It’s not often that I get a chance to be immersed in an abundance of creative expressions of faith meant to transform hearts and lives, but that’s exactly what will happen tomorrow at the Diocese of Trenton’s Re:Image Film Festival at the Algonquin Arts Theatre in Manasquan. Last year’s festival was a real testimony to the power of art and media to inspire a response in faith, so I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.
One of the music video winners from last year was Laurie Collins, whose video “Choose Life” won the Mission Excellence Award. The music and images were powerful reminders of the gift of choice, not only when it comes to the unborn child but in the difficult and painful experiences of life.
We read those same words, choose life, in the Book of Deuteronomy when Moses, who led a rebellious and complaining people through the desert for 40 years, reminds them of God’s commandment, saying, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live …” (30:19).
Moses makes it clear that life is comprised of both the blessing and the curse, “life and prosperity, death and doom.” We have the opportunity to choose between them. This is not to say our lives will be free of suffering or hardship, or that we will not experience death in its many forms, but that in choosing to remain aware of the blessing instead of losing ourselves in the curse, we are choosing God over the many gods that entice us. Our choices begin when we open our eyes in the morning, and affect, says Moses, not only us but our families as well.
Today, Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 19, often ending with choose life, have become popular in motivational circles, but he has more to say about what choosing life really means:
“I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).
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