Big Fizzers
I was visiting family recently and came across my second copy of "Cracker Bag", a short film I have listed as one of my favourites on this blog. I like short films, because they attempt to say something, but they do it powerfully, often subtly, and succintly. Cracker Bag is actually directed and written by an old friend of mine from Tamworth, Glendyn Ivin, based on a real event of his childhood that deeply affected him (http://www.exitfilms.com/crackerbag). It's a story of disillusionment.
A little girl, Eddie, collects and sells old cans and saves all her money to buy firecrackers. She regularly plays with her cracker collection, sorting and arranging them in her bedroom, and counts down the days until firecracker night. Finally the day arrives. In great excitement Eddie heads down to the local oval with her family for the delight of setting off the treasured crackers. But after lighting the first cracker she accidentally knocks it over as she runs away. It shoots sideways into the entire bag of crackers on the ground nearby, setting them all off at once in a blur of colour and pops and whizzes. Eddies hopes of enjoying each of these specially chosen crackers one by one goes up in smoke. The night was a big fizzer.
The film ends with the Eddie driving home in the car, tears streaming down her face, watching other people's crackers out the window.
It might sound like a minor event, but it was a child's first experience of disappointed hopes. And it’s not such a rare thing. Obviously this film has resonated with many others because it won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes film festival in 2003 (seems kind of ironic doesn't it - make a film about one of your life's big disappointments and receive one of the world's greatest film accolades for it). In my tragic and romantic moments I like to say the line out of Anne of Green Gables "life is a perfect grave yard of buried hopes".
But what are we supposed to do with all these disappointments? What do people do with them? Resolve to steel themselves for the future, tell themselves not to get their hopes up, so they don't get so disappointed? (Marilla, I recall, makes some dry remark to Anne about her habit of flying and crashing through life, and an old friend and I used to tell each other to "level out", being both prone to those heights and depths.) Learn "how to shoot at someone who outdrew you" if it’s personal? Sigh and say it wasn’t meant to be?
What should a Christian do next time they have a grave to dig? The bible is loaded with references to God's control over all things and to the character building results of accepting, submitting, persevering, trusting (eg Rom 5:3-5). (And sometimes I even have to repent because I have been impatient or lacking in trust and brought the disappointment and heartache on myself.) I particularly like Lamentations 3:19-33 when I am in the middle of grave digging. Through all the small and big things I have to remember the constants and where to put my real hope.
I'm taking a leap in my spiel here, but I am currently making my way in spirts through "Religious Affections" by Jonathan Edwards. I found it on a second hand bookstore for 50 cents. Under the affection of "hope" he writes "Hope in God and in the promises of His Word is often spoken of in Scripture as a significant part of truth faith. Hope is mentioned as one of the three great things of which religion consists (1 Cor 13:13) ... Hope is viewed as so vital that the Apostle said "We are saved by hope" (Rom 8:24). Hope is that which remains sure, like the anchor of the soul (Heb 6:19). It is also described as a great fruit and benefit received by true saints because of Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet 1:3)".
So, I pray that "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you (and me) a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints ..." Eph 1: 17-18.