Bella
Begins Friday
It's not often that I receive the
kind of all-out blitz from friendly sources that
has attended Friday's opening in 29 markets
nationwide of the movie, Bella. We've
written about this extraordinary film in the
September and October issues of
NRL News
and last week in this space. ["Bella:
Bringing Respect for Life to the Silver Screen,"
www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Oct07/nv101907.html.]
Winner of
the 2006 Toronto International
Film Festival's "People's Choice Award," the
movie was, predictably, bludgeoned by one of the
Washington Post's movie critics. That
just made me walk all the faster to my computer
to order tickets online for a 7:55 performance.
(You can quickly find out where the film is
playing in your area by going to http://bellathemovie.com/theater)
On NRLC's web site you'll read
Liz Townsend's wonderful overview. Not only will
you be intrigued by the storyline, you will be
deeply impressed by the refusal of Metanoia
Films to allow discouragement to set in.
The film treats the pressures a
single woman with an unplanned pregnancy faces
in a realistic and caring way. That, rather than
the drivel of extraneous criticisms, is likely
the reason the Post reviewer whacked away
at Bella.
Earlier today, I read something
which made me think of Bella. It was part
of an interview author Donald Miller gave to
radio host Dick Staub.
Staub asked Miller why he titled
his book Blue Like Jazz. Miller replied,
"I
was coming out of the Bagdad Theater in Portland
one night, and I saw a man playing the
saxophone. He kept his eyes closed the whole
time. You could tell he just loved playing that
music.
"Before I saw him, I didn't like
jazz music because I thought it didn't resolve.
It didn't seem to go somewhere or have a
conclusion. But I watched this guy playing the
saxophone. He loved it so much that I found that
I liked jazz music.
It is not uncommon for people to see
somebody else love something and it helps them
love it themselves." (Emphasis mine.)
Movies such as Bella are a
dramatized version of what we collectively do,
day in and day out: help women in extremely
difficult circumstances choose life for their
unborn children. This is enormously important
work.
And when people see that you and
I lovingly assist, rather than judgmentally
condemn--that we love unborn children AND their
mothers--it is easier for them to extend those
same affections to women with crisis
pregnancies. Abortion is not an answer, it is a
response offered in lieu of genuine help.
A collateral benefit is that the
public may come to see that far from the
monsters the "mainstream media" paints
pro-lifers us out to be, we are caring,
genuinely loving human beings who refuse to
buckle under to a torrent of criticism.
Of course, we'd rather approval
rain down on our efforts; we're only human.
But what matters most is that we
are faithful to the greatest movement for social
justice of our time--the struggle to protect
pregnant women and their unborn children.
Give yourself a break and go see
Bella this weekend.
