"To love another person is to see the face of God."

In addition to learning how to be a pastor on internship, I've had to learn how to occupy myself.  I've always been highly involved in various clubs and activities throughout my educational career.  When I applied for college, I had a two page single-spaced list of clubs, sports and volunteer activities that I was a part of!  Needless to say, I don't have the time to be as "involved" due to my job here, but I've been trying to find things to do alone without spending a lot of money.  I've been working out a lot lately, singing in a choir and reading.  I've also taken to going to the movie theater.  I've seen more movies out in the last five months than I've seen in the last five years.  The two closest theaters, Chadron and Rapid City, both have fairly cheap tickets, depending on the time of day.

On Sunday, after not having morning worship due to mud, I decided to head to Chadron to see a movie.  I debated my whole drive there whether I'd rather see Les Miserables or Django Unchained.  I figured Les Mis would be better on the big screen, but I was really curious about Django.  I made a quick decision when I walked into the theater for Les Mis and paid a whole $4.50 for the show.  There are some perks to living in the middle of nowhere.  I don't think you can even Redbox a movie in Chicago for $4.50!  Kidding.  Yes, you can.

Anywho.

I took my seat in the theater, which is an incredibly liberating experience.  I love making my own decisions sometimes, without any thought as to anyone else's needs.  I don't mean this to be selfish, but so much of my internship is spent thinking through how my actions will affect my supervisor, my co-workers, the kids, the congregation members, the community members, my internship committee, my candidacy committee, my seminary advisor/faculty members, my friends, my family, etc, etc.  Needless to say, I do a lot of mental work with others' needs in mind.  Walking into a theater and picking the seat that best suits me in that precise moment, not to mention only needing one seat instead of multiple, is quite enjoyable.

I settled in for the singing and dancing of Les Mis.  I've read the book and I know most of the songs, but I've never seen the show.  About halfway through the movie, I realized that the woman closest to me was sobbing.  I wasn't feeling the emotions of the movie quite as she was, so it caught me off guard.  I began to think about this during one of Russell Crowe's less-than-enjoyable singing expeditions (I wasn't impressed).

I figured out that this felt silly to me.  I live in a place where death and struggle exists every day.  I can't remember if I wrote this before, but one of the schools in the area didn't have school for the first three weeks of January because there were so many funerals that needed to happen.  Last week, there were five funerals in the area on one day.  Five.

Seeing Ann Hathaway crying?  Doesn't quite hit me like life here does.  Call me bitter or jaded, but it's the truth.

At the very end of the film, I heard one of the singers say, "To love another person is to see the face of God."  And that, my friends, was the Good News of the day.  Seeing God in every person that I encounter is sometimes difficult, but so is loving them.  Let's be honest here.  There's all that stuff in the Bible about "loving one another" because Jesus knew how incredibly hard it was--check out his story of persecution!  This woman was crying because some part of her was moved by the story of the peasants suffering in France; I wasn't crying because I feel a little cried-out right now of the suffering here.  I think that's how God feels.  God cries at the pain and suffering; God also feels numb and exhausted by the amount of pain and suffering in our world.  When we look into each others' eyes, seeing each person as a human being and loving one another as God does, then we see what God's face looks like.  Good, bad, happy, sad, excited and so forth.

And so, we keep going, one more day, to see what the face of God looks like as we love one another.