Yes, More Harvey

Do you ever read something and think, "Drats! I wish I would have written that first because it describes exactly how I felt, only I was unable to voice it so perfectly."?

For the four-hundredth time, that happened to me when I read a review about the movie, Harvey, the movie which is still up in my kitchen VCR, still being viewed while I cook and clean. 

Earlier this afternoon, I watched the portion of the movie described in the second paragraph below and then walked out to the sunroom with Tom where I then melted into my comfy chair. And I mean melted. You'd think I'd just had a massage--and maybe in a way, I had.

Here, read this:

Watching this movie is like warm milk at bedtime. It's like sipping hot chocolate just as the marshmallows are beginning to melt. It's sitting in a hot bath with the scent of your favorite bubbles filling the air. It is warm and sweet and, ultimately, extraordinarily satisfying. Watching James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd is looking back for a time and place that probably have never been, an era when goodness and decency and kindness win the day... Sometimes it's so nice to be wrapped in the warm blanket of a story told with heart and grace...

There is a moment in this film when Stewart, when Elwood, sits down to tell about when and how he first met Harvey. His master story telling is so natural, so mesmerizing, that I sat in awe of him. There was no acting that I could see, which is much the goal, I understand. He spoke with simplicity and sincerity, and I would have listened to anything he had to say for as long as he wanted to speak. The character of Elwood P. Dowd is so generous, so kind, so winning, that you truly begin to believe that any story could be true, that any love could be real, and that any six foot rabbit could find a home at his side. James Stewart resides at the center of this film, drawing all of the other characters to him, changing the richness of their lives and the openness of their minds. -- Natasha Theobald
*****


Here is the sentence I love most: "He spoke with simplicity and sincerity, and I would have listened to anything he had to say for as long as he wanted to speak."

That's what happens when a person is doing exactly what God has called them to do upon this Earth. Be it acting, writing, speaking, fire-fighting, parenting or being a patrolman, a doctor, a secretary, a clerk or a thousand other callings.

There is a Presence, a brilliance, a rightness--something as close to perfection as you'll find on this earth when a person is smack-dab in the center of what they were meant/called to do. Something emanates from them which calls to the hearts of even those who live and think in opposite poles. And when that person is a Christian with God at the very center of their heart and motives, well, the effects upon people's lives are even more immeasurable.

I love coming across those kinds of people. I first began noticing them probably 23 years ago, or so. They snatch my breath and remind me of important things forgotten. And maybe through time I forget the people, themselves. but the part of me that came away changed--it never forgets what it once was and now has become.

And what's more amazing--each of us has the same opportunity to shine in this brilliance and to change others' lives. No matter what our calling.


******