Pleasantville, and Wanting More

*Note: I wrote this and forgot to publish it, so it's a little outdated.

I'm so glad we got to watch scenes from Pleasantville today. It's one of my favorite movies. I think we can all relate to idealizing something, but that something doesn't really exist. The apple scene is wonderful symbolism for the story of the Fall of Man. Actually, it's not all that symbolic, it's just a straight reference. Knowledge is a double edged sword. Because although you can know the darkness of this world, you have to carry around the pain of that. Sometimes I envy people who live blissfully. People who have never really been exposed to the dark side of the world. I'm glad we're getting to see some of that world expressed through film.

One of the notes I took down reads "We consume lies all the time that try to answer the question. People have trashed their lives wanting more." Man, I can relate. Although I was raised in a Christian home and never stopped believing in Christ, the outside world caved in on me once I went away to my old university. The place is well known for having a bad reputation. It was once named the number one party school in the country. There were riots through the 60s and 80s. By the time I got there the place was broken down and trashed. It was treated by ghetto teens like a ghetto. The streets were filled with broken beer bottles. There was a huge crime problem on campus, and obvious racial tensions that the university tried to sweep under the rug. 

The problems of that world got to me. I saw gang violence, angry mobs of thousands, professors striking, attempted rape, hard narcotics, police everywhere. Now I know there's many more people who have seen so much more than that, but for me it was enough to push God aside. Leeper said "It's easy to be angry at God for the pain of the world." I saw the pain of everyone around me. There was my pain too. A close family friend died. My aunt unexpectedly died. My roommate went insane. He threatened to blow up the building and wear people's faces like masks. I had a friend get beaten with a tire iron the the parking lot that I used. During one incident the police threatened to bust my head open with a billy club. My best friend at college got busted by the police for child porn, which meant I lost my best friend. It was shocking. I saw all of that in three months. There's more, but that's not the point. 

"People have trashed their lives wanting more." They look for it at the bottom of a bottle, and the end of a joint, in a pill. I tried it all. It never works. There is no satisfaction. You end up broken.

Before this I always thanked God for "saving" me. And I was honest. I was grateful that I was going to heaven. But after getting a second chance, I have now only begun to appreciate the redemption of Christ. As a child I really couldn't get into the songs that talked about saving "a wretch like me." How could I relate to that? Now I think I get it more. I guess I just had to learn the hard way. It's also a dangerous way. And that's what I meant about knowledge. It's a doubled edged sword. I can appreciate the goodness of people and the safety of this campus, but I also know the harsh reality that we don't live in a world like that. Huntington is probably the most unrealistic environment we'll ever be in. That's not a bad thing, we should enjoy that. But I'm glad we're being exposed to some different things in this class.

"We need to be pagans before we can be Christians." Is that true? Maybe not, but it makes sense to me. Made sense to Moses, Paul, and others from the Bible. I don't think there's any human triumph without pain and loss. It's when I remember my lowest points that I appreciate the good things about this world.