Last time we began with the movie A Beautiful Mind. It falls into a category of story we are calling: The working of God’s redemptive grace from one person to another.

There are many stories that focus on the relationship between two people, and by the conclusion, God’s redemptive grace has transformed them both. To begin with, however, one person is more in need, maybe even at the very end of themselves. Think of Shawshank Redemption, what some consider the greatest movie of all time. Think of how overwhelmed Andy Dufresne is when he first gets to prison, and after; but how much the friendship of Red ultimately means to him. By the end of the movie, each helping each other, they both find their redemption.

And if you have never seen the movie Awakenings, the story of how a new medication temporarily brings a number of patients at a state psychiatric hospital back from the depths of dementia, you should. It is one of the greatest love stories I have ever seen. And what about the baseball movie, The Natural. We will have to talk about that in more detail at another time. But the list goes on. It is almost endless. Even the first Avatar movie, as well as Jason Bourne. More than you may have ever realized.

As the story progresses in A Beautiful Mind, John Nash is back at home, but unable to do anything because his schizophrenia is so severe. The medication controls the worst of the delusions and keeps him back in reality for the most part, but it also sedates the body and numbs the mind. His wife Alicia is very loyal, taking care of their son who is just an infant, and John. But John is so incapacitated, she is really all on her own.

After a time, she confides to one of John’s old colleagues that she mostly feels obligation and guilt over wanting to leave him, and anger — at John, but also at God. But then, incredibly, she says she developed the habit of — looking at him and forcing herself to see the man she married . . . and John becomes that. He is transformed into the person she loves. And likewise, she is transformed into the woman who loves him. She confesses this doesn’t work all the time . . . but it’s “enough.” The friend comments that John is an incredibly fortunate man, and he is right.

John dislikes how the medication makes him feel, and how it clouds his mind (something many schizophrenic patients complain about), and pretends for a time to be taking the medication, but is not. His delusions return and John is once again the hero who is going to save the world. He convinces Alicia he can run the bath for the baby while she tends to some laundry hanging outside, but he gets distracted, and the baby almost drowns. In a panic, Alicia picks up the phone to call the psychiatrist; and John, in his confused, delusional state, inadvertently hits her.

The psychiatrist comes to see them at their house, but with the intention of readmitting John to the hospital. John very much does not want to go; but he also knows he is disturbed enough that Alicia and the baby might not be safe with him at home. The table is now set for one of the most incredible interactions between two people I have ever seen. I wish I could quote their exact conversation from the screenplay, but copyright will not allow it. And so, I will try to paraphrase as best I can.

Alicia is being advised to sign John in to the hospital, to commit him for a time. John tells her he can figure it all it out in his head, he just needs time. His intellect was always his strong suit, but this is beyond anyone. Alicia, against her better judgment, decides to give John another chance at home.

John is sitting on the bed and she kneels down in front of him. She asks him if he wants to know what is “real?” She touches the side of his head with her hand, and then touches his face. And then she takes his hand and tugs it to touch her face. “This” . . . is real she says. And then she pulls his hand down to her heart and says, “and this.” And then she says that maybe the part of him that can know what is real, from what is not, is not in his head . . . but in his heart.

And then she tells him she needs to believe that something “extraordinary” is possible. John has never felt as loved in his life. It is one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen of sacrificial love, of dying to self, of what perfect love truly is.

We have set the stage for the conclusion of this story next time. Hope to see you then.

Sam