutes before I had to exit the theater. Nebraska was just starting so I slipped into the only seat available ...front row..not my favorite but it was better than Her!

 Nebraska like other Alexander Payne movies is painful to watch. Painfully slow yes but more than that just painful; yet they all are popular, so what's with the pain? Well Payne ( no pun intended) knows just how to take you into painful reality; he did it in About Schmidt, and Sideways ( which won the Oscar) and now he does it again in Nebraska ( nominated for an Oscar). These are people you know and recognize and too often you see something of yourself in one of them and that is perhaps why it is so painful.

In his latest story a son accompanies his elderly father on what everyone would call a ridiculous road trip to collect a million dollar prize which everyone knows is a scam...everyone except the old man. And that is part of his story; this old man once had a good heart and believed people and was taken advantage of (you get this in remembrances not flashbacks)and now he believes what he reads in the certificate which proclaims he is a million dollar prize winner. He is going to Nebraska come hell or high water and he is going to get his prize.

When he sees he cannot stop his father, a faithful son comes along on the road trip more or less to protect the elderly man and in so doing he learns more about his father in a few days than he has learned in his life time. That is the point; we live with people and we think we know them and we make terrible judgments about them( like the wife and other son do) BUT we really do not know their story and we don't really know them.

Of course this is a road trip where the son learns who his father was and how he became who he is. Of course there is a climatic scene where the father is taken back into his painful past and is mocked by his old arch nemesis and the son stands up for justice. Of course they reach the journey's end and there is no million dollar prize. Of course.

But the best part of the entire movie and so worth the long slow road to get there is the ending. The million dollars wasn't really what the father was after. What he really wanted was to right an old wrong ( stolen compressor), buy a new truck ( the symbol he was still a man), and leave something for his sons. I would guess this is all most men really want ( its a guess because I am not a man)! He confides his three desires to the faithful son...the right person to confide in.

Unlike just about everyone else in the father's life the son does not mock, berate, ridicule or use the old man; he loves him. And the best way to demonstrate his love is by sacrificing himself and giving his father his dignity back. He trades his own car in for the newest truck he can afford putting the title in his fathers's name. He buys a new compressor and loads it up and then lets the aged man drive down the main street of his old home town one more time.

The movie is painful yes but it is also powerful. I have tears now thinking of that scene; why? Because there really isn't a person male or female who cannot be touched by it. Everyone has lost their dignity ( their worth); that comes with a fallen world. And all the self help, self esteem, self improvement, c--p won't give you your dignity back! Dignity must be bestowed; it comes from outside the self.

And I suppose that is what I liked least about the movie in all honesty.I saw too much of myself in the other characters and not in the faithful son. I saw how more often than not I will take away another person's dignity in order to protect my own self interests and it was right there before me, way up close in yes, painful black and white.

This morning I sat down and was reading the Gospel of John but with new eyes. I was seeing it through the lens of Nebraska. There was the Son and what was He doing? ......Bestowing dignity; to a woman caught in adultery, to a blind beggar, to a woman he met by a well, to a young couple on their wedding day, and on it goes. The one faithful Son walked a road bestowing dignity; a road which led right up to a cross where He willingly  sacrificed all of His. And maybe , just maybe all He asks of us is to go out tomorrow and just walk a road and whoever we come across try and bestow a little human dignity on them even if it costs us something.