Outreach- The Talented Mr. Ripley
The outreach was so good. God is so good. I think it really challenged the people that were there. It was so good to be vulnerable and see other people open up as a result. We mainly talked about our identity- do we really know who we are; vulnerability- do we show people who we really our; hiding our past in the basement and locking the door; giving someone the key to unlock the basement of our evilness; trusting another human enough to show them who we really are; unconditional love; Jesus as the source of unconditoinal love- we can bring all of our evil deeds to Jesus because he died for every one of our sins, and he can erase every one of our sins. Let Jesus be the light to shine in our basement- to show us the dark corners in our hearts, what we need to repent of, what He needs to fix. It is a truly humbling experience to step into the basement of your soul. When you are confronted by your evilness without anywhere to turn there is nothing to do but fall on your face at Jesus' feet. I have been praying for humbleness for the last year- I had know idea how humbling humbleness is. I think people are in denial. We do evil things, but we tell ourselves that's not who we are, that's just something we did. But that is a lie. The things we do are who we are- even the things we don't want to admit we do, it is still us. What we do can not be separated from who we are. Yeah, we lie so we don't hurt someone's feelings or we lie to get ourselves out of a sticky situation, but we are ell ourselves that we're honest.
Here are a few lines from the movie to reflect on:
Tom Ripley: It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody...
Tom Ripley: Well, whatever you do, however terrible, however hurtful, it all makes sense, doesn't it, in your head. You never meet anybody that thinks they're a bad person...
Marge Sherwood: The thing with Dickie... it's like the sun shines on you, and it's glorious. And then he forgets you and it's very, very cold...
Tom Ripley: Don't you just take the past, and put it in a room in the basement, and lock the door and never go in there? That's what I do...
Heavy, eh?
posted by Melissa @ 8:32 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Melissa,
I'm proud of you for going out on a limb and trying something you would have normally shied away from. I suppose that is the beauty ofl iving in foreign lands and expanding your horizons and growing as a person. Continue to reach out and challenge yourslef everyday!
Love you!
Michelle
MP glad to hear God is truly refining you it would be nice if it was not through fire but i guess if that is what it takes to make us pure then by all means burn away. I have not posted in a while but i wanted again to remind you of what an encouragement you are to me and how proud i am of what you are doing over there. Things are going well here we have had a wonderful summer studying Jame new faces and a full house every tuesday. It has really been encouraging. I am praying God will continue to move in you and in amsterdam. Oh and i hope you havent lost that nalgene bottle lol
That sounds like a very interesting and dark movie. I haven't seen it, but I am very interested now. It seems that Mr. Ripley falls into the trap of believing that the end always justifies the means. That's actually a theme in the new star wars movie as well.
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