Three Ten Pictures

Computer + Mug of hot tea + Dell Xpress Service Package = No blog posts for two weeks.

Good thing I bought the Idiot Warranty.

In other news, I spent the day in Julian, California, writing away in the back room of a countrified buffalo burger joint.  Great service, forgettable sandwich.

I re-outlined what will probably become the first ten minutes of the film.  It’s funny how things get re-arranged while you’re writing: my opening scene just became the climax.

After several hours of pounding away, and half a dozen research phone calls (including one to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ Corporate Offices in Utah–they’re very friendly), I had…

…one of those…

… you know, moments.  A flashbulb moment.  A creative explosion.  A nexus, a ligature, a crux, and then a conflagration of ideas.  A White-out.  They came in by the thousands, and all at once, and they all lined up like Holst’s planets.  A Moment Of Clarity.

So here it is:

My movie… my big, epic, ha-ha-somehow-this-will-be-entertaining-even-though-it’s-just-a-documentary-about-Baptists movie, my first feature film, presented by Canyon Ridge Baptist Church…

…is about a crisis of faith.

Like, about whether or not I believe in God.

Whether He exists or not.

Whether I should listen to Him.

Whether it’s worth it to keep doing The Right Thing.

Is there a Right Thing?

So… I capitalized all those personal pronouns, so my faith must not be stone dead, right?.  However, I spent 2007 rubbing my soul in muck, wallowing in pain, wondering why I’d ignored this Babylon we called Earth for so long.  My natural empathy eroded away.  I set up little tests to see what people were like.  I looked for clues to their private worlds.  I wanted to know what they were lying about.

At the time, I felt… for too long, I’d been too good… and for the wrong reasons.  My soul looked like that Edvard Munch painting.  Then I short-circuited, I caught fire, and burned out, and when it was over, I couldn’t trust anything.

I had a Question.  It wasn’t the “God, are You listening?” question really, or even the “Why are people so bad?” question, or the “God, if You’re so bright, how come the world isn’t?” question.  It wasn’t even, “Why?”

Once, I was asked the Question… by my dog.  He asked when he was a puppy, many times, over and over again, as we rubbed his face in urine and smacked him on the butt for leaking on the carpet:

“Why does it have to HURT?”

*sigh*

The Question, simple as it was, eroded my faith in my friends, and then myself, and then my God.  I was torn down, left burning and exposed.

The Answer was in plain sight–God is God and I’m not.  I think Job said that once.

It all comes down to that, doesn’t it?

I mulled that over as I drove home.

That’s what the movie’s about.

Also, my church is in it.

Happy New Year.