Family Home Evening, Monday, March 31, 2008

Happy Family Home Evening,

How is everyone doing?

We are such a family of movie goers, so a few thoughts about the REEL Life Lessons.

Someone wrote, "Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again."

It doesn't matter whether its a NetFlicks , bargain matinee, or Friday night date, truth can be pleasurably discerned one frame at a time.

"Studying movies for their mystical message empowers us. We gain insight and greater self-awarness," Marsha Sinetar (author) suggests.

"Life can be hard and involved and we get lost in working out our problems and going through our trials. Movies elevate our sights, enlarge imagination."

Film, like poetry, is one of our heart's most subtle agents. It reminds us of what we know, helps us stretch and change, provides us with a sensory catalyst for creative, cutting edge. change. Reel power is "the ability to dig out, and use, whatever is spiritually valuable in a movie."

Films are celluloid fairy tales for a culture that no longer sits around the campfire listening to the wisdom of its elders.

I love the period pieces, the costumes, the lush sets. I love black and white mysteries, and colorful musicals. I always love lavish costumes in any time period.

Meditatively matching your mood to a movie is very restorative and rewarding.

"Movies mirror us and invite us to go beyond the obvious. Their themes and images can powerfully equip us to see ourselves as we are at our worst, and at our best, or to help us invent new scripts about who we hope to be," Marsha Sinetar believes.

We have enjoy the Jane Austen series of movies on PBS the last few weeks. Monday afternoon we took some of our grandkids to the Larry Miller theater at Thanksgiving Point to see "Horton hears a Who!" It was wild! Go enjoy a good, uplifting movie.

Oh, and we love the movie popcorn. . . .

Love,

Mom and Dad, Shauna and Robert Valentine
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox