Early in the movie, Blood Diamond, a Mende village is plundered by a group of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. Many people, including women and children, are murdered. The young boys of the village are taken, to be trained, in order to fight with the rebels. This group includes Dia, twelve-year old son of a fisherman, Solomon Vandy. Solomon's life is spared, but he is separated from his family and enslaved, to work in the diamond fields under the command of Captain Poison.

The RUF uses the diamonds to fund their war effort, often trading them directly for arms. While working in the RUF diamond fields as a forced laborer, Solomon finds a large diamond of rare pink coloring. Moments before government troops launch an attack, Captain Poison sees Solomon hiding the diamond. Before he can get the stone Captain Poison is injured, and both he and Solomon are taken to prison in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. While in jail, the wounded RUF commandant tells the prisoners about the stone Solomon found.
Hearing this, mercenary smuggler Danny Archer (from Zimbabwe) arranges Solomon's release and proposes to exchange the diamond as a way to find Solomon's missing family. After an arduous overnight trek, Danny and Solomon reach the mining camp--still under RUF control--where Solomon discovered and buried the diamond. Here, Solomon is painfully reunited with his son Dia, who refuses to acknowledge him because he has been brainwashed by the rebels.

In a tense scene, at the sight of the buried diamond, still refusing to acknowledge his father, Dia has a gun pointed at Solomon's head.
Solomon: "I am your father who loves you and you will come home and be my son again."

Dia's face reflects the anger and hatred and distrust instilled by the rebel indoctrination.

Solomon: "Dia, what are you doing? Dia! Look at me, look at me. What are you doing? You are Dia Vandy, of the proud Mende tribe. You are a good boy who loves soccer and school. Your mother loves you so much. She waits by the fire making plantains, and red palm oil stew with your sister N'Yanda and the new baby. The cows wait for you. And Babu, the wild dog who minds no one but you. I know they made you do bad things, but you are not a bad boy. I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again."

Home is a place where you can catch a dream and ride it to the end of the line and back. Where you can watch shadow and light doing a tight little tango on a wooden floor or an intoxicated moon rising through an empty window. Home is a place to become yourself.  It's somewhere you can close a door and open your heart. Theo Pelletier

 

And what I've learned, in my own life at least, is that in every instance this new weight becomes the definition for our identity. It tells us who we are. And it requires that we focus on the periphery issues, on whatever is needed to impress, or manipulate, or achieve, or use, or hurt, or perform. And we are disconnected from our self.

 

We are broken people. We know that to be true. A lot of our brokenness has to do with relationships. If you ask me what it is that makes us suffer, it is always because someone couldn't hold onto us, or because someone hurt us. I know each of us can point to a brokenness in our relationships with our husband, with our wife, with our father, our mother, with our children, with our friends, with our lovers.
Wherever there is love, there is also pain.
Wherever there are people who really care for us, there is also the pain of sometimes not being cared for... enough.  

And there is the pain that comes from getting rid of those parts of us that feel inauthentic or false.   

 

But here's the deal:  We miss one another... I mean that we miss opportunities to connect, or opportunities to love and to touch, or opportunities to fall into the embrace of blessing. I guess that's the part that befuddles me.  So often when we do touch (or are blessed)--and it does happen very often--we don't even see it.  And we have forgotten that we too offer an embrace that becomes Grace and home to others.  

 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a movie about a boy who lost his father in the 9/11 twin towers tragedy adapted from a Jonathan Safran Foer novel.  In an article for New Yorker, Foer writes, "Is there anyone who hasn't played out the nightmare of having been trapped in one of the towers? Is there anyone who hasn't wondered if he would have had the superhuman composure to call and comfort a loved one? Hundreds of phone calls were placed from the towers between the time the first plane hit and the time that the north tower collapsed. When words should have been most impossible to find, there were words of grace, and dignity and consolation. Mostly words of love. If we really want to understand the truth of this event and what it can teach us about our own lives we should look to the men and women who saw that death was near who called home on their cell phones. And not to express anger or fear or bitterness but simply to say 'I love you, take care of the children, have a good life.' In a moment of great clarity at the end they called amidst smoke and confusion and panic to give us their benediction."

 

Love is the only force powerful enough to prevail against the confusion and darkness of our present age. Love is the only thing that can turn enemies into friends. War can't do it, violence can't do it. Jesus said only love can. Only love can bring together people who hate and distrust each other and whose distrust cripples relationships.

Whatever love is in your heart...  

Nurture it. Develop it. Grow it. Spread it. Spread it to your family but don't stop there. Spread it beyond. Even spread it to your enemies Jesus said. It is the only force that can heal our broken world.

 

I spent Saturday with a group from St. John's Episcopal in Gig Harbor, WA. They are looking at being intentional about their "sanctuary space." What does it mean to design a space for sanctuary or for reflection or for connection or for hospitality or for blessing? Outside our weather was anything but hospitable, although it didn't stop our Seahawks (yes, I needed to mention that). The day was good, and on the drive home it made me think about the spaces in my own life... spaces where I find the embrace of Grace, where I nurture love, and where I spill that love to help heal the world around me.