***Spoiler Alert***
If you’ve never seen any of the Spider Man movies or read the comic books, I give away a central plot element of how Peter Parker matures into the web-slinging crime fighter. Let the reader beware…
Jack and I went to see The Amazing Spider Man for a boys night out. I know I might face some criticism since he’s just 5 and it was a PG-13 movie but I’m confident in my judgment of movie content and my ability to help Jack through the scarier parts. I actually welcome this opportunity as good preparation to help him through the scarier parts of life itself.
The movie provided a great opportunity to explore some life lessons and help Jack understand how actions or inaction has consequences. The story of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben was explored in the original Spider Man motion picture with Tobey Maguire as Peter and Cliff Robertson playing his Uncle Ben. In this reboot, The Social Network’s Andrew Garfield is Peter and Martin Sheen is expertly cast as everyman uncle.
Better Than The Original
Uncle Ben meets an untimely fate in each version, as a result of Peter’s failure to step forward and use his powers to help someone in need. Something about this latest version’s handling of it touched me far deeper than the original, though. Maybe I’m more mature, perhaps my deepening faith in God gives it new meaning, or it could be the powerful performances of Andrew Garfield and Martin Sheen. In reality, I think it’s all three.
Our decisions have so much power and much of the time we don’t realize how impactful they are. Peter accepts the chocolate milk from the thief and turns a blind eye as he robs the cash register and escapes. Bitter because of the clerk’s refusal to let him take two pennies from the dish, he declines to assist him in pursuing the robber. Uncle Ben, seeing the thief coming his way knows he must act. Â He does and pays the ultimate price when a struggle ensues over the robber’s gun.
Jack was trying to make sense of what he just saw and I almost forgot my role as a father. Fighting back my own tears, I grabbed onto him and comforted him. As the movie moved forward with Peter turning into a vigilante looking for the man who killed his uncle, Jack asked me why Peter was fighting all those men. I almost couldn’t get the words out. I told him, “Because he blames himself for Uncle Ben dying.”
Forgiveness is Power
There it was, the essence of “turning the other cheek”. The power of the Lord’s call to forgive those who trespass against us. Some hold bitterness inside and refuse to forgive wrongs that occurred long ago, which only serves to harden their hearts and decay them from the inside out. Still some, in one brief moment of anger, seal the fate of another in ways they could never have imagined. Either way the lesson is clear – when we forgive we free ourselves, we save ourselves, and we are reborn…again.
In my life, the greatest living example of forgiveness is my Jack. He doesn’t hold grudges and each day is brand new. He didn’t need The Amazing Spider Man to teach him a lesson in what happens when he refuse to forgive, but his Daddy did. Thank you o’ Lord for these experiences that help me grow in my faith in day.
Amen…
