Anyone who follows my posts knows how much I love movies, Netflix series, HBO, and so forth. I often think how remarkable these films are in reflecting so clearly our world, our society, and our own lives. The lessons they offer can be transformative. In the 2006 movie, “Little Miss Sunshine,” we meet Olive (Abigail Breslin), a precocious and darling 7 year old who dreams of winning a beauty pageant. She is not the beauty queen type though. For one thing she is too smart. She also wears big clunky glasses. And she has a round little tummy and an awkward run. But no child could be more sweet, or more lovable. She belongs to the Hoover family, a cross between the Beverly Hillbillies and the McCallister family in “Home Alone.” Dad (Greg Kinnear) is a struggling, uptight, luckless motivational speaker. Mom (Toni Collette) is a protective, cigarette smoking nurturer. Brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) is a cynical nerd obsessed with Nietzsche and becoming a test pilot for the U.S. Air Force. U
The night, with its stars set in the darkness above, silent in the mystery that is space, shines as a messenger of light. The sun, fickle, some days glaring, burning, and some days shedding warmth against the cold, has its purpose. The clouds, hazy and swift at times, like crumpled tissue floating across the sky, and at other times motionless, taking odd shapes, a unicorn, a face, a mountain of snow, offering relief from the summer heat, or billowing and turbulent warning us of threatening weather ahead. The earth rotates without our notice. Caught up in the tedium of our lives, we take for granted the miracle of our planet. Its landscapes and oceans, its highlands and peaks, its trees and flowers, the green grass, the yellow fields, the clear streams, and rugged paths. Majestic. Stunning. Mesmerizing. Awesome. All of it. Every rock and petal, every clump of earth and blade of grass, every jagged crevice and smooth hill. Astonishing in their place of function. Healing in the glory