Dustin's Alpha and Omega

Some friends went out last night with my husband and me to see the latest Dustin Hoffman film entitled Last Chance Harvey. The plot centers around a man at the end of his career (he is about to be fired) and a lonely middle-aged woman who has never found love. Since it is a date movie, all turns out well. Throughout the movie I kept thinking about the circle of life as represented by Hoffman's career choices for the past forty years.

Hoffman first came to the world's attention most likely for his role as Benjamin in the late 1960's. The film was, of course, The Graduate. We all remember the famous scene around the pool when Benjamin is advised to go into plastics for his career. We remember his subsequent angst throughout the movie where he is doing is best to avoid the conformity of the previous generation.

In Last Chance Harvey, the main character, Harvey Shine, struggles with the lost relationship between his daughter and him, his feeling useless and irrelevant in the family after a divorce, his loneliness, his lack of creativity in the job he currently has (writing music for commercials), and his seemingly lost dream to become a jazz pianist.

Hoffman's roles in these movies seem to also reflect the same angst that my generation felt (and feels) so perfectly. My husband and I were in our Alpha 20's when The Graduate was released and students at the University of Mississippi. All the world seemed to lie before us, and we thought the degrees we would earn would serve as a panacea for all of life's problems. We were idealistic about our upcoming careers in public administration and education and believed we could truly make a difference.

Now in the Omega of our lives, we like the Hoffman character in Last Chance Harvey realize life can be full of disappointment. We have lived--as many fellow Americans--with financial struggles, career downsizing in recession, and the ups and downs of our children's lives. We have also lived with many joys--fairly extensive travel opportunities, the free time to be as creative as we choose to be, the birth of three wonderful grandchildren, and unlimited time to enjoy the beauty of nature. All in all life has been good, and we thank Hoffman for showing us in his work how to live.

Gun Toting Deacons

Say it ain't so, Arkansas! The state legislature has evidently decided to consider a Concealed-Carry law that would allow church members to take their guns to church. While there have been a small number of church shootings in the news in recent years, it seems wrong to me to allow concealed weapons in church. Why not go with a general warning that no guns are allowed on the premise? But--you might argue--people who have an intent to wound or kill others would not be dissuaded by a simple sign.

As Christians have been doing for a number of years, we need to ask ourselves once more, "What would Jesus do?" Jesus' life was one of pacifism, never violence. He is the one, you remember, who taught us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, and most importantly, to "resist not evil." He is the one who did not choose to call ten thousands angels to His side before He was crucified in order to rescue Him from His fate. He did not ask His disciples to pick up swords, as Peter tried to do, to protect Him.

Fighting violence with violence is never a solution to a problem in my opinion. I do confess, however, that I have not always been consistent with this lofty view and have loaded our household gun whenever I have feared violence in the past. My stepfather bought the gun for me, a German Luger, when I was a young woman living in downtown Wichita a few years before the BTK killer would murder numerous people there.

That confession made, I still have great difficulty seeing how gun toting deacons will make me feel any safer as I attend my church in downtown Little Rock. The whole idea seems to be an oxymoron.