The Final Cut

I love movies - especially movies that make me think.

I've been watching a lot of strange movies lately - Garden State, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I'm halfway through I Heart Huckabees - and although they are very weird, I always take away some kind of truth from them, or at least something to think about for a long time.

Right before we moved to Ohio, I rented the movie "Final Cut". I don't think it came out in the theaters, it might have been a straight to video movie. It stars Robin Williams and Jim (yes, I played Jesus in the Mel Gibson movie, but please don't pigeonhole me as Jesus) Caviezel. It was really good. The basic premise was that in the near future, a person could decide to have an implant put in their brain that records everything that happens in their life. Robin Williams plays a "cutter" - a person whose job is to take the footage of a person's life, and then when that person dies, cut up the footage and edit it into a 15 minute video to be played at the funeral. Obviously showing the good side of the person (which is what happens at all funerals anyway, doesn't it?)

Anyway, it opened up a lot of questions in my head. Probably the biggest one was this: If you knew that whatever you said or did to a person was being recorded in that person's brain and would most likely be seen by either one other person (the cutter), or many (the people at the funeral), would you treat that person differently? Would you be more careful with your words? Would you try to present yourself in the best light at all times to this person, knowing that perhaps a brief snippet of your generosity or good-naturedness would be seen by a bunch of people at this person's funeral?

That thought led to another thought. I remember one year when I was a youth minister; we would go every summer to the Christ in Youth Conference in San Diego, CA (later it moved to the L.A. area, which made me very sad because the San Diego college the conference was held at was right on the beach). One year there were two speakers who spoke about the same thing - judgment day - and yet they held two very different views. One of the speakers said that when we die and face the judgment seat or whatever, our entire lives will be on display in front of everyone in heaven, and everyone will see everything we've done. We'll be forgiven of those things, but that will be part of our judgment. The second speaker (a couple of days later) said that when we stand before God at judgment day, He will not remember anything sinful we've done if we've asked for forgiveness, after all, it says in the Bible "as far as the east is from the west, so I have removed your transgressions from Me." So, which one is it? I'm still confused.

Anyway, if it is the first way, and everything will be revealed about what we've done - if we knew that for a fact that this was the case, would we act differently? Is it because we usually believe the second way - at least that's what I thought I believe - that we're not very good about staying away from sin, that we continually return to sinful thoughts and actions? So then, I think to myself - because I don't know what it will be like (unless someone enlightens me in my journal), shouldn't I live like I believe the first way, because wouldn't it help me defeat sin? But then I think, where is grace in all of this? If I act like I believe the first way, wouldn't I be basically be living my life in fear (not the good kind) of God, rather than doing things out of my love for Him?

Do you understand why I have a hard time sleeping at night?

Anyway, I will continue to post entries on movies that I've seen lately that have made me think. I wish I could be one of those people who like to go to mainstream movies where you can sit back and relax and enjoy the movie - but I'm not. I want to be challenged, pushed, stretched.

Even if it makes me rather crazy at times.