It is hard to believe that the movie Forest Gump came out in 1994. It was a great movie, sort of a parody about life - something that almost everyone could relate to in some way. The most famous quote from the movie, "Life is like a box of chocolates," still offers insights into a true philosophy for life. Watch this clip and remember:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJh59vZ8ccc&feature=related
I am taking the same approach to this Sunday's message entitled: "Life is like a hockey game: you get three periods to play and the objective is to win." This raises the question: what does it mean to win at life? Wow! That opens a "box of chocolates" to a host of philosophies from economic success to simply staying alive. Of course this depends from what part of the world you may exist. I can only imagine what the simple dreams for life and success for a young child in Somalia might be: To eat at least one meal a day, to live in a house, and to have clean water to drink.
On the other hand the dreams of children from this part of the world (Canada) are much more extravagant. Success for them is to become something great, to have endless amounts of money to spend, and to own a beautiful home and an awesome car.
There seems to be a subliminal unfairness in the world when it comes to these type of philosophies for life and success. I say subliminal because for the most part we are not aware of the unfairness. It's not that we couldn't be but rather we choose not to be. How fair is it to say to an Ethiopian mother who is trying to nurse her child but her breasts are dry: "Well, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get."
Oh how I wish we could be more fair about life around the world and that there would be one common philosophy for life and success for everybody. We would each take from the same box of chocolates - a level playing field for all.
I haven't said much about my message title: "Life is like a hockey game: You get three periods to play and the objective is to win." But it will be much like Forest Gump's philosophical expression in order to be relevant to the life that most of us live in Eastern Canada. This is my world and my people and I am called to be the pastor of the sheep of this flock here in the Hatchet Lake area. For the most part we keep ourselves worlds away from the extreme sufferings of the world don't we. Hummm!!!
May God have mercy.
-Leo
Thanks Steve. I was on your blog and left info in terms of email, etc.
ReplyDelete