Big Fish also is meant to console. As Will faces the end of his father’s life, he (and we) must consider what matters. Is life only what can be seen or measured? Can love truly transcend our limitations? Can our modest life story connect to a larger story or tradition? Tim Burton stops short of making any grand, overarching claims. In the end, Big Fish affirms the power of storytelling to animate our lives. It celebrates the importance of a dying art. We need fantasy to narrate and navigate our world, to face death with dignity.

From the Profane to the Profound

My search for God began through the profane, unlikely means of Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Thousands of cinephiles speak in rapturous terms about dark, twisted movies as miraculous, enlightening and inspiring. So can’t we reconcile the general revelation of God experienced via movies with the special revelation of Christ revealed in Scripture? Doesn’t the same Spirit animate both theological categories?

Comparatively hidden verses unearthed by theologian Jurgen Moltmann energize me. His natural theology begins in the Old Testament with the Spirit of Creation. The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters in Genesis 1:2, present and working in the original creative act.

Creative people longing for inspiration are inherently (but perhaps unknowingly) on a search for God. Inspiration is the wind of God which entrances, enthralls and enraptures us. When we get “in the artistic groove” we rarely want to leave because the presence of God (whether acknowledged or not) is such a lifegiving, life-sustaining creative force. We can’t manufacture it. We can’t manipulate it. God’s wind blows mysteriously, but once we’ve experienced it, we desperately want more.

Openness to God and the movement of the Spirit may threaten those who like their theology delivered in a predictable manner to a pew on a Sunday morning. Yet, Christ will accomplish His purposes with or without us. If God wants to use Martin Scorsese and Raging Bull to touch a moviegoer in Charlotte, N.C., then who am I to argue? The ways of God always have been mysterious, outside the box, progressive in their revelation. Try as we might to grasp the Spirit, He always seems to slip through our fingers. I am comfortable playing catch-up, looking to the stars and the movies for signs of life.