Hey y’all – it’s Kristen here and today I’m sharing my top 5 realigning movies. Stories are spiritual to me and always have been. They’re how I navigate the world, and how I figure out who I am and who I want to be. So this selection is movies that bring me into the bigger story of humanity – who we are and who we want to be and how we get there.
Encanto
Mirabel’s magic is community – and the end where the village comes to help destroys me every time. Her siblings can make beauty and strength, her cousin can talk to animals, her mother can heal people, her uncle can see the future, her aunt can control weather – these are all useful and beautiful gifts, but none of them work in harmony with each other the way they should without Mirabel’s. Casita knows it, and we learn it along with Mirabel.
The thing that really gets me with this – and has me listening to the soundtrack over and over – is the line “stars don’t shine, they burn, and constellations shift, and I think it’s time you learned you are more than just your gifts.” We can talk about all the big moments all we want, but we are not just stars shining brightly alone in a sea of black. Humans aren’t fixed entities that only connect to people in one way, either. We are more than just one thing, because humanity is always more than just one story, and we need to embrace the evolution of both ourselves and each other.
Silence
Two of the most influential books that I read in seminary are by Shūsaku Endō – Deep River and Silence. So when I heard that Silence was becoming a movie, I had to see it. The story is about faith vs. institution – an incredibly important dichotomy and tension for me. Characters have a choice to find themselves in a different spirituality, or to cling to the structure they know and the tension between both the group and within the men themselves is a good reminder that we are the only ones who carry what we believe and how we let that guide us.
Raya and the Last Dragon
Yeah, another Disney, but this one is holy to me in a different way. In this movie, the titular last dragon is named Sisu and she is a wild creature who can’t be contained unless she wants to be. She drives Raya on the journey to find Sisu’s siblings and honor Raya’s father in ways Raya would not have been able to accomplish on her own. When I close my eyes and think about an element of my faith – the Holy Spirit of the Trinity – I picture it now as Raya. Always with a bigger agenda, but always centering me in my story, too. Wild and funny and creative and powerful, Sisu is so exceptionally important to me.
The Shawshank Redemption
It’s Shawshank. I’m not sure it’s legal for me to have a list of movies that make me think about the large role of stories and my place in them and not have Shawshank. If you haven’t seen it, please do. It wrestles with exactly what freedom is – freedom from, freedom to, freedom within. The ending is a classic, but the way Morgan Freeman’s character talks about hope is something that burrowed under my skin and stayed there.
Field of Dreams
As a baseball movie, it’s pretty crap. As a fully fledged narrative, also not great. But what it does really well is create the feeling of childlike wonder and connection and nostalgia and family and baseball. Baseball is something that I’ve built a lot of my emotional life around – my perception of failure, my understanding of teamwork, my knowledge on the importance of vibes, magic, and hope. For all its flaws, it’s special and spiritual to me, and had to be on this list.
That’s the list of my top 5 realigning movies. Refresh your memory on our 4 R’s of Burnout Mitigation HERE.
Do you have any movies that remind you of both the vastness of humanity and our role in it? I’d love to hear them! Let me know in the comments or by emailing info@abbey-research.com. Maybe something that speaks to you needs to be on my radar.
