does god executive produce movies
Nora quaffed a cup of tea in my kitchen and proposed the following.
"I suppose you look down on other religions. On other denominations of Christianity even. I don't mean to be critical. But you'd think they were wrong wouldn't you?"
I was taken aback.
"All I said was that I believe Jesus Christ is real and that he commissioned the Catholic Church to serve himself in human history. I've said nothing about other denominations or faith traditions or perspectives. Why on earth would you think I had any thing against them?"
"It's just the way you talk."
"Well here are some things I have said. My favourite writer for a long time was the Lutheran Pastor Richard Wurmbrand. I was once thinking to myself that I'd like to meet him but that he was probably long dead and then I had an intimation: You will know when he dies. That's how it happened. I mean, so it transpired. I never met him but one day I picked up a copy of the Guardian newspaper in a cafe, a paper that had been left on a table, and one I rarely if ever bought. And there was Wurmbrand's obituary. A full article memorialising his life. It was as though I was being told. The exact same thing happened when his wife Sabine died. I found a copy of the Guardian by chance not having touched a Guardian in the previous year for fear of catching rabies, and her obituary was in it. Another of my favourite writers is CS Lewis whom I have stated will one day be the first non Catholic to be declared a Doctor of the Catholic Church. This is an honorific peculiar to our church reserved for those who have contributed rich insights to our understanding of the faith. CS Lewis was an Anglican all his life. Read The Great Divorce by the way. Best book ever. And The Screwtape Letters. Same again, best book ever. Never mind the Narnia rubbish. Remember now. The Great Divorce. Terrible title. Best book ever. Yet another of my favourite writers is the Jewish poet Franz Wurfel who was being pursued by the Nazis and got trapped in Lourdes, France in 1939 and the French wouldn't let him escape over the border into Spain. Wurfel claimed he prayed: Lord if you get me out of this, I will sing a song for Bernadette. He escaped to America. By 1941 he had written The Song Of Bernadette and it had already run into several editions including printings in Dublin Ireland. This with World War Two going on. That's a really efficient work ethic or providence. Which do you think it was? Honest to goodness read it. Before you give up on life, read it. Before you poison your body with anti depressants, read it. Before you despair of the holiness of God, read it. The liberating truth of the universe is here. By 1943 The Song Of Bernadette was a Hollywood movie and the film too is a mystic rarity. Like the book there's something providential about it. How it got made. The actors in it all giving career best performances unrelated to anything else they ever did. You wonder how can it be so good. As good as the book but distinct from it, I'm saying. A movie that somehow holds its power even with all the dated conventions of black and white 1940s Hollywood acting. Vincent Price does a turn in it and he's better than in anything else he ever did. You'll be thinking: Price is acting like he was born to do this. Maybe he was. Oh. Never mind my delight to see God speaking to humanity through Lutherans, Anglicans and the Holy People the Jews. In the 1960s the atheist Robert Bolt wrote a play about Saint Thomas Moore called A Man For All Seasons. Robert Bolt never admitted to being anything but an atheist. Yet here we have the most extraordinary evocation of a Catholic Saint. The film of A Man For All Seasons is even better than the stage version in part because Robert Bolt was retained to adopt the script and cut out some of the intrusive artsy theatrical flourishes. I'm telling you, when you see that film, you'll ask yourself: Did God executive produce this thing? One more. The Von Trapp family. They were Catholics and the Sound Of Music is based on their real experiences. Their real life experiences were grim enough but the movie is a veritable hymn to innocence and joy. See it. Feel the joy in it. At certain levels it doesn't at first seem as profound as The Song Of Bernadette and A Man For All Seasons. Yet the joy is profound. So the Von Trapps were Catholic. But scriptwriter Ernie Lehman, actress Julie Andrews, and Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves don't have much reputation as Catholics. Except dear lady in the sense, as I suggest, that when the boss himself is putting together a movie that will having enduring mystical qualities transcending time and place, it seems these are the ones he sends for."
