It’s strange sometimes how ‘things’ occur that seem to re-emphasise a theme. Last night I was working on my sermon for next week and for some reason felt I should watch (again!!) Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

It may seem a bit of a ‘chick flick’ to be watching but it is one of my classic favourites and it does seem more and more that one of the ways that God communicates with me in a format that I can understand and hear is through film.

The film is about Holly Golightly and her ‘free-spiritedness’ and relationship with life. She values ‘being rich’ only and is determined to choose a rich husband, even when she starts to fall in love with the writer who has moved in upstairs, who only has $50 to his name!

If you have not seen the film you should watch it just for the beauty of the film itself and the joy which Audrey Hepburn exhibits in her portrayal of the character. I’ve just found out that Anna Friel is playing the lead role in a stage show which is due to open in London in early September.

To follow on the theme of vulnerability the film ends with Paul ‘Fred’ Varjak’s words:
You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, “Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” You call yourself a free spirit, a “wild thing,” and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

Our relationship with others, as well as with God, I am seeing, from my times of waiting necessarily involve having guts and courage to step put of the cage. It involves vulnerability. Being in the cage offers us protection and we acclimatise to being caged thinking our safety equates to freedom. In fact, the cage we crawl in for self preservation is the cage that prevents us from growing, exploring and developing in the way we are supposed to as human beings.

I think we sometimes try to sanitize our faith and think that we can engage with people from the safety of our cage. We try to minimise risk and eliminate vulnerability. That cage could take many shapes – home, family, friends, clubs, and of course church, which may be the largest cage for many – a lace where we feel we are safe but have an increasing awareness that actually it may be holding us back in various ways.

To engage properly, to hear, to be able ourselves fully and therefore fully engage we need to step out of the safety of the cage into freedom. Freedom and safety do not equate. As we step out we lose the security and suddenly everything becomes a lot messier and more dangerous. As I attempt to do that in my own little way I find that I have increasing occurrences of the ‘mean reds’ – to understand that you may have to watch the film!! (or a google search!)

Last night I went to the cinema to watch Twilight. It’s a modern day love story with some interesting twists and a fair number of adrenalin action scenes.

It’s a story of two worlds meeting, of taboos being broken and personal safety being thrown aside for love of another person. There are two central characters, Bella who is an independent teenage girl and Edward who happens to be a vampire.

There are some great gritty themes of love coming out of the film (as opposed to slushy cheap love that is often displayed in movies) which show that real love costs, demands a risk for all (not just the two who are ‘in love’) and that loves can only result in some difficult choices.

When Edward is talking with Bella, suggesting she should stay away because he is ‘the most dangerous predator in the world’ she replies ‘I’d rather die than stay away from you.’The film starts with Bella saying something like ‘I never thought of ding, but if you have to die, what better way than to die in the place of someone you love.’

My reflections and thoughts immediately went to the cross and again, I am forced to recognise the presence of God and God themes through many movies that are around at the moment. I am freminded again that the sacred secular divide is a human construct, and that God is able, willing and does step across, blur and dismiss such divides.

The reminder to me is to look through those barriers and allow myself to see them blurred so that I do not place my personal limits on how, when and where God can speak.