Review: Old Fashioned #oldfashionedmovie

I am probably too medicated to have been able to cry at all the right parts in the indie film "Old Fashioned." Oh, don't say that, they will say. Don't cop to your being medicated. That doesn't reflect well on Christianity. You should be able to pray away all your depression and anxiety....

I know I run a risk in reviewing a film that is Christian-themed. I might align myself with the more-righteous-than-thou who decry my meds. I might also align myself with the fanwagoners who try to pack the theaters when any faith-based film projects onto a silver screen.

The cool thing about Old Fashioned, which several of my colleagues helped to direct and produce, is that it is a film that is so counter-cultural, it is effectively without niche. It is not a Kirk Cameron morality tale. It is not a saccharine rom-com with Nicholas Sparks-caliber lines.

Old Fashioned is, on the surface, a sweet romantic tale about a born-again believer man who has grown a tad curmudgeonly in his set apart ways, and the attractive tenant who moves in above his antique store. The romance spools slowly and sweetly. As each character unpacks his and her personal histories, we see their fine lines and their friction.

But Old Fashioned is also about a larger love story. The film is an allegory for the Gospel, about how a perfect God came to offer a perfect love in a broken world. There are moments in Old Fashioned, whose lighting is perfect and whose soundwork is really strong, that crystallize perfectly the way divine grace is offered freely, and how we reject it and fail to offer it to each other in the form of forgiveness.

Old Fashioned is not a perfect movie. At times the script felt a little uneven to me.  Sometimes scenes where body language and facial expressions were totally winning felt a little squandered because the dialogue bordered on the preachy. But it is a good film with solid performances and a wonderful message for the righteous, the proud, the hypocritical, dastardly, wicked and vain. And even the overly medicated.

On contradictions and bob haircuts

I am more than mid-way through my fourth year of teaching at Small Christian University in the South. In other 4 year installments in life, like high school for example, this would be the time when one would be getting fitted for a gown, sizing up the graduation platform, making plans for the next chapter. For me, I feel as though I am just getting started. Year four has been very self-actualizing. I am better at teaching what I have to teach. I am better at anticipating questions about what I teach. I am better at knowing what I don't know about what I teach.

Let me tell you the cool part about improvement: once you've improved to a certain degree, you feel like the thing you're doing is something new. Because it is. In the past, you were doing that other thing, the mediocre thing, the thing that made you feel all bummy and ill-equipped and now you are doing it better which actually changes how you approach, tackle, reflect on that thing. Life is new even though it is basically the same. Except you sleep better and don't dread everything and you can eat food without having acid reflux and you don't feel on the brink of tears all the time.

God is pouring a new formula into me. The bottle is better, stronger. The ingredients are of higher quality because they've been distilled longer. The label still says Kendra's Jam. But to me it tastes new and improved.

In some ways, I am hitting my Finally Stride. Lovey and I can finally go on dates and Little Man does not go mental and thrash about and punish us for days when we leave him with another benign person. I am finally finding a rhythm at work where I can feel good about the work completed and the work yet to complete. We are finally making a dent in our loans. I am finally reading Wild.

Yet, I am also fully aware of how much finality there is in finally. We got Baby Girl's hair cut the other day. "How are we cutting it, Mom?" asked the hairdresser. She asked how we're cutting it, like it was a joint effort, her sheers and my master vision. I realized how this might be one of the final times I have any say-so in that cute little bob.

I realize that in general, we are shifting altogether too rapidly from the phase of dimpled elbows and slurred letters to the full-on independent child phase. It comes in waves, noticing suddenly that their play has become more sophisticated, their desires are more long-term rather than immediate, their cares are no longer whether they got the last pack of fruit snacks but more whether or not their friend who is moving to Arizona will remember them. There is finality in their own little child infinities. Their little ends become our endings, too.

But then there are the whole new epochs of their growing up -- the fun and fish ownership and new favorite things. It is all so fleeting and yet it is all so rich. How can something, this parenthood business, be all so ephemeral and yet all so meaningful? Why are the days long and the years fast?

God, so infinite and so lofty, still continues to make all things new. He makes it all good and perfect in seven days and we burn it and hoard it and waste it and still--He makes all things new. He is in the contradictions. Alpha-ing and Omega-ing all over our final finallies. He lives and works in this busted vessel and calls it a new thing.

When I'm all about that cause...and that cause is kinda all about me

I never knew that Martin Luther King made a segue to Cleveland, OH in the midst of his third attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery. He flew mid-march (as opposed to mid-March) to CLE in order to offer a testimonial at the Nobel Peace Prize dinner where he was honored in 1964. The newspapers said his feet were badly blistered from walking for days. The headline read that he was barely able to walk, so badly was he limping. Have you ever walked with a limp because of a cause for which you were walking, literally or figuratively?

When I was in high school, I burned my candle at both ends over every cause. Every ticket was sold out in my naive conservative heart to saving the unborn, the whales, that remote village in Tibet. I was so overbooked and overachieving that I eventually lost pounds and hair that I couldn't afford to lose. I was an 83 lb. mess. I walked with a limp.

The difference is that MLK's cause depended on him and his team to lead the revolution. My causes would still march on to their proverbial Montgomeries without me.

[tweet bird="yes"]I wonder how many of us are behind causes that need us?[/tweet] That would actually fizzle if not for our dedication?

***

I'm 10 days into a 30 day water challenge. I am replacing my favorite fluids of coffee, soda with 70 oz. a day of H20. My skin looks better but the struggle is real. I still have a huge crush on coffee. I am not alone, it would appear.

I scan my Instagram. Pictures of familiar faces flushed, at the end of the finish line of their 10K. I see Facebook feeds full of Crossfit selfies, Tweets hashtagged with #P90X, Snapchats from Pure Barre, and everyone I know in the First World has recently sworn off gluten, allergies or otherwise.

These are our causes, the fights we fight, the shows about which we tell. These causes are worthy and life-changing--don't get me wrong. But at first blush, it would appear that these causes are all about bettering ourselves. Project Self achieved, (Selfie, Appendix A).

***

And old friend is dedicating the next year to the handstand. I am loving Jon's project which he is chronicling on the 'gram. His reflections are thoughtful and far from precious. What good can come from gaining another perspective, one, in fact, that revolves one's world a whole 180 degrees?

http://instagram.com/p/yYQuq-rNh0/?modal=true

Jon's project rocked my navel gaze. I realized that Project Self is often a step toward Something Greater Than Self.  First we cut out cookies. Then we go help the Girl Scouts sell 'em. In my case, I'm still hovering in phase I. Sometimes my fight is bigger than self and sometimes it is just so basically about wanting a latte.

I like to believe there are many causes that I support but which don't cause me to limp, nor will they fizzle if I step away. To name a few: the end to human trafficking, the right to observe religious liberty, the right to equal pay for equal work.

Still, there are other causes, much less organized and publicized which might suffer if not for my marching: my children, my marriage, my students. They are too much a part of me to walk away from them--it is hard to walk away from one's very self. So I will keep marching and feeling all the glory of the limp I develop.

The good news is that I get to keep the causes in the next life, marching to Zion, maybe even breaking into a run.