Like sands through the hourglass ... so are the Days of Our Lives

PHASE ONE

Joey: Look, there's nothing I can do for him right now, he's still in his sweat pants, that's still Phase One. Y'know? I'll be back for Phase Two, I would never miss Phase Two.
Monica: What's Phase Two?
Joey: Gettin' drunk and going to a strip club.

Without delving into painful details let it just suffice to say that Hannah was thrust into Phase One about a week ago. Seeking to provide distraction, the rest of us were struck by the realization that it is quite difficult to find a movie that doesn't contain some sort of love story. They do exist but they are few and far between. For our own convenience we made a list of "safe" movies in the house:

• Hunt for Red October
• Ghostbusters*
• Cowboy Bebop
• Men in Black*
• School of Rock
• Aliens
• Indiana Jones (Rose was quite annoyed that Hannah and Boyfriend had just watched the first movie a couple of days before the break-up ... "now we can't even watch The Last Crusade," she lamented.)
  
• Galaxy Quest*
• Toy Story*
• Monsters Inc.*
• Apollo 13
• The Incredibles
• Iron Giant
* The token romance was deemed comic enough not to count.

I know there are others but the staggering amount of stories with love at the center really surprised me (yes, I'm slow). Even when the romance is so slight it is hardly worth noting (just take a gander at all those asterisks in the list) it is still included. Talk about evidence that we are programmed to find the ultimate love (and yes for me it always comes back to God ... so sue me).

PHASE TWO

God gives us a heart, a human heart like Christ's. I don't have one heart for loving God and another for loving people. I love Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit and Our Lady with the same heart with which I love my parents and my friends. I shall never tire of repeating this. We must be very human, for otherwise we cannot be divine.

Human love, the love we experience on earth when it is really genuine, helps us to savor divine love. That is how we grasp the love by which we rejoice in God and which we will share in heaven when the Lord is "everything to everyone." If we begin to understand God's love, we will feel impelled to become increasingly more compassionate, more generous, more dedicated.

We must give what we receive, we must teach what we learn. Very simply, without any kind of conceit, we must help others to share in the knowledge of God's love.

St. Josemaria Escriva

I saw this vividly displayed in Hannah's friends' generous behavior. These kids have got heart y'all! They rallied round to distract her, support her, and keep her too busy to dwell on her problems too often. Just when she'd be sinking very low, one of them would be on the phone or at the door with another plan of action ... a movie, a cd made just for her, swing dancing lessons, going shopping, whatever it took. I was so grateful that she had such good friends who obviously cared so much. (Because, let's face it, nothing her family could do was going to have the same effect.)

SECOND VERSE SAME AS THE FIRST...
We're back where we started before Phase I thanks to Boyfriend seeing what a fool he'd been and contritely coming back. Smart boy that he is he seems rather afraid of us right now but he needn't worry. We knew he wasn't malicious, just clueless.

However, the mark has been left on our family because we're still asking that question as we watch movies, "Is it safe?"

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity