Mother’s Day 2018

It’s 4 days past Mother’s Day. Now I am choosing to go public. Mother’s Day was a full, fun and happy day. Christine & I went to early service @CrossRidge Church, then with MX5 top down we drove to The Glades, rhododendron park to enjoy the way over 20 floral acres & then sat for a String Quartet concert. We cam home & Christine put on a dinner for eleven, our family, 6 adults & five children ages 10-17, roast beef and wines and dessert ... fantastic.

Perhaps what Christine appreciated next to having her family nearby was my written morning tribute to her. Here it is.

Mother's Day 2018

This weekend marks the tenth year that I have not purchased a Mother's Day card for my mother. She is no longer here to accept it or to read my loving and appreciative remarks.  She needs no support from her firstborn son. Having received from the LORD the affirmation given to disciples who have been faithful and have done well, she resides now in paradise. 

I can and will honour you, Christine as the mother of my two children, Cari and Jeff. Christine, you were a stay at home mom through my children's formative years, not because it was the culturally acceptable practice, but because you were committed to their best interests. You were determined to be present with them and for them. Yours was an informed and practical motherhood in the early years, reading, listening, teaching and protecting and always loving. Your appetite for God's Word has always been apparent and served as a model of how God's truth can direct the many decisions for living. You have always been an encourager to your children's aspirations and abilities. You are a disciplined follower of Christ who prays for her children and grandchildren daily, and this has been your routine in all the years we have lived together. You do all that you possibly can to nurture relationships with your five grandchildren, so they know you are always available. You have sought to build trust so they can learn from you. You have helped them whenever and however you can. They know that you care for them. Each of them has a special place in your heart. You love people and touch their lives with genuine interest both in person and through phone calls. You may pop in, or bring a baked item to enjoy, or give a hug. You love to help others. You are hospitable and enjoy the company of friends. You are wise, and speak prudently into people's lives. You honour the LORD in so many ways, not least of which is as a wonderful mother and grandmother.

THE SHACK, A FILM, MADE NEXT DOOR.

They are making the movie right here in lower mainland B.C., and I have been just metres away from some of the filming this week. This may be a good film, if it keeps to the script. John Fusco, best known for writing 1988's Young Guns, wrote its screenplay adaptation from the book by the same name by first-time author Paul Young which sold 22 million copies worldwide. Of course many in the evangelical world took issue with the 2007 best-selling book, The Shack, in the first place, castigating it and its Canadian author Paul Young for parodying God and the Trinity, perhaps even depreciating these entities.

SAM WORTHINGTON

I treated the read years ago as the novel that it was. You would throw out much of C.S. Lewis' fiction if you took the same reactionary stance against his material.  Young was not teaching theology, but telling a story, the account of a man's pain at the loss of a daughter as a result of a kidnapping and murder by a serial killer. Sam Worthington plays the lead role of Mackenzie "Mack" Allen Phillips who is plunged into a deep emotional abyss that embraces fury at God. Four years after the horror, he receives a letter from God called Papa. 

And of course this representation in the book set people off, because portrayed Papa as a woman, a black female who will be portrayed by Octavia Spencer, who has already won an Oscar for her role in the "The Help." Radha Mitchell is in the role of Phillips' wife and Amelie Eve is their missing daughter. I saw her in the canoe scene as it was being shot last night. The Shack and Papa's cabin tucked into the woods are all on site and the filming went on for the four days that we were close by holidaying in a cottage. Very fun.

Paul Young himself says that he is excited about the movie because he has been given the rare opportunity to invest his creative input into the filmmaking process. We will see how much his voice is heard.  Young calls the book a metaphor for “the house you build out of your own pain.” 

Will non-believers be confused, led astray from God’s true persona? Might viewers who never think about God, feel compelled to seek to know him outside the context of the novel? I will look forward to the movie. I won't fashion my theology, or my concept of God based upon its expressions for deity. I may however, learn to meditate more keenly on some aspects of the character of God as expressed by the three persons whom readers may discern as the Trinitarian God image. I may  be encouraged about the compassion of God for his human creatures when they suffer.