A Thin Red Line

Actor Jim Caviezel stars in the movie Thin Red Line. It is a movie about men in WWII and their reactions to it and more importantly, about one man who loves sacrificially like Jesus did. It is full of blood and guts and foul language but it was much better the second time.


I had seen it years ago when it premiered...probably in 1998? I saw it last week on the $5 rack at Walmart and remembered it made me weep so I bought it. I watched it again last week and it has left a mark on me. I am seeing my world differently. The movie is full of faces living in terror. I think I am seeing the same thing as I walk around places like Walmart, my neighborhood, and my work place.

Sunday night Jocko took me for a walk along the river in downtown Newburgh. The full moon was rising through the clouds in orange over the river and the new lock and dam. It was incredibly beautiful. I just watched it rise. One could almost see it move.

I went again last night...I had to get back there. It was different but once again, breathtaking. While walking away, I noticed a young couple walking along the river. They sat down on a bench several yards in front of me and as I passed by I heard him telling of his desire to buy a wave runner. My thought was, "Boy is he romantic! What a shallow conversation! At least he could be romantic even if he does not notice the beauty in his girl friend... or in the moon! Come on buddie; come alive!"

Then I thought about God and how I have been thrown into this continual conversation with Him. I wonder what He thinks about all that I see and hear. Am I the nutty one who thinks this guy on the riverfront is not alive? Do I live in the real world or does he live in the real world?

Something in that movie threw me into an awareness of how lost people really are. I see the fear in their eyes. I hear the lostness in a dark comment on a dark night on the river front.

Should I have yelled "Jesus!" Should I have stopped and engaged them? Could I have been used by Jesus at that moment? Did I miss a chance? Or would I have just been blown off as some nut walking a small dog? ...a scary thought.

The world is changing or I am changing. I have felt dead for awhile and maybe this is a coming alive for me?