First off, thank you Rev for setting this up and Fire for putting up the first gospel post. I have great hopes for this blog and hope it is something that we can carry on for years and even decades to come. I hope that through this we can be enlightened and become open to new ideas whatever the may be.
Fire – posted “if I choose never to see another movie again in my life, will that keep me ahead in my quest for light and knowledge than someone who only watches Disney-Pixar films? And will the Nemo-Woody-addict be ahead of someone who will watch anything?”
Like you Fire, I believe that we are never at a stand still and we are either growing towards god or going in a diverse direction. Similar to the all too famous “moon” quote, we are either waxing (i.e. growing in spirituality) or waning (i.e loosing spirituality.) But I also think great things can come from bad moments, situations and acts. It sometimes takes “troughs” or down times in our lives as Screwtape would say to realize why we seek or want “high’s” in our lives. On a different note there is something to say about never giving into temptation. When I was a sophomore in high school, my bishop Dave Dunford asked me in an interview if I had drank alcohol or any substance like that? I responded to him that I had never even tasted it and he told me that I would be blessed immensely for the rest of my life if I never even take a sample taste. When he told me this, I was hit hard and realized the many blessing that are ours if we refrain from temptation all together. Conversely to that idea I have seen batman three times now. Believe me Rev and Fire, I’m not one who really like comics and movies associated with them but I had an opportunity to see it on opening night and made the decision to go. Consequently, I have seen two more times because I loved it so much.
Batman is an extremely dark movie about good vs. evil. In the movie there are haunting scenes of horrible acts of evil but through it all the light still shines forth. Near the end of the movie Alfred explains to Batman that he needs to be whatever Gothom needs him to be. If he needs to be the hated one, then that is okay because it allows the people of Gothom to prove their worth in goodness. By doing so he is doing a greater good for the people then just being a super hero. Essentially Alfred is teaching a lesson on selflessness and paralleling it to life of the Savior. Upon finishing the movie I left extremely uplifted and hopeful of society and had much more gratitude for my savior and his role in the plan of salvation. I share this experience because I feel that Batman at face value probably isn’t something that most of us would look at and say “that will bring me closer to God,” and I agree. On the other hand, good can be derived from anything and even the most horrible and daunting things can be turned into positive uplifting things. That’s not to say that we should seek negative situations, nonetheless I feel that we can gain light and knowledge through acts that normally appear unspiritual. President Hinkley probably was the greatest figure we’ve ever known that encouraged us to be positive and optimistic in times of bad and to seek the good in everything.
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