BUT A POOR REFLECTION: No happy endings

Friday, January 26, 2007

No happy endings

Pascalle (our youngest daughter) was watching the last scenes of a rental DVD today. I wasn't paying that much attention, but noticed that she didn't like the ending of this movie. "What's an alternative ending?" she wanted to know. "I guess you can select a different part of this DVD if you don't like the ending of the story", I answered. Slightly relieved, she decided to give it another try. Now she is still upset about it, because the alternative scenario didn't give her the happy ending that she wanted to see either. Maybe I must tell her to stick with the Disney DVD's? (She was watching The Break-up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. Age indication: 6+ years... She also loves to watch Friends).
Btw, I did try to explain to her that in real life people don't always live happily ever after. But she didn't accept her father's words of wisdom. "If you really love each other, you can always get together again", she says. I want to believe she's right.

4 comments:

Vicki said...: Oh, if only we could all have the innocence of children and the wisdom of the aged.; 1/26/2007 2:08 pm
Paul said...: Lydia, my wife, also prefers to see happy endings... She was also a bit disappointed by the ending of this movie. A "comedy" :-) should be happy from start to end, right? You don't want to have a sad feeling :-( after seeing a feel good movie... do you?; 1/26/2007 7:40 pm
Carolanne said...: I prefer happy endings when watching dvds. I know it's not like that in real life but maybe the reason we watch dvds is to "escape" real life or really just to pretend that happy endings are what it's really about.

Your daughter is not so far wrong. I think 2 people can stay married or reconcile - not if they love each other, but if they submit to God and ask Him for help in healing their marriage. That's what happened to my friend last year. :); 1/27/2007 6:19 am
Paul said...: I agree, she's not wrong at all - she just looks at the world as a child and believes as a child and I envy her because of that. Somewhere during our lives we become more cynical (but we call it "realistic"), maybe we start to listen more to our minds and less to our hearts. And, like you said, if in real life people can be reconciled with each other and stay together hapily ever after - that's even better than all the happy endings of feel good movies combined! And these miracles do happen! I do think that some people just don't try hard enough and they give up too soon. If you can survive a crisis in your relationship together, you can become stronger as a couple - that's what I believe.
And about happy endings in movies, dvds, books... yes I am disappointed when a movie has a sad ending. I don't mind an 'open ending', but I don't want to finish a book or a movie with a depressed mind or a cold heart!
I also agree that we need God to be truly reconciled. At the same time I do know Christian couples that can't make their marriages work and that's really, really sad. This is not a perfect world - Christians do make stupid mistakes and can become unfaithul or unloving to each other and they have to work on their relationships like people without such religious beliefs.; 1/27/2007 11:09 am

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God loves us

Have you ever wondered why God gives so much? We could exist on far less. He could have left the world flat and grey; we wouldn’t have known the difference. But he didn’t. He splashed orange in the sunrise and cast the sky in blue. And if you love to see geese as they gather, chances are you’ll see that too. Did he have to make the squirrel’s tail furry? Was he obliged to make the birds sing? And the funny way that chickens scurry or the majesty of thunder when it rings? Why give a flower fragrance? Why give food its taste? Could it be he loves to see that look upon your face?

Max Lucado - He Chose the Nails

Sadhu Sundar Singh

I do not condemn theologians wholesale, but it is unfortunately the fashion in Western thinking to doubt and deny everything. I protest this tendency. I never advise anyone to consult theologians, because all too often they have completely lost all sense of spiritual reality. They can explain Greek words and all that, but they spend too much time among their books and not enough time with the Master in prayer. It is not that I oppose all education, but education without life is certainly dangerous. You must stop examining spiritual truths like dry bones! You must break open the bones and take in the life-giving marrow.

Oswald Chambers

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th)