"I suppose you look down on other religions. On other denominations of Christianity even. I don't mean to be critical. But you'd think they were wrong wouldn't you?"
I was taken aback.
"All I said was that I believe Jesus Christ is real and that he commissioned the Catholic Church to serve himself in human history. I've said nothing about other denominations or faith traditions or perspectives. Why on earth would you think I had any thing against them?"
"It's just the way you talk."
"Well here are some things I have said. My favourite writer for a long time was the Lutheran Pastor Richard Wurmbrand. I was once thinking to myself that I'd like to meet him but that he was probably long dead and then I had an intimation: You will know when he dies. That's how it happened. I mean, so it transpired. I never met him but one day I picked up a copy of the Guardian newspaper in a cafe, a paper that had been left on a table, and one I rarely if ever bought. And there was Wurmbrand's obituary. A full article memorialising his life. It was as though I was being told. The exact same thing happened when his wife Sabine died. I found a copy of the Guardian by chance not having touched a Guardian in the previous year for fear of catching rabies, and her obituary was in it. Another of my favourite writers is CS Lewis whom I have stated will one day be the first non Catholic to be declared a Doctor of the Catholic Church. This is an honorific peculiar to our church reserved for those who have contributed rich insights to our understanding of the faith. CS Lewis was an Anglican all his life. Read The Great Divorce by the way. Best book ever. And The Screwtape Letters. Same again, best book ever. Never mind the Narnia rubbish. Remember now. The Great Divorce. Terrible title. Best book ever. Yet another of my favourite writers is the Jewish poet Franz Wurfel who was being pursued by the Nazis and got trapped in Lourdes, France in 1939 and the French wouldn't let him escape over the border into Spain. Wurfel claimed he prayed: Lord if you get me out of this, I will sing a song for Bernadette. He escaped to America. By 1941 he had written The Song Of Bernadette and it had already run into several editions including printings in Dublin Ireland. This with World War Two going on. That's a really efficient work ethic or providence. Which do you think it was? Honest to goodness read it. Before you give up on life, read it. Before you poison your body with anti depressants, read it. Before you despair of the holiness of God, read it. The liberating truth of the universe is here. By 1943 The Song Of Bernadette was a Hollywood movie and the film too is a mystic rarity. Like the book there's something providential about it. How it got made. The actors in it all giving career best performances unrelated to anything else they ever did. You wonder how can it be so good. As good as the book but distinct from it, I'm saying. A movie that somehow holds its power even with all the dated conventions of black and white 1940s Hollywood acting. Vincent Price does a turn in it and he's better than in anything else he ever did. You'll be thinking: Price is acting like he was born to do this. Maybe he was. Oh. Never mind my delight to see God speaking to humanity through Lutherans, Anglicans and the Holy People the Jews. In the 1960s the atheist Robert Bolt wrote a play about Saint Thomas Moore called A Man For All Seasons. Robert Bolt never admitted to being anything but an atheist. Yet here we have the most extraordinary evocation of a Catholic Saint. The film of A Man For All Seasons is even better than the stage version in part because Robert Bolt was retained to adopt the script and cut out some of the intrusive artsy theatrical flourishes. I'm telling you, when you see that film, you'll ask yourself: Did God executive produce this thing? One more. The Von Trapp family. They were Catholics and the Sound Of Music is based on their real experiences. Their real life experiences were grim enough but the movie is a veritable hymn to innocence and joy. See it. Feel the joy in it. At certain levels it doesn't at first seem as profound as The Song Of Bernadette and A Man For All Seasons. Yet the joy is profound. So the Von Trapps were Catholic. But scriptwriter Ernie Lehman, actress Julie Andrews, and Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves don't have much reputation as Catholics. Except dear lady in the sense, as I suggest, that when the boss himself is putting together a movie that will having enduring mystical qualities transcending time and place, it seems these are the ones he sends for."
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