simple wisdom.

I have so much swarming in my brain after my holidays and I will debrief when I collect my thoughts. In the meantime, I'm posting some old drafts of movie thoughts I never got around to posting.

Although Forrest Gump somehow, unknowingly, slips through the floor boards of my memory when asked my favorite movies, it is truly remarkable. The ability for Forrest to cling to the loyalties he established and carry out "the next task" with diligent fervor and simple obedience plucked at the strings of my heart. His ability to love others more than himself and so easily neglect self awareness, even when put in dire situations, convicts me. His "capacity," although smaller than someone with more intellectual capabilities, was full...and it was not burdened with a sense of fear.

Although being simple and mentally slow is considered a medical impediment (as it rightly is), I wonder if it is not a glimpse of what we should all be like, to a degree...glimpses of Adam and Eve before the knowledge of "good" and "evil." One Sunday, my pastor stated that it wasn't that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in itself bad (after all God possessed this knowledge and awareness), it was just too great a burden for humans in their capacities to bear in a manner they could, on their own, handle with wisdom and freedom. (Whether or not the fruit had anything to do with the actual sin or whether it was merely a medium through which their sin was expressed is a discussion for another day.) Forrest, and others like him, was not burdened with enough discernment to fear...he just lived. Each day was a blessing and each task was carried out with intriguing fervor. Although it is a movie, and in real life many frustrations would've arisen (he is still a fallen human), there is such a freeness to his limitations. To take an example from real life, a couple Sundays ago this simple boy ran up on stage during worship and raised his hands in adamant praise and he remained there for the duration of the worship. My first instinct was to feel embarrassed for him, and then I felt shame that I would ever be concerned with such things as a person's opinion of me worshiping my Creator...shame. The very thing Adam and Eve felt when their eyes were opened to their capacity for evil. Shame is how humans interact with each other and often with God.

So yes, God has given us minds for discernment, to enjoy the enlightenment they are able to unveil, and to glorify Him to the best of our abilities (we are called to love Him with our mind..it is a beautiful gift that has lead to many discoveries about the truth of the world that have, in turn, given us more reasons to glorify God. But sometimes I feel like we are not simple enough in our attitudes...we are too weighted down and concerned, bearing a burden we were never meant to bear in our own strength.