I couldn't help but reproduce what my son, Philip, wrote about watching Field of Dreams last night. Here it is:
My brother-in-law had turned on ESPN and they were playing Field of Dreams. It was pretty much over after that. You [could] forget about me doing anything else or being anywhere else; I was going to be watching that movie until the very end. My girlfriend at the time came in and asked what we were doing. I said we were watching Field of Dreams.
"Is it a DVD?" she asked.
"No, its on ESPN right now," I replied.
"Well, don't you have it on DVD?"
"Yes."
"Well, why are you watching it on television if you have it on DVD?" she inquired.
My brother-in-law and I just stared at her, and said, almost simultaneously, "Because it's Field of Dreams." We then turned around and continued to watch the rest of the movie, convinced we had just heard the dumbest question in all of human history.
Depending on who you are, one side of this argument will seem insane, while the other point of view is a statement of the most obvious truth. For my ex-girlfriend, there was no reason to watch a movie when one owned [it] and could pop it into the DVD player at one's leisure. On the whole, I would agree with this assessment. There are plenty of shows and movies that I will turn off when company has come over or when I want to be close to a person whom I care about a great deal.
However, for my brother-in-law, my father, myself, and I am willing to bet, most of the male population in America, this particular film is the exception that proves the rule. To ask why I am watching this movie instead of doing something else is just crazy talk, plain and simple. It is my second favorite film of all time and is one of the few films where I am almost guaranteed to cry at the end.
I mention this story because Field of Dreams was on again tonight. I watched it with my dad and sure enough, we both were about to cry when the last scene was being played.
Field of Dreams is the story of Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner. Costner begins the film by narrating Kinsella's early life and the life of his father. (We come to find out later in the film that he rebelled against his dad but loved him. And while Kinsella has lived a good life, he has one great regret about never letting his dad know how much he loved and respected him before his father died.) After this prologue of sorts we are introduced to Ray Kinsella, now a young farmer and family man who hears voices and later sees in a vision that he needs to build a baseball field in the middle of his corn field. After building it, baseball players from the past come to practice at first, and then to actually play. There are other goals that the voice says that Kinsella must [pursue], like finding the world-weary Terrence Mann (played by James Earl Jones) and the crestfallen Dr. Graham (played by the late Burt Lancaster). But at the center of the film is Kinsella's blind obedience to build this baseball diamond and travel up and down the Eastern United States without really asking "what's in it for me". (At least not until the end of the film.)
If the movie sounds far-out, well, it is. But, it's not crazy. It is pure Americana and combines some of the best things in this world: baseball, faith, America, baseball, family, unexpected friendships, happy endings, and of course, baseball. The film critic Roger Ebert said that Field of Dreams "is the kind of movie Frank Capra might have directed, and James Stewart might have starred in -- a movie about dreams."
This might have something to do with why I love this film so much. I will say that in my opinion, one of Frank Capra's films, It's a Wonderful Life, is the greatest film ever made and that Field of Dreams is the second greatest film. I am not alone in my first and second picks. My dad happens to agree with me. In fact, I think I just copied these picks from him.
But then again, one of the great themes of this film is how much sons are like their fathers and how most guys, as much as we hate to admit we love another guy, truly care about our fathers. And, I assume fathers gauge how well they've lived their lives by how well their kids turn out.
So, tonight found my father and [me] sitting down watching a movie we owned, being played on a television network. And during the ending, I thought of my dad, the man I respect more than anyone else in the world, a guy who is not well-known, not good looking, and not that successful, but who thinks that I am the greatest guy in the world. And during the last scene of the film, when Ray Kinsella has made his peace with the great regret of his life, the catharsis overwhelms two grown men and we have to fight back tears. Not because of what we saw on screen so much, but because what we saw on screen is really how we feel towards each other.
I know it's kind of mushy to talk about one's father that way, but I don't want to go through my adult life like the protagonist of Field of Dreams. We only have so much time on earth to let our loved ones know how important they are to us. If there is so much talk about the closeness of family in the world, then it shouldn't be odd for us to express our love and admiration for those people.
You may still say that I am crazy for watching a movie that I already own on DVD, but I have my reasons. And you know what? I think it's good and takes a little guts to do something crazy now and again.
1 comment:
Charlie:
Thanks once again for leaving insightful comments. I think you're right that the real dream of 'Field of Dreams' is one of "reconciliation and...restoration."
Back when this film was first released, I did a Maundy Thursday sermon called, "Our Table of Dreams." It was about Holy Communion.
It was built, first of all, on the fact that when Jesus instituted the Sacrament, He said to "do this in remembrance of me." The word we translate as "remembrance" is, in the original Greek, a form of the word, anamnesis.
Containing the root of our word for amnesia, anamnesis is nonetheless about much more than doing the opposite of forgetting. In Holy Communion, we do more than have a memory of some dusty, obscure past event. By the power of God's Word and Jesus' promise, we are re-membered with God and with every person, in heaven and on earth, past, present, and future, who has hoped in God and shared this meal.
As on the field of dreams in the movie, eternity invades our time-bound world and we come in actual contact--by hearing God's Word and tasting the bread and the wine--with God and the timelessness of His eternity.
But something else happens to us in Communion that's akin to Ray Kinsella's field, I think. We are reconciled to God, Who forgives our sins through the Sacrament, per Jesus' promise. And, as we join saints above and saints below in humbly being fed by our Lord, we are reconciled to one another. No more airs about self-sufficiency. No more pretense of a righteousness that makes us better than others. We confess our humanity and our sin and our common need to be fed and led by God. In a humble faith that receives God's gifts, we are made one with each other.
Reconciliation and restoration are the things we most crave in life, even when, like Ray Kinsella and his father, we don't know it. We crave reconciliation with each other, to be sure. We crave it most of all, with our heavenly Father. In Christ, that reconciliation happens for all who repent--turn from sin--and receive Christ as God and Savior by faith in Him. Through the Sacrament, the altar becomes our table of dreams and God helps us to be reconciled with Him, remembered to Him, all along the imperfect trail we saved-but-sin-plagued saints follow on our way to eternity.
God bless you, Charlie!
Mark
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