There has to be a reason that the guy I loved moved (for his job) and left me after he said we'd get married, or a reason that I left a career to go to another and have fallen back into the original one. Or a reason for my childhood home getting demolished, my parents lived there for 35 years! Or for my apartment getting robbed...or...or...or...
Maybe I'm overly romantic about the grand scheme of it all but there has to be a reason for this stuff--all this trial, right?!
This weekend was the opening weekend of Blue Like Jazz the movie. I've had a blast watching the online updates, reading reviews, listening to stories, watching the Twitter feed and Donald Miller and Marshall Allman fake fight.
Mostly, my heart is encouraged beyond words. Armed with the knowledge, since around September 2010, that a Kickstarter campaign was taking shape--becoming a Kickstarter Backer on October 11, 2010 and getting updates since that time was remarkable. I even saw the bridge scene getting filmed while I was in Portland last winter!
I was surprised by the sudden info, way back when, that the movie might not happen and delighted when I found out about the campaign. No rain, no rainbows, right? I think I jumped in the pool after the first email, it isn't normal for me to do that kind of thing.
But the campaign is the crux of it. It is a beautifully orchestrated God-thing. It is a redemptive story in two-fold, or three-fold, possibly even four-fold. Don's book--the essays about faith, life and embracing God in spite of everything. The story of the movie going from the cutting floor to something like 5000 people rejecting that and saying "we want this to happen." And finally the story of Don in the movie: being the voice for the silent Christians, the ones who can't find the words but have wanted to say the very thing he said so simply, "I'm sorry." And now as it sits with folks who saw it and we get to watch that unfold, too.
I see something much bigger than just a movie in this. I'm excited that I've finally witnessed how God's hand can work through a trial to render an amazing collaboration. It gives my heart hope for amazing collaborations between Him and me; it gives me hope that collaborations have already begun. That's what I want all the Kickstarter Backers to see, too.
Thank you to Donald Miller, Steven Taylor and the team who had enough faith to ride this out. You make it look effortless--and I'm pretty sure it is anything but effortless.
