Dear reader, I recently saw Wonder Woman and I'd like to tell you what I think about it, and share with you what reflections it spurred in me. Its good, though it took me a while to come to that conclusion. After hearing so many people that I respected sing its praises, my great uncle Craig and I decided on a whim to go and see the movie.
To be honest, for about 3/4 of the film, I really disliked it. Surprisingly and deeply disliked it. It could be that I expected too much but when confronted with a somewhat slow moving beginning, characters who I didn't particularly connect with, and people treating one another poorly, I found myself upset, almost to the point of being livid. Rage seems like a pretty strong description, but sitting in a cushy seat watching people make enemies of one another and act on that through war, I wrestled with some considerable indignation at the least. Fist clenching, jaw tightening, brow furrowing, uncomfortable stomach knotting--you get the idea.
That being said, the last few scenes unexpectedly reconciled it for me. As Wonder Woman battles with her long-sought nemesis, Ares, she encounters some intense personal struggle, which he uses to try and dissuade her from her quest of ridding the world of him and delivering mankind from war. His words could daunt anyone from believing in the goodness of humans, and he has specific examples of how they act in self-interest, with malicious intent, and cause pain as a result. I loved Diana's response "They're everything you say, but so much more." She does not discount the darkness and weakness in humanity; she acknowledges it, but also firmly holds to her belief that there is more to people than the bad in them.
I appreciated that. So often I feel that we look for people to be black and white, wholly depraved and beyond all hope of doing anything virtuous OR infallible and supremely good. This expectation is unrealistic. It limits our ability to connect with others because it denies the complexity of each individual. We each are a blend of bad and good, weakness and strength, villain and hero. I like how Lemony Snicket puts it "People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict." I think that vinaigrette has a lot more than confusion and conflict to it, and I don't believe that we are salads to be compared with one another or consumed by anyone, but I do think that we are all a little mixed up with good and bad. Sorting through that is a challenge, and we all struggle with it in ourselves and in those with whom we interact.
So what? What do we do? You know, I'm still working on that one. I think that acknowledging the good and bad in us is a start, and then being patient with that matters. I also feel that Wonder Woman and her spy friend Steve have a good idea in stating "Its not about what you deserve. Its about what you believe." What you believe dictates how you act, and believing that people are more than the bad inside them can help us to be patient, generous, kind, forgiving, and a host of other qualities that facilitate connection between people and true beauty in this mortal world.
I recently saw another film where characters were not so black and white and accepted themselves and one another as they were. I'm not going to launch into another movie review, but allow me to share with you one scene from Howl's Moving Castle where accepting another person for who they are and believing in them with all their flaws made all the difference. Here, the heroine Sophie defends Howl--the namesake of the castle--to a character bent on seeing one side of him, the heartless, dangerous side. In response, Sophie radiates with courage, strength, and love, saying "He may be selfish and cowardly and sometimes he's hard to understand, but his intentions are good! He just wants to be free!”
I think one reason this stuck out to me so beautifully is that I believe that we all want to be free. There is good and bad inside each one of us, light and darkness, strength and weakness, all woven together in our being. We wrestle with our lowest and worst parts, feeling that they need to be gone in order rise to the highest and best that is in us. However, I am learning that it is not strictly the removal of bad that makes the difference, because that which we lack is made sufficient through Jesus Christ. We can trust that. I feel that God sees us, with all of our mixed pieces, and accepts it. He knows what is in us and what is in our hearts; He even gives us or has us remain with weakness! Paul and Moroni give us excellent descriptions of their struggles with weakness in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 and Ether 12:23-28, respectively. God accepts that we are without qualification, inviting us to come as we are, rather than depart from him (see 2 Nephi 26:23-33).
Acceptance, both from ourselves and from others, facilitates freedom and is a huge part of love. It is uncomfortable, in part because we assume that people will draw back, recoil, and leave us when they see us as we are. We wonder whether or not we will really be enough as we truly are and not as we wish we were. It is a HUGE risk to be seen this way, a risk that we hesitate to take because we expect it will lead to abandonment. We often think that is what we deserve, and grimace whenever we let that part of us be known. 'Words Fail' from the the recent musical Dear Evan Hansen movingly demonstrates this fairly universal fear of rejection if we let ourselves be seen. "I'd rather pretend I'm something better than these broken parts, Pretend I'm something other than this mess I am, 'Cause then I don't have to look at it, And no one gets to look at it, No, no on can really see...'cause what if everyone saw? What if everyone knew? Would they like what they saw? Or would they hate it too?" We so often hate the worst part of ourselves, wanting to run away from it, reject it, and have it be gone from us. We feel such is the best course, denying the badness that is there by ignoring it or running away from it will allow us to escape the rejection that will surely come is we were to allow others to see and to know. Surely, the rejection is what we deserve.
Yet love enables us to move beyond what is deserved. Wendell Berry shares that "love changes, and in change is true...the Christian gospel is a summons to peace, calling for justice beyond anger, mercy beyond justice, forgiveness beyond mercy, love beyond forgiveness." I'm inclined to agree with him. Christ calls us to go beyond what is expected or deserved or even beyond what is good to what is better and eventually best. I often do not get this process; my brain balks at it, seizing up with an error message because the logic doesn't match up. Robert Frost writes "Christ came to introduce a break with logic...'twas lovely and its origin was love." With this logic-defying love Christ offers in mind, President Nelson's observations on the word for atonement in Hebrew and related words in Aramaic and Arabic that point us to the idea of an embrace make so much sense. He is ready to embrace us, at every and any point, no matter how awkward or hesitant we may be. Through who He is and the atonement He accomplished, He embraces us, unites with us, to always be with us, to give us peace that can be ours in every circumstance--because He loves us. He just does.
Such love changes us. Accepting such love changes us and then seeking to reflect it deepens that change. It goes beyond what we know and what makes sense. I think that is one reason why the prophets emphasize love so much, stating that without it we are nothing (see 1 Corinthians 13, Moroni 7, or Thomas S. Monson's words). I love what Marilynne Robinson has to say about love in her novel, Gilead. She writes that "Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters...there is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse of a parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense at all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?" Love, this "embracing, incomprehensible reality" often does not make sense to us, at least it doesn't to me. It is generously given, even if it goes unreceived. It is constant. It is unwavering. It is not deserved, earned, added to or taken away from us. As President Monson says of God's love (which I believe is the truest love) "It is simply always there."
I think such honest and true love is the love Sophie expressed in the aforementioned scene, the love that Diana chooses in her moment of testing, the love that Jesus Christ offers each of us, the love that we yearn for, and the love that I am trying to develop in myself. Love, my friend. It is powerful. It is perfect. As an imperfect being, I stumble and clumsily trip and fall as I practice this divine characteristic, but miraculously, even my being a klutz does not take away from the wholeness or completeness of love.
Mkay, I think that is more than enough time spent treading water in my brain. You have been patient, dear reader, and I thank you. Maybe the exertion will produce something good, even if it is not movement in the water. I hope it will, somehow.
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