My wife and I watched a movie last night. We are on the blockbuster online program, so these movies come rolling in every so often. Somehow, though, we remain pretty busy people and they never get watched (I actually think we are losing money on this deal, but I digress).
We watched Henry Poole Is Here.
What I got instead was an insightful, deeply spiritual movie about the pain of living life, the complications of life and how, so often, things don’t really seem to go the way we hoped or expected. Yet, in the midst of that, the movie reminds us that faith and hope are powerful.
Long story short, Wilson’s character is in deep depression with a belief that he is going to die soon. He attempts then to go into seclusion and just await the inevitable. He buys a house where no one knows him and just shuts out the world. However, his neighborhood refuses to be shut out. In the meanwhile, some kind of “miraculous appearance” occurs on the outer wall of his house, sort of like those times you’ve read about when someone claims to have seen the face of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich.
The story really starts to get spiritually deep at that point with some supposedly miraculous healings, a mysterious drop of blood on the wall and a connection with his two neighbors. The movie never tries to demand that you believe what others see, nor explain what the image actually is, but regardless, Wilson’s character is forced to confront the choice of “choosing to die or choosing to live.”
He is an angry man, angry at the perceived injustice of his life—a bad childhood, apparently no close friends, and now a rapidly approaching death. So, not surprisingly, the movie has the tension between those who believe in the power of faith, perhaps the power of Jesus Christ, and thus who find peace, even healing in the image, against Wilson’s character who is so hurt and angry and thus who refuses to embrace hope. As more incredible things start emerging, one of his neighbors tells him “It’s getting harder…to pretend this isn’t happening.”
Hope and faith are like that. Look, I know about pain and dreams deferred (or doomed). I know about disappointment. When I write to you to “go hard for your dreams” or to “live life boldly every day,” I am not so Pollyannaish that I don’t realize so many people have hurts and that some dreams don’t come true. But I write to you, have spoken to you, bearing my own scars. I write to you through my own tears at times. Yet I still write because I know in my own life the power of faith and hope.
I want you to go for your dreams, knowing that many of you may not reach the specific dream that you set out to achieve. I do that KNOWING that the life you will live will become a life of excellence and success through the going. Success is rarely found in the conclusion; success is found in the doing.
In the end, Wilson’s character discovers something new. No, he doesn’t touch the wall and become “miraculously healed.” Instead, something more profound occurs and the movie allows you to draw your own conclusions. Yet, regardless of your take on spiritual matters, the movie forces you to see that living every day, for as many days as you get, “full on” and “with hope” is the only way to live.
If you are struggling to get “off pause” or, like me sometimes, you hear people on TV (apparently famous or rich) telling you “just follow your dreams and you too can be like me” AND YOU THINK, “you big fat liar!!” Well, I hope at that point, you take time to watch Henry Poole is Here. Take time to realize that success is not riches, power or fame. Take time to realize that by choosing to live hopefully and in pursuit of life, you ARE the hero in your own story. At that point, you ARE a success.
http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer?tag=numinous&o=1
