You enjoy a couple of beers, a few laughs, friends, smiles, handshakes and hugs; It’s a joyful Saturday night. And after the bar you have dinner and then go see a movie.
As the film progresses you are pulled from this world into a wonderful land of fantasy. You are awed by panoramic splashes of colorful landscape scenes. The show is made up of action, suspense, music and drama. It’s a simple enough straight-forward plot, with a few unexpected twists and turns thrown in here and there. But finally, all the bits and pieces of previous mini scenes begin to merge into one. The romance has developed, blossomed and reached the heights of its glory.
At the movie’s dramatic end it all fits together and makes sense. Maybe that’s why they call it a picture. There is a happy, satisfactory feeling of completion as the credits roll and the final tune slowly lingers on.
The curtain drops. The lights come up. The show is over. You head outside to the real solid world of the here and now.
Well life, it seems to me, is made up of similar bits and pieces, (mini scenes), and there are millions of them; pieces of a puzzle almost impossible to reconstruct, it would appear. But sometimes two or three pieces come together and mesh, and for a while there is gladness in your heart. Most other times they are scattered randomly in helter skelter everywhere. And it’s not just in space but in time also.
History books, in a way, are like the credits rolling at the movie’s end. In the place of names of producer, director and cast, you have presidents, generals, enemies, business tycoons, national heroes and sex symbols. All the assorted historical pieces are combined, even if they don’t fit or belong together quite so well.
All the scenes of human drama, trials, tribulations, tragedy and pain of our past are bound into a who, what, when, and where form. Having compiled it in a more orderly, cohesive narrative, the author of the history book appears to make sense of it all.
Recorded and sealed in a hard bound book, it is placed on the shelf.
Lives, obituaries, memorials and biographies are other similarities to the movie’s ending and credits rolling. Facts, dates, major events and accomplishments are recorded. Positive intentions, noble characteristics and benefits rendered to family, community and mankind are highlighted and acknowledged.
The goodness of the man or woman and their untimely loss to all is respectfully mourned. A lifetime is recorded, sealed and all wrapped up.
I myself sometimes feel like a hero character in a musical comedy. However, I’ve somehow been miscast, misplaced, and jumbled up in an assortment of altogether different movies.
My childhood experience in Ireland was like a mixture of Dickens, a Greek tragedy and the joyful Huckleberry Finn adventures of a boy growing up in a green enchanted land of song, fantasy and folklore.
The next scene in this movie opens with our hero as a teenager entering the heartless New York City in the dead of winter.
Then comes a scene of military service in the South in the sixties. That’s a bitter and harsh view of coming to grips with force and violence and man’s inhumanity to others labeled “enemy”.
There are more scenes of summer days, travels, beaches and romance in California. This is followed by similar scenes but set now set on the Hawaiian Islands. Then later scenes are of a life of retirement in small rural towns on the high desert of Nevada.
Through it all I have endeavored to gather and combine pieces that fit so as to outline a complete picture. I have had fleeting momentary success in doing so.
It’s a quest, I imagine, that we are each embarked on. To see and understand the big picture; that would be like finding your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But I think there really is a pot of gold. It’s there and it’s yours to find. And you can.
And as producer, director and star of your own movie you can also help write your own rolling credits.
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