Thursday Night At The Movies

By Cindee Riordan

Thursday night, I had a somewhat novel experience: I went to the movies.  For unexplored reasons, this is not a frequent occurrence for me; nevertheless, I purchased my ticket, sat down with my Diet Coke and hoped to be entertained by George Clooney and The Descendants.  To my amazement, this experience is what all Oscar-nominated movies should be: an opportunity to add inspiration to my lazy complacency of everyday life.  Be forewarned, the language is rough with a pensive plot; but the complexity of tensions between pain and joy, tears and laughter are revelatory.

The main theme is the infidelity of George Clooney’s on-screen wife as she lay in her hospital bed dying from a reckless boating accident. I suspect many of us have felt the unrelenting pain and brokenness that results from infidelity whether personally or through friends and family. 

Today’s headlines are full of 72 day marriages and the “15 minutes of fame” affairs which belittle both the anguish of betrayal and the covenant of marriage. Yet for me, my personal faithfulness in marriage is not something I have spent too much time considering.  I pledged my fidelity in my marriage because of the values I hold dear.  After all, it is one of the Ten Commandments and a precept on which to build a strong foundation based on love and trust. So imagine my surprise that this movie with its foul language and flawed characters (although aren’t we all?) spurred further thought on the Seventh Commandment.  Upon reflection, I discovered this commandment is not just about social order and morals, it is not just about law. Fidelity is about something much more transcendent which shakes complacency to its core: it is about abiding love and the passion of honor.  As is often the case with God, this Commandment holds a promise for abundance if we look deep enough.

Without overdone histrionics, watching George Clooney struggle with the discovery of his wife’s betrayal and impending death brought home the precious gift of marriage and faithfulness.  As he sits by her hospital bed, he attempts to come to terms with the fact that she was both his pain and his joy as he says goodbye. In fact, this movie posed many moments where the light of laughter penetrated the darkness of sorrow and betrayal.   

Those tensions of life that we often experience in the combination with each other, love and brokenness, pain and joy, anger and laughter, were offered with such subtlety in this movie that their impact lingered long after.  In this fictional marriage, the wife’s gift of herself was not given to him alone, and it led to damaged dreams, lives and relationships.   

Yet this movie provoked in me a deep desire to continue to set my husband apart, for him to be the recipient of both my physical and emotional faithfulness not out of a duty to not betray him and God but out of a desire to celebrate him and the unique bond of our marriage. To celebrate what God has called together. To entrust to him the passion of my honor for him and only him.  To let him know that he is precious and loved by my faithfulness.  To create a relationship with him that yields a partnership through the trials and triumphs of a shared life. Duty enables complacency; love shatters it.  If we take the time to really think about what God asks of us, it is not a duty to a law, it is the radicalness of love with its promise of abundance. Now, isn’t that a gift worthy of leaving to our Descendants?

Guess you know what movie and actor I will be rooting for this Sunday on Oscar night!!