For the second time in a decade, I gloriously watched a movie alone.
For most times, I am really fine with being alone, but watching a movie, I think, is surely one of those things I recommend not to do alone. Haha. (also, I’m out of town, that’s why I’m alone hehe)
To ease myself on a holiday, before diving into some work, I watched Shazam. (please stop reading here, if you don’t want spoilers!)
DC movies have tones of humor that somehow leave me more confused than entertained most of the time. I think the humor parts sought to neutralize the movie by making the serious and sensitive issues less apparent. By issues, I mean, in the movie, you’ll see:
- A child being forever blamed for an accident that left his father unable to walk.
- A child repeatedly told that he was never going to be enough.
- An adult forever breeding contempt against his family for cumulative and compounding offenses.
- A child left to the park lost for a moment, and lost for the next 10 years
- A teenager left searching for his biological mother who never went searching for him.
- A foster kid abandoning foster family care, trusting no one.
Guess we haven’t realized the weight of these, because we laughed our way out of the movie house.
But the most perplexing part for me was in how Billy became Shazam.
14-year old kid.
Didn’t have a heart of gold.
Undeserving.
Not worthy.
I would have reconsidered if the kid possessed undeniable kindness, or was consistently standing up to what was the right thing to do. He didn’t.
Becoming Shazam for this 14 year-old kid, was rather, a painful, awkward, yet also entertaining thing to watch – using superpowers to busk in streets, to earn a few bucks, and to accommodate ego-enhancing selfie requests. How egotistically unconventional.
It was painful to see a hero who nowhere nearly looked like one.
He wore the cape but not the character.
He had the power but not the purpose.
Billy was called forth to be Shazam. But he was nowhere living up to the full potential of Shazam. Hailed a hero, but needed to progressively become a hero.
It’s weird.
He IS already a hero (possessed the identity and the ability)
but he needed to train TO BE the hero he already was.
A hero already, and a hero becoming.
This concept of already, but not-yet-there is a familiar theme and Billy is very much like us, in some ways.
Already a child of God,
yet also becoming a child of God
Divinely called yet undeniably undeserving.
Already, but not exactly quite there yet.
If we despise Shazam for busking, and taking selfies – doing unheroic deeds, while claiming to be a hero, how much more this: claiming to be a child of God, and yet still doing what is unbecoming of that very identity – still stumbling and falling, still tripping and transgressing – oh what a painful thing to watch.
Shazam and Billy seemed to be two different persons forced to live in one body.
A person of opposites.
A misunderstood misfit.
Never good enough.
Very much like us.
And yet, God beckons:
And you did not receive the “spirit of religious duty,” leading you back into the fear of never being good enough. But you have received the “Spirit of full acceptance,” enfolding you into the family of God. And you will never feel orphaned, for as he rises up within us, our spirits join him in saying the words of tender affection, “beloved Father!” Romans 8:15
Beloved, you are God’s children right now; however it is not yet apparent what we will become. But we do know that when it is finally made visible, we will be just like him, for we will see him as he truly is. 1 John 3:2
Beloved, In Christ,
we are chosen orphans, and accepted children.
we are divinely called
yetand undeniably underserving.We are walking opposites yet grace bridged the chasm.
We are misfits yet, loved the same.
We are already, and also progressively becoming.
Thinking Millennial 