What I "do"

So I haven’t updated in quite awhile. I’ve made it a goal to write something to post here WITHOUT lyrics…or keep it to a minimum.
Being a senior, this year I have had many different people ask me what “I’m going to do” or “what college” I would attended. This past Saturday I attended a family reunion in which these questions seem to be repeatedly asked throughout the evening. This being the end of my first semester as a senior, I was ready with a quick concentrated speech that outlined my life for the next couple years or so. I have been given many a chance to deliver said speech this year, so it was very easy for the words to role off my mouth over and over again at the reunion.
Here, let me give it a try again:
“Well, I plan on going into film. I’ve always liked to tell stories, and the medium of film is something that I enjoy as well as something I seem to be good at. As far as colleges go, I’m not so sure I want to attend one. If I were it would probably be Regent University. It is a graduate school, but I’ve heard they just recently opened up their film department up to undergrad students. However I know that without divine intervention, I won’t be going this year. In the meantime I’d like to work at a production studio around here. The movie We Are Marshall was filmed in a production studio based here in Atlanta. I’ve looked into that as well as various other studios in my area. I’ve also looked into other…”
So forth and so on. If you really want to know the rest of the speech I might ramble the rest of to you some other time.
While all of that is true, and genuinely are some of my plans…I can’t help but be dissatisfied with that answer. While this may or may not become my occupation in the near future, it isn’t what I want to “do”.
I wish to stir souls. (look out, here come the lyrics)
Don't close your eyes, I'm right beside youDon't be afraid, I'm never farYou and I were always meant toWake the dreamers from the darkCome out, come out wherever you are
Let me share with you sort of an epiphany I had and then I’ll be done.
It was a fairly lazy summer day…maybe two years ago. I was watching the extended version of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with the live documentary on. (Yes, I’m a geek…it’ll be ok) The actors narrated through the movie, told stories about certain days of shooting, laughed, and just chatted about general behind the scenes stuff. Eventually one of my favorite scenes of the movie came. Aragorn and King Théoden have lost helms deep, and are on the brink of death, the sunrise comes, we hear the words of Gandalf from earlier in the movie “Look to my coming on the 5th day, at dawn, look to the east” Aragorn looks to the east to the sunrise creeping over the horizon with the silhouette of Gandalf with the rohirrim. The sun dispels the darkness of helms deep as Gandalf descends into the pit of blackness to do business.
End of scene.
At this point the once chatty actors who had been narrating the movie fell silent. Finally one broke the silence and the conversation went something like this:
“Oh, this is powerful”
“with the light and everything…”
“So good”
“It’s like…religion!”
“Yeah, just…all the symbolism and stuff”
“Well religion is mix of other religions…and I just see all that in this”
“Yeah, because religion is light and stuff”
“Yeah, and it’s good…it’s so true…the mixing of the dark and the light and the mixing of religion…it’s true!”
At this point my heart sank. Something on that screen stirred inside each one of those actors something deep. Something that resonated with them. It was good to them, it was beautiful to them. Then knew something about it was right, but they missed it. They thought it was religion, or the mixing of it. But I can’t help but think that whatever was portrayed on that screen was something far better than mere religion. It is echoes of another world that resonate within us. It is the substance from which we were intrinsically made up of, and that which we long to return to.
What do I want to “do”?
I Wish deep to call out to deep. I wish to go to the everyday man and draw out the eternity written on his heart. I wish when people ask for God to give them more than Church. I wish to sound the trumpet and awaken the sleeping souls. I wish to be good and faithful servant.
"An eclipse doesn't destroy anything, it just covers it up. We live in a culture that has eclipsed the face of God, and it's my job to uncover it."
“If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who said, "Let there be light in the darkness," has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves”
-2 Corinthians 4:3-7
-James
Monday, December 17, 2007