Crash

I just finished watching the movie "Crash" for the second time. I have to first say, that in my opinion it greatly deserved best picture over "Brokeback Mountain." Before any critics might castigate me, I did actually go to the theaters and watch "Brokeback Mountain" and I did enjoy it, I thought it was a wonderful movie. I'm going to leave my personal thoughts on the ethics of that particular movie aside. I am just going to reaffirm the "Academy's" decision to choose "Crash" as the best picture of the year. I highly encourage everyone to go out and rent or buy the movie "Crash", or have a friend rent it and/or buy it so that you may watch it with them, if you are on the cheap side, like myself.

What I wanted to primarily focus on in this reflection was the use of the patron saint "Saint Christopher." Also, before I continue, if you have not seen the movie, I may be giving away parts of the movie in the following, this serves as your warning, you may continue to read at your own risk. To continue, there is a small subplot involving the use of a Saint Christopher statue on car dashboards. As you may or may not know, Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers. He has also been exposed as a Saint that has no historical proof. Therefore he is technically speaking a legend within the Catholic Church. Personally I think it is still quite alright to pray to "Saint Christopher" (quote, unquote), even though he doesn't actually exist, as I am sure there are plenty of saints up in Heaven who we do not venerate, who are more than welcome to take over and fill in at the prayer stations for this "legend" of a saint. I digress, what I think is interesting is how the legend behind Saint Christopher fits so aptly with this movie. I am not sure if the makers of the film were aware of it or not. I may be typing up a reflection that has been stated ad nasuem, I have yet to hear of it though.

The legend of Saint Christopher, goes something along these lines (please don't quote me on this), Saint Christopher was at a river crossing when The Christ Child was young, and he offered to help Jesus across the river by picking Him and putting Jesus on his shoulder. As Christopher was carrying him across this river, the small Christ child on Christopher's shoulder become heavier and heavier. On the other side of the river Christopher asked Jesus, "how is it you became so heavy for such a lad." Jesus then told Christopher," I am carrying the weight of the world's sins and as you helped me across the river you felt that weight upon yourself."
While maybe it's not true, i think it's a beautiful story. And the association with the movie is that throughout the movie there is a theme of people trying to help other's. Trying to be like Christopher and help another Human Being. What is painful to watch and so moving is that these altruistic acts are met with hatered and fear and anger. These individuals who are trying to share the Love of God are met with the products of sin. In trying to be Christ Like and to help bear His burden His cross, these individuals feel the weight of sin. It is interesting seeing how the different individuals react to the burden. Some learn to embrace it others, stumble and fall beneath it.

The movie is about race relations in the United States of America, specifically Los Angeles. I see it really getting to the heart of sin. Due to sin we are unable to look at others as children of God. Instead we make judgements on people and put them in categories, and refuse to love them. We learn to hate others, out of fear. We forget that we are all human beings, needing and deserving of Love. This movie does a wonderful job of showing also how some people who use to hate, based on a generalized judgement, come into contact with an individual and learn to love them purely as a person and not as a member of a category of "others." This is what the USA, and truly the world needs to remember. We are not just different groups, we are billions of persons, who all need and deserve love individually just as our mothers, brothers, and friends do. This is the effect of sin which we must fight, we must fight the "fading" of people and the stark "boldness" in our minds of "groups that hate us." We must learn to love one person at a time as Mother Teresa, and not Hate the group that isn't "us." We must learn to Love despite fear. Learn to rid ourselves of hate, rid ourselves of sin. And just as Mother Theresa's work, this act of learning happens one person at a time.

Well I've rambled on enough. I'll leave with this: GO SEE "CRASH!"