Movie Dates and Prayer Time
“I have a theory that movies operate on the level of dreams, where you dream yourself.”—Meryl Streep.
My granddaughter, Zoe, and I have been having a date for many years on Friday afternoons to watch old movies. I wish we could swim together, stroll in the woods, or walk some of Little Rock’s beautiful trails, but my physical disability makes that too difficult. However, we can curl up in the king-size bed in our master bedroom, with all the lights out, each covered by our favorite blankets, while we eat popcorn and watch movies. We have seen almost every musical on film. Sometimes we watch drama, and less often, comedy.
One week, Zoe saw Some Like It Hot for the first time. Recently, we watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. I forgot to mention that Zoe spent part of her junior year in Denmark and worked in New Orleans over the summer. Now that she’s graduated from Tulane and is working at the Tulane library, we have fewer movie dates. We usually talk a little about the film afterward. Sometimes there’s much to discuss; at other times, there’s very little. One of my favorite films to see with her was Babette’s Feast, a film about food and life.
Zoe is a Greek word for life. This photograph shows Zoe on her first trip to Greece, one summer with friends. Life is what our grandchildren teach us about: life in the present moment.
In the past, I have shared paintings from my favorite art museums with Zoe, and we have rarely read poetry together. But mainly, there is so much grandparents want to share with their precious grandchildren.
But it is mostly about the pleasure of being in our grandchildren’s presence. They connect us with our souls. I have learned to drop everything and be with her whenever she texts about a possible movie date.
For me, this movie date has become an icon of what prayer time may be about. I think there is a built-in homing device through which God and we yearn for each other’s presence. Prayer is sometimes words, but mostly presence. I believe God longs to share God’s experience and amazing world with us, but God longs even more for our presence, just as there is a conscious and perhaps even a stronger unconscious longing in us to be in God’s presence.
Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/