Weekend Thought by John Milbank
IT is not often that I plug anything, apart from holes in walls caused by my rather clumsy attempts at DIY.
However, today I’m going to recommend a film; if you have access to YouTube you can watch it, or it’s easily available from several online outlets.
Whatever way you can get it, please see this 20-minute film – it may just change your life.
The Butterfly Circus is a story of liberation, a beautifully written snapshot of how lives can be brought from the sordid to the honourable.
This film, both visually and in its screenplay, taps into something higher. A greater narrative of exceptional beauty permeates what we actually see on screen.
Whether we realise or not, it is the nature and character of God.
Mr Mendez, the mysterious master of The Butterfly Circus is in the business of redemption.
As the film progresses, we discover that all of the performers in his circus have a troubled and broken past that, with his help, they have overcome. They have all in some way been exploited and dehumanised.
Yet the very same weakness that saw them hit rock bottom in their past lives has become that which gives them the strength and ability to fly high and wow the crowds as performers.
Mendez is able to look past the outer weakness to the inner strength created by having to take on adversity. It is that strength that he harnesses and nurtures to help his performers become the best possible versions of themselves.
“The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph,” he says in one poignant scene.
Mendez takes people where they are sinful, broken, or down and out and accepts them with no conditions attached. His unshakeable belief in them as valuable human beings and his unbreakable commitment to seeing them become the people he knows they can be demonstrates the redeeming power of unconditional love.
He is a picture of Jesus Christ; the performers are you and I.
I can’t tell you more. Seek this film out, tissues standing by.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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