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Connections&
July 7, 2002--14th Sunday of the Year
& although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart."
Matthew 11:25-30
About a Boy
Sometimes we can learn life's most important lessons from the least likely of teachers.
In the wonderful film About a Boy, Will Freeman is a 38-year-old bachelor who has never had a job, been living handsomely off royalties from an awful Christmas song written by his late father, and has never had a relationship that has lasted longer than two months. And Will likes his life that way. "I was the star of the Will Show," he says proudly. "It was not an ensemble drama."
While posing as a single dad in order to date lonely single mothers, Will inadvertently meets Marcus, a 12-year-old who is wiser and more mature than his years. Marcus is a social misfit who is struggling to grow up amid the torments of school, where he is easy prey for bullies, and home, where his mother Fiona, an reconstructed hippie, is paralyzed by depression. Marcus latches onto Will as a potential mate for his mother. The romance doesn't take, but the self-absorbed cad reluctantly befriends the sensitive youngster.
Will teaches Marcus how to be "cool" at school, buying him the "right" sneakers and introducing him to the "right" music. Just as Marcus' new "coolness" at school is starting to take, Marcus signs up for a school rock show. He plans to sing the gooey pop song "Killing Me Softly" because it's his sad mother's favorite song. Will, of course, is horrified that Marcus would willingly commit social suicide. Without giving away too much of the movie, Will (sort of) comes to the rescue, but he is deeply moved--and transformed--by Marcus' willingness to be forever ridiculed at school if singing the terribly "uncool" song will bring some joy to his emotionally needy mother.
Will has worked hard, he says, to be "invisible" in his life and has succeeded. But Will realizes, to his great sadness, that there is no one in his own life he loves enough to do what Marcus is willing to do for his mom.
"The problem with charity," Will laments, "is that you have to mean things and help people. And I didn't mean anything to anybody."
CONNECTION: Marcus, in his humility and determination to bring some measure of happiness to his pathetical family, teaches Will the importance of those things in order to live a life that "means" something. When Christ calls his disciples to embrace the simple faith of "little ones," he is not saying that our approach to faith should be "dumbed down" to the level of children. Christ is calling us, instead, to embrace a faith that is centered in the love and compassion of God--love that is not compromised by self-interest and rationalization, compassion that is not measured but offered totally and unreservedly, completely and without limit or condition. May the "wise and learned" Wills among us embrace the spirit of generosity and selflessness of "little ones" like Marcus. u
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