Last time I attached a link to a longer piece on the movie The Matrix. The link did not work properly at first, but has now been fixed and takes you right to this piece with one click. You can find the corrected link at the bottom of the last newsletter, but I have also included it again at the bottom of this one, just in case. Hope you enjoy.

To conclude with our discussion on this movie, which truly has a good deal more to offer, I just want to speak in general about stories and especially screenplays, the great majority of which are not written by storytellers who believe in the God of the Bible.

On the one hand, it is quite incredible just how many movies mention deeper spiritual questions outright in the early stages of the story, in some shape or form.

Most often this happens when one of the characters asks another, “Do you think it matters what we do? I mean . . . really?”

Or, something like, “Have you begun to wonder if there is some greater meaning to our lives, something that endures? I mean . . .  is there some purpose to it all?”

And sometimes someone just comes out and asks, “Do you ever wonder if there really could be a God?”

The characters are often struggling with life before very long, if not from the very beginning of the story; and sometimes, before long, begin to ask deeper, spiritual questions.

But more of the time the greater lesson waiting for us is deeper in the symbolism, like in The Matrix. And just how incredible is it, that a story can be saying very specific and very meaningful things, all of which make sense spiritually, and all of which are in the Bible in some shape or form -- but none of this was the storyteller’s intention?

Now, I think it is obvious that I’m talking theoretically here, that there is no way I have been able to have conversations with these storytellers to ask them. But I will say that I have seen a good number of interviews, and read articles, about what their inspiration was, or what they thought it was – and it is never the deeper things we are talking about.

But more than this, if you were a storyteller and you wanted everyone who watched or read your story to hear what you were really saying, that the deeper spiritual things in this life were most important -- wouldn’t you make that clear, one way or the other? If you really believed those things, I would think you couldn’t help yourself. But it’s also obvious that a great deal of money is being made by screenplays these days, always has been, and the praise and fame. And so, that is often the motivation.

Put simply, I have fallen in love with stories because, to me, it’s truly amazing that God had always used “our” stories to speak to us. Or even better put, He made us in such a way, that even after the Fall with our free, rebellious wills in play; there is still a divine part of us that is deeper, that knows ultimate truth, that knows that even though on most days we believe we will be happier if we follow our will, we also know better.

In the stories we create and read and watch we are actually speaking to ourselves. Or in the language of Thomas Merton, our true self is trying to speak to our false self, to wake us up, to prompt us to choose life instead of death.

Now, isn’t that quite amazing?

Next time we will start with a new story.