Why I Like Sad Movies

I like funny movies the same as the next guy.  But I've got a thing for watching "heavy" movies.  I leave movies like Talladega Nights with a lighter heart and tired cheeks, but I leave movies like Les Miserables, Sunshine Cleaning, or Invictus somehow different.

I used to be a guy that was so big about the rules.  Now, don't get me wrong.  It wasn't all about being nice or being a teacher's pet.  Instead, when I really began following Christ with all my heart, I saw the wisdom in God's ways, as I perceived them, and was proud to live and promote them.  But, they eventually just became more about living rules instead of understanding God's heart.

Then I'd see movies where love had to break rules.  I'm not just talking about romantic love, but love for those who suffer.  Like Les Mis where a girl who is pregnant out of wedlock is desperate for help or in Sunshine Cleaning where the main character is convinced that the best she can do to not be lonely is to carry on an affair with a married man who has no commitment to her.  Then there's Henry Poole Is Here where a man argues vehemently against belief in God, but we find out later that he has a terminal illness that has crushed his hope.

These are all people who did wrong, "unrighteous" things.  Christians are supposed to fight these, argue against these, and vote to stop these...aren't they?  It's no wonder the religious world couldn't appreciate Jesus.  All kinds of sexual deviants, swindlers, and uneducated dopes seemed to pull toward him like old magnets on a fridge.

Somehow, he must have been able to see their souls, their stories, their sufferings.  We mostly sin to
fill a void, an emptiness, and Jesus could see it.  Lives were changed, but not by rules, by love.  Love has a way of calling out the true, noble "us" that is often buried beneath our coping mechanisms.

That perspective, Jesus', is the one that sad movies sometimes give me.  

Elizabeth O'Connor, an author, said that, "We each carry within us the image of God the Creator; we each have the task of making the earth into a fairer, kinder place.  The first step is imagining a better world, and that is most apt to happen when we suffer or look on suffering."