Andy’s North Pointe Prayer Bulletin.

Sam O’Neal, referencing CNN and avatar forums, shared this perspective on the movie Avatar.  The movie, Avatar, takes place in a far away planet called Pandora, which is inhabited by a race of 7-feet-tall, peace-loving natives known as the Na’vi.   What is surprising is the way that Cameron’s fictional world impacted the perception of our own world for many of the film’s viewers. Within a week of Avatar’s debut, websites dedicated to the movie were filled with comments from people lamenting the fact that Avatar’s people and places could not be reached in any real way. In fact, an entire thread on a popular forum website was called “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible.”  “When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed gray,” wrote one fan. “It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning.” Another wrote something similar: “The day after I saw Avatar, I was completely depressed. I looked at my hands and thought, What I wouldn’t give …. Going and seeing [it] again and again makes me feel good. I love Pandora, not just a spur of the moment feeling; I legitimately love all of Pandora and ‘waking up’ afterwards is extremely hard to do.”

Responding to several fans’ plan to establish a Na’vi way of living on Earth, a forum moderator named Elequin said the following: “That’s the problem, even if you wanted to strive to be more like the Na’vi, you would be eaten alive in this world. It really hurts thinking that, you know? It really would take a complete, new fresh start somewhere un-corrupted.”  “I know!” wrote another fan in response to Elequin. “But there’s no chance of moving somewhere else—to a ‘fresh place.’ Shall we just live with the fact that we can’t begin [again]? Do we really have to deal with that?”  Thank God that the answer is no. We don’t have to deal with that, we all have the opportunity for a fresh start, and we can find a home that is un-corrupted. Not on Pandora, of course, but through the Kingdom of God.  In Mark 1:15, Jesus said “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.”    

+ Praise God that Jesus offers us the chance to begin life anew.

+ Praise God that we can look forward to a world of no more tears and suffering (Rev. 21:4)

+ Pray that God would give us opportunities to share a fresh experience with God with people around us. 

Thanks for praying with me,

Andy

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 and is filed under Archives.