(no subject)
Family
Joss Whedon once said that the two things that matter the most to him (on the subject of storytelling) are emotional resonance and rocket launchers. I’ve quoted this a few times since reading it in an interview with him, and it’s become my own adopted storytelling philosophy in a lot of ways. I like emotional resonance and I like action, especially when action underpins said emotional resonance.
But as my mind wandered in Chapel today, it hit me that it’s really deeper than that. The reason I identify with Whedon’s work, and the thing I am continually drawn to as a writer is the subject of family. Not genetic family, though that is certainly an important type of family - but what I call “chosen” family; when a small group of people love one another so deeply that they come together in loyalty to one another as a family. Not because their circumstances of birth placed them in a certain house, but because they love one another, understand one another, and believe in one another. While I do believe that this kind of family is akin to the way the church should function internally, I think I am so drawn to the subject because I long for it deeply.
“But that’s weird,” you might say. But I point you to The 12 disciples. Christ’s inner circle. His chosen family. Not only did Christ choose them (Come and follow me), but they by and large stuck it out and became devoted to him. How incredible this is to me, that God Incarnate would seek out a close group of companions. Yes, there was a larger purpose for them later in the founding of the church, but there was clearly a friendship and a love between the 12 and their Jesus. Before this seems like I’m advocating the idea of men only having close male friends and vice versa, I’m inclined to think of the women who discovered the empty tomb. They didn’t get much screen time in the gospels overall, but they were clearly there and apparently just outside that inner circle of leadership, still, to me, within the confines of the chosen family.
This is the kind of family that so interests me. Charissa had the following quote on her Xanga:
To love a person is to learn the song
That is in their heart,
And to sing it to them
When they have forgotten.
~ Anonymous ~
That is the very core of my ambition as a writer. To tell the stories of chosen families in times of pain and renewal. Those are the times when a family truly shines, I think. When they don’t forget one another, and refuse to give up on the potential of what they individually could be in Christ. My stories invariably revolve around a broken leader and his chosen family, his loving and loyal friends who remember and believe in his redeemed potential and who refuse to give up on him while he tries to get back on his feet. That is why I love write. That is why I love to work in film. That is, in many ways, the gospel.
Joss Whedon once said that the two things that matter the most to him (on the subject of storytelling) are emotional resonance and rocket launchers. I’ve quoted this a few times since reading it in an interview with him, and it’s become my own adopted storytelling philosophy in a lot of ways. I like emotional resonance and I like action, especially when action underpins said emotional resonance.
But as my mind wandered in Chapel today, it hit me that it’s really deeper than that. The reason I identify with Whedon’s work, and the thing I am continually drawn to as a writer is the subject of family. Not genetic family, though that is certainly an important type of family - but what I call “chosen” family; when a small group of people love one another so deeply that they come together in loyalty to one another as a family. Not because their circumstances of birth placed them in a certain house, but because they love one another, understand one another, and believe in one another. While I do believe that this kind of family is akin to the way the church should function internally, I think I am so drawn to the subject because I long for it deeply.
“But that’s weird,” you might say. But I point you to The 12 disciples. Christ’s inner circle. His chosen family. Not only did Christ choose them (Come and follow me), but they by and large stuck it out and became devoted to him. How incredible this is to me, that God Incarnate would seek out a close group of companions. Yes, there was a larger purpose for them later in the founding of the church, but there was clearly a friendship and a love between the 12 and their Jesus. Before this seems like I’m advocating the idea of men only having close male friends and vice versa, I’m inclined to think of the women who discovered the empty tomb. They didn’t get much screen time in the gospels overall, but they were clearly there and apparently just outside that inner circle of leadership, still, to me, within the confines of the chosen family.
This is the kind of family that so interests me. Charissa had the following quote on her Xanga:
To love a person is to learn the song
That is in their heart,
And to sing it to them
When they have forgotten.
~ Anonymous ~
That is the very core of my ambition as a writer. To tell the stories of chosen families in times of pain and renewal. Those are the times when a family truly shines, I think. When they don’t forget one another, and refuse to give up on the potential of what they individually could be in Christ. My stories invariably revolve around a broken leader and his chosen family, his loving and loyal friends who remember and believe in his redeemed potential and who refuse to give up on him while he tries to get back on his feet. That is why I love write. That is why I love to work in film. That is, in many ways, the gospel.