Oh Brother!

"We thought you was a toad!"

Thus I find one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies reverberating through my mind this morning. The movie is “O Brother Where Art Thou” and I guess I’ve watched it at least five hundred million times. If I find myself channel-surfing and happen to ‘pop in’ on a channel that is carrying this movie, I’ll almost always find myself dropping the remote and watching it through the duration. My family finally broke down and bought me a copy of the movie as a Christmas present, and I don’t tell them this – it's one of the best presents I’ve ever received!

If you haven’t seen it, the movie is set in Mississippi during the Great Depression era. A movie that mentions towns such as Itabeena and Sardis, has a soundtrack featuring Allison Kraus and the Peasall Sisters, and features a set of draught horses mastered by a fellow from my home county can’t be all that bad. And by the way, George Clooney tosses in what may possibly be the most stellar performance of his career. Two thumbs up!

While I’ll admit I was initially captivated by the movie, what intrigued me most was the idea that the movie was adapted (loosely) from a story that was written over two thousand years ago. The story is The Odyssey by Homer, and once I saw that particular fact mentioned during the opening credits, I was hooked! I also paid very close attention to details during the movie. They (the writers) did an excellent job with the concept. I’ve always loved the Odyssey, and I studied it extensively back during high school and college. Maybe for that reason I ‘get it’ – the movie, more so than most.

To pattern a movie in such a manner is brilliant, and very creative. But to pattern your life on an ancient book as such is another thing altogether. There is another book that is two-thousand plus years old that we should choose to pattern our lives after. It is filled with tales of heroes and cowards, villains and law-abiding people, honest folks and scapegoats. It is story that begins in irreconcilable failure, and ends with ultimate redemption through grace. The book is The Bible, and what an awesome, wonderful story it holds within its pages! To model one’s life by the examples set within, and to truly live as such, would be akin to achieving perfection. No, we’d never reach that state, we are assured by the book itself that we will miss the mark, but it is a standard we could and should set for ourselves.

I think about that a lot these days. How do I measure up to men like Daniel, Elijah, and Paul? How about the perfect example set by Jesus Christ himself? A popular fad used to be wearing bracelets with WWJD stamped on them, in assorted colors and designs. The WWJD stood for “What Would Jesus Do” and more often than not, we would wear them and never really think too much about it. When things happen in our lives and choices need to be made, it would be good to truly think about what Jesus would do in our situation and follow the answers that would be given to us accordingly. (Even without a bracelet to remind ourselves about it!) It would also be worthwhile to honestly ‘capture’ our thoughts and deeds and compare them to the patterns and examples given for us in that ancient but timeless book.

Excuse me, but I think it’s time for me to R-U-N-N-O-F-T!