I actually think the third Rev (BBC - showed on Thursdays and will Monday) is better than the second, and that was very observant. It covered evil, but got in even a comparison of ghosts and Holy Ghost, the latter identified (modally - oops, a heresy) as the energy of God. The paranormal was being dismissed: naturalistic interpretations were everywhere, starting with the heat, the radiator noise and more. Dreams don't have a conflict of explanation, but are our narrative clearing houses, so involve the evil and the naughty pleasures too. All the time the 'real' evil was being demonstrated by the dislocated child who hated and didn't co-operate, getting the vicar's wife to consider she didn't want a child (but does). Yet, despite all the naturalism, the hear-all Archdeacon (another location of evil) came to tell Adam the vicar to leave it to the "experts", as if there are any experts beyond the pastoral role that was given to the new and displaced resident of the old people's home. Then the fear factor was finished so well with the disappearance of the child left clumsily in the resident's hands, the desperate search that can cause anyone to think oh no and why me and what powers are running things... And of course the thank you with the girl sat in the park waiting is just as naturalistic and normal as any other event. The girl is nicer on leaving, and Adam accepts the gift of the protecting toy - indeed put at his bedroom door after so many bad dreams. A bit of superstition, then, does no one any harm.
It just about had everything in it, this one, and remains so closely observed of the inner Anglican world of clergy and wish to be clergy, of faithfulness and doubt, muddling through, and those strange supernatural beliefs that are involved.
Note: all the images are from the BBC online broadcast and are here as illustrative.
3 comments:
But will have had many of us shouting at the TV, no doubt, over the mis-understanding of the Holy Spirit. The Bible does much to explain God's use of our ability to dream and why we do.
The program explored that careful discernment that needs to happen when stuff kicks off in the spiritual realm: what to ignore and what to take very seriously indeed. But then with Western Enlightened rationalism, much of this realm is ignored over here. Christians, on the whole, understand the battle we are in, but on the other hand, many do not and that is the case as much with the clergy too, I imagine, not this clergy person though...
After Annunciation
Madeleine L’Engle
This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.
well, im with the program these days. all this talk of the supernatural realm is hogwash and to say it is in the bible to try and make it rational supposes that one believes the bible to be some kind infallible writing which I dont.
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