Movie Prompt: First and Second Things

I’ve been thinking a good deal about Surprised by Oxford and Carolyn Drake’s disappointment at her abandonment by her father. I often see in movies the heart wrenching dilemma faced by a parent where a child is terrified by an event that just happened, be it illness, violence, or some other trauma. The parent, desperate to allay the child’s fear, looks the child in the eye and tells them, “I will never let that happen to you. I will protect you.”

The child believes the parent and his fear is allayed. However, most dire circumstances are beyond control of the parent. To be specific, for example if the parent is the father, isn’t he setting himself up to do what only God can do? In other words in order to allay fear in the child (a good thing) he is setting himself up in place of God as if the father had control of all things and all circumstances.

So, at its heart, the parent’s assertion is at least an expression of hope rather than fact, but often it will prove to be an outright lie. Isn’t the parent simply setting the child up for the kind of deep disappointment and betrayal that Carolyn Drake felt? Can a well-meaning lie in the long run ever be better than the awful truth? So what is the alternative? Should the father tell the child he isn’t truly in control of all things? Should the father then say, “Sorry kiddo, this might also happen to you and there’s nothing I could do about it.”

I think this is a false dichotomy. Lying or being a stoic and telling your young child to face up to a hopeless perceived truth are not the only two alternatives.

Although I also do not control all outcomes, as a Christ Follower I realize or ought to realize that I and my child both a have a true father who has control of all things.

We will all face tragedy and death in this short life. It’s never too early to begin building trust in the father who truly loves us, has paid a great price to ransom us, and has the power to see us through all things (even death) and make them work out for our good and up-building. Of course if you don’t yet believe this, you are left with lying and stoicism as the only options until you encounter and embrace the creator and upholder of the universe.

In summary, although I began with a movie example in which parents make impossible claims to their children to allay their fears, I’m ultimately not writing of this because of a desire to give parental advice. The movie example of lying to children to allay fear is merely an example of a much broader tendency in which we substitute secondary things for primary (or first) things. C. S. Lewis put it this way:

“You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”

C. S. Lewis. First and Second Things in The Collected Works of C. S. Lewis. Page 490.

Lewis had previously illustrated the principle with two examples:

“The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog keeping. The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.”

C. S. Lewis. Ibid.

In the end, making sure I keep first things first, is a caution first and foremost for me.

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Surprised by the Movie SURPRISED BY OXFORD

Carolyn (Caro) Weber’s very personal memoir, Surprised by Oxford, is one of my favorite books. I have read it at least twice, I’ve discussed in the book club I attend, and I’ve given it to members of my family.

Imagine my delight when I noted the book had been made into a movie (2023) and was available on Hoopla at my cottage area library. While eager to watch the movie, I did wondered if I would be disappointed by the changes made during the screen writing *I remember poignantly how disappointed I was at the mess Hollywood had made of another one of my favorite books — R. H. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers).

Although some changes were made, the essence of the story was captured in the abbreviated version of the screen play. In my view, the cinematography depicting Oxford and the English country side is excellent and the dry humor of the erudite students and staff shines through. Caro’s transformation from a sometimes angry skeptic to a seeker after the secret longing that inhabits all of us, was catalyzed as much by the skeptical and arrogant attitudes of some of the students and staff as by the surprising humility and search after truth found in others.

In my view, the movie, like the book, is worthy of five stars.

There were a few changes made in the screen play. As one learns from the book, Weber was a Canadian grew up in London, Ontario. In the movie, although not stated explicitly, she was portrayed as American (for example her father was supposedly accused of a felony). In the book she attended Oriel College in Oxford, while the college listed in the movie was Tyrian (which I presume is a fictitious college name). None of these mar the story. If you are interested in an unconventional love story with a lot of thoughtful content, I suggest you check it out.