On Tuesday night, I went to watch Pixar’s latest animated movie “Inside Out”. It did not disappoint. It was a wonderful film – full of humour and insight in equal measure. I highly recommend it.
In the movie, the characters of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear are working hard in the protagonist’s “headquarters”. Busy at the switchboard, they control Riley’s reactions to events in her life depending on their various singular emotional perspectives. The filmaker’s sophistication in presenting all the different aspects of Miley’s brain – her memories, her dreams, her subconscious – was recognizable and entertaining.
As I have reflected on the movie over the past few days, I have been wondering about what it has to say about the spiritual idea of “wholeness”. The emotional characters are fragmented and one dimensional. While the emotions eventually realize that they must respect and include each other’s perspectives so that Riley can live a full life; there is not a unifying spirit that includes, or transcends, the individual emotions.
My Christian spiritual tradition, among others, believes that we are much more than our ego, our personality, our emotions and reactions. We are gifted with a piece of God that lives within us – that allows us to be more than the physiological and psychological “nuts and bolts”.
We are connected to one another, to the world, to God and to ourselves in ways that are beyond our understanding. The centre of this connection is Love.
Wendell Berry says it in this way…
“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.” ― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
I could not agree more.
Written by: Rosa Flinton-Brown