Trip to Bountiful: What is your Bountiful?

This week for my American Lit. class, we were assigned watching the older film, "Trip to Bountfiul." Perhaps you have seen it and if not, the plot simpyl put involves a lady who wants to return to her home town which now, no longer exists and because she is older, no one believes it ever existed. Thus, she seems a little tipsy to everyone around her. However, Bountiful is a real place, not only to Madam Watts, but also in the film, and also and more importantly, Bountfiul is a real place in everyone if we remember accordingly. The below is my one page response to the film. I encourage you at the end of it, to reflect upon your life and think about your 'Bountfiul,' and maybe you have more than one. Enjoy:

Trip to Bountiful
“Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things.” – Chaim Potok

Mrs. Watts’ longing to return home after roughly twenty years highlights an emotion which I believe resonates deep within each of us, only if we were to reflect upon some dear time in our life and remember it rightly. For the young and because they are young (myself included) we are feeble in our memory. Hence, we have not too many strong happenings in our life evoking emotion in our life to create a longing to return to that happening again and again. For me at the end of my time at Moody, Madam Watts resonates with me, for Moody is my ‘Bountiful’ and how I dear wish often I could return to the beginning of my time here at MBI, my Bountiful.
Jesse- May, that nagging cancerous daughter- in- law is nothing but the pressures of life which lead one to remember their ‘bountiful’ and long for it more and more. Sure, Mrs. Watts hangs her life, emotions, and everything upon one ideal to return to some place no one thought was real nor cared about, but for her it was her source of hope, keeping her peace and sanity (which is ironic because everyone thought she was crazy). As Christians one could easily look at Mrs. Watts’ longing to return to Bountiful as their longing to go to heaven and anxious longing for the new heavens and earth. This would align well, for as many people who did not believe Mrs. Watt’s Bountiful really existed, so too do many people disagree on the existence of heaven.
Regardless as to whether it is healthy for someone to hang their being on a want in life, which usually sets up for disappointment, we can nevertheless glean from Mrs. Watts that to remember rightly is important, and to remember from whence we have come as a person is crucial to understanding our tomorrow.
For example, look at Ludie, the son, throughout the film. He seems to be mildly sad. Sure, this may have to do with his real boss in life, his wife Jesse- May, but he has not remembered Bountiful like his mother and thus, he seems to not have much hope. It is interesting the only time we really see Ludie smile or have some peace is when early in the morning near the beginning of the film, Mrs. Watts, Ludie’s mother, and he are up early talking and she is reminding him of Bountiful.
Thelma serves as those people or things we hear about in life which make us think about our own Bountiful. Mrs. Watts even tells her that she is the daughter- in – law (or daughter) she never had and this she concludes after only having known her for a day or two while riding on a bus. Because our Bountiful is different from our current state, when we meet someone who if different than most and perhaps does or does not remind us of something about our Bountiful, we are drawn to them and are willing to become personal quickly with them.
The ‘Thelmas’ in my life are the under class- men who have often approached me for advice in life, and of those, many I see characteristics of myself, namely the want for an adventure and it is in them I instill what I may have done differently in life. Trip to Bountiful was amusing to watch, and for some reason, though this is irrelevant, it made me think of my favorite film, Fried Green Tomatoes.

Christmas Reading: Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons edited and translated by Edwin Robertson is a book which was given to me in 2007 by my dear friend Scott Lakey. I will be reading it throughout December in light of Die Weihnachtssaison (the Christmas season), and occasionally I will post some quotes from differing sermons, hoping you will be encouraged. It is not merely Bonhoeffer's writings which encourage Christians in this time, but even more so, his life as he is a crucial figure and example for us to look at today to learn from, regarding how to do "public theology." I would encouraged you to at least do a wikipedia search on Bonhoeffer and read who this man was.

December 2, 1928
Advent Sunday
"Waiting is an art our impatient age has forgotten."
"The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy Ony himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God coms. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!"

"Two inescable realities exist... sin and death. Who can bring help as we face these destructive realities? Who can deliver us from their dire effect? Only One! Our Lord delivers us from sin and death. shall we not cry, as the first believers did, "Come Lord!" This is the ancient cry, "Maranatha," and quickly come!"
"Lord Jesus, come yourself, and dwell with us, be human as we are, and overcome what overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to me unfaithfulness. Share my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, Thou holy god. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death. Come with me in my death, come with me in my suffering, come with me as I struggle with evil. And make me holy and pure, despite my sin and death."

Memory Lane:

Here I sit in one of my last chapels listening to the song “Praise Him Still,” and suddenly I no longer stand in unison with my fellow students, rather I sit to type this and what was initially a time of praise, becomes for me, a time of reflection and settle lament over knowing my days at Moody Bible Institute are on the heels of ending. “But that’s okay, because then there’s ‘new things’” one fellow student recently asserted to me before chapel. As this is true, I shake my heart in un-contemplated thoughts about the ‘old things’ about all I have experienced, learned, and gone through while attending MBI: the relationships I came to have, the professors who left their echoing influence upon my life, the things I learned about the Bible, life, and Jesus which left me awestruck and crying in class as the realities of our God and faith peeked at the ‘eyes of my heart’ and left me satisfied yet longing.
Or what about the family drama and death of a dear relative from home, while in the midst of this I came to learn and experience that tasting and seeing God's goodness (Psa 34) comes not through tasting something delicious, rather experiencing pain and discomfort. Surely doubt and temporal disarray due to circumstances often leaves one alone in the shadow of the cross, lost in the exodus and ironically this is often when we are most aware of the Other.
Why, I can hear my professors’ voices in my head instructing me in an area of life which I have since then, dispensed to others. I can still see the eyes of some professor fill with tears when the Christ they have been teaching about for years suddenly becomes rediscovered in the midst of class. Memory lane never has a rush hour and we as Christians need to travel upon it often otherwise we will not grasp with appreciation or remember rightly all of which our God of awesomeness has done on behalf of our betterment. How about the relationships outside of MBI which came from the neighboring Moody Church: I think of Earl, Patti, Ron & Lois, and of course the Nelsons. These people wrought with godliness, sincerity, and humble zeal are but pieces of clay in the Potter’s hand used in my life molding me into who I am. Or what about the meeting of Amber Christine, now my wife.
“Because there’s new things.” New things, huh? The fruition of these new things I await while recalling the faithfulness of YHWH in the ‘old things’ of my time at MBI, making me to never shy from the shadow of the cross and enjoy the new exodus we Christians are currently in. I encourage you, perhaps a new husband or wife, new father or mother, whoever you are to travel down memory lane more often than not and realize anew how indebted we as the people of God are to the Holy. Come, come Lord Jesus, Come.