July 20 column on Exotic Marigold Hotel

I love movies. When my eyesight started to deteriorate it became difficult to watch a movie in one or two sittings, so many slipped by me. Since my eye surgeries, it is easier for me to watch them again. I am doubly grateful to watch them easily, as it was a chore for some years. I am also so grateful for video and DVD that allows us to watch all sorts of movies from the recent or distant past. Our confirmation group watched scenes from the 1925 silent King of Kings, for instance. Recently, I went across the river to see Exotic Marigold Hotel. (I planned to go to see it in Edwardsville, but it did not last long there). It is an oldster version of Love, Actually. It is an ensemble piece, with fine British actors, about a set of retirees who find themselves strapped for cash in England and are lured by a web site advertisement for the “elderly and beautiful” to be pampered in exotic India. The movie set me to thinking about a number of things. How little we plan for retirement, not only financially but in terms of time and activity. It shows how difficult it is for children to deal with their parents as they age, but both generations are still concerned about their own children as well. It is a meditation on the loneliness of age. That can be present in a marriage gone off the rails, for the widowed, or those who have been proudly independent but now fear the creeping need for support as the body or mind starts to weaken. It also is a meditation on how connection can help heal the pain of loneliness and the fragility and regrets that we carry as we age. For me, one of the most meaningful parts of a service is the confession of the truth about our lives, good and bad and the declaration of pardon we offer to each others as ambassadors of Christ. As I think about it, the \vulnerability of aging makes us less able to bear some of the burdens we carry. My mother used to say that her resilience was weakening as her bones were growing soft. One of the healing aspects of the faith is the ability to receive forgiveness, to receive pardon, from the hand of God through Jesus Christ. That is part of a love so rich and full that it can counter our regrets. After all, can we really, truly regret what we do, say, or feel out of loving at the utmost of our capabilities? In the movie, characters are seeking redemption: connection from the past, or have been cut off from connection, whether single or married, or fight through social stigma to claim the connections they have forged. It is also a meditation on the doldrums we encounter in work place or retirement, the taken for granted episodes of family life, the ruts we fall into out of fear of what change could bring. One of the marks of character in the film is how people react or respond ot the vast cultural changes they encounter in their new environment. will they be able to call a new place, home again? The new life we celebrate in our baptism is open to us every single waking day we have given to us. We are too precious to live halfway, caught in a rut, when the bright sunshine of Easter life beckons us daily. I sometimes think that Jesus would make movies to help spread his gospel message in 2012. I love watching movies with the eyes of faith, and in so doing see Bible principles, the very way of God, come to new life before my very eyes